20,000 signatures reached
To: Arlo Hotels, Quadrum Global
Demand that Arlo Hotels/Quadrum Global take responsibility for enabling a racial attack on my child!
Take responsibility for enabling a racial attack on my child and retrain their entire staff in implicit bias.
Why is this important?
On the morning after Christmas, a woman chased and tackled my 14-year old son in the lobby of Arlo SoHo, an upscale New York City hotel owned by Quadrum Global as hotel security and the hotel manager stood by and watched. My family had been staying at the hotel for over a week while the woman who attacked my son, Miya Ponsetto, was not even a guest at the hotel.
As we walked from the hotel elevator, heading to breakfast, Ponsetto saw my Black son and immediately accused him of stealing her phone, demanding that he give his phone to her. Hotel authorities were already searching their video footage to find her “lost” cell phone, but Ponsetto still aggressively confronted and falsely accused my child. My son told Ponsetto that the iPhone in his hands was his, but instead of listening to my child, the Arlo hotel manager chose to advocate for Ponsetto and demanded that my son hand over his phone. I intervened, repeatedly telling the manager and Ponsetto that my son had nothing to do with her phone. The manager then dismissed me by saying that he was the manager of the hotel, as if that validated the disrespect and accusation. When my son and I calmly walked away to avoid the confrontation, Ponsetto began chasing him yelling “He’s not leaving”, “I’m not letting him walk away with my phone” while hotel security stood by and allowed her to attack him.
My son and I were robbed of civil respect. My word was given no value.
A few minutes after the attack, Ponsetto’s phone was returned to the hotel by an Uber driver. That’s right. After all that, my son was racially profiled and falsely accused by a person who left her phone in an Uber. Ponsetto was allowed to leave the hotel after attacking my son. There were no apologies from her or the hotel until after the video I recorded of the incident went viral on social media.
As a company that prides itself for “creating a memorable, organic experience as the principal amenity,” Arlo hotels failed my family. In its own words, Quadrum Global created Arlo Hotels, with “superstars of the hospitality industry”, and “a team that reflects the caliber of experience we offer to guests and visitors'.' That’s not what my son and I experienced. From the hotel manager who empowered Ponsetto’s racist attack and dismissed me and my son, to the security guard who refused to protect my son from being attacked, our experience at Arlo SoHo was nothing short of a nightmare that could have easily escalated into a far worse outcome.
False accusations against and assumptions about Black people are frequently at the root of run-ins with the law and have been used to justify the killing of Black and brown people at the hands of both civilians and police. Miya Ponsetto and the manager of the hotel are complicit.
Individual acts of racism are given power by government agents like police and corporations like Quadrum Global that ratify and proliferate structural racism.
What happened that day should never have happened. But it did, and it happens too often. I want my son to grow up whole. I want him to live in a world without being attacked and wrongfully accused. While Ponsetto was recently arrested, the trauma inflicted on my son is more significant than any charge. My son will live with this trauma for life. Arlo Hotels and its parent company, Quadrum Global are responsible for enabling racial profiling, harassment and physical assault on a child, my child.
Sign the petition to demand that Arlo Hotels and its parent company Quadrum Global — led by CEO Oleg Pavlov and hospitality division president Foiz Ahmed — take full responsibility for enabling a racist attack on my child and retrain their entire staff in implicit bias.
As we walked from the hotel elevator, heading to breakfast, Ponsetto saw my Black son and immediately accused him of stealing her phone, demanding that he give his phone to her. Hotel authorities were already searching their video footage to find her “lost” cell phone, but Ponsetto still aggressively confronted and falsely accused my child. My son told Ponsetto that the iPhone in his hands was his, but instead of listening to my child, the Arlo hotel manager chose to advocate for Ponsetto and demanded that my son hand over his phone. I intervened, repeatedly telling the manager and Ponsetto that my son had nothing to do with her phone. The manager then dismissed me by saying that he was the manager of the hotel, as if that validated the disrespect and accusation. When my son and I calmly walked away to avoid the confrontation, Ponsetto began chasing him yelling “He’s not leaving”, “I’m not letting him walk away with my phone” while hotel security stood by and allowed her to attack him.
My son and I were robbed of civil respect. My word was given no value.
A few minutes after the attack, Ponsetto’s phone was returned to the hotel by an Uber driver. That’s right. After all that, my son was racially profiled and falsely accused by a person who left her phone in an Uber. Ponsetto was allowed to leave the hotel after attacking my son. There were no apologies from her or the hotel until after the video I recorded of the incident went viral on social media.
As a company that prides itself for “creating a memorable, organic experience as the principal amenity,” Arlo hotels failed my family. In its own words, Quadrum Global created Arlo Hotels, with “superstars of the hospitality industry”, and “a team that reflects the caliber of experience we offer to guests and visitors'.' That’s not what my son and I experienced. From the hotel manager who empowered Ponsetto’s racist attack and dismissed me and my son, to the security guard who refused to protect my son from being attacked, our experience at Arlo SoHo was nothing short of a nightmare that could have easily escalated into a far worse outcome.
False accusations against and assumptions about Black people are frequently at the root of run-ins with the law and have been used to justify the killing of Black and brown people at the hands of both civilians and police. Miya Ponsetto and the manager of the hotel are complicit.
Individual acts of racism are given power by government agents like police and corporations like Quadrum Global that ratify and proliferate structural racism.
What happened that day should never have happened. But it did, and it happens too often. I want my son to grow up whole. I want him to live in a world without being attacked and wrongfully accused. While Ponsetto was recently arrested, the trauma inflicted on my son is more significant than any charge. My son will live with this trauma for life. Arlo Hotels and its parent company, Quadrum Global are responsible for enabling racial profiling, harassment and physical assault on a child, my child.
Sign the petition to demand that Arlo Hotels and its parent company Quadrum Global — led by CEO Oleg Pavlov and hospitality division president Foiz Ahmed — take full responsibility for enabling a racist attack on my child and retrain their entire staff in implicit bias.