Standard Hotel New York
Kantaki Washington, Cydney Madlock and J. Lyn Thomas told Alternet that they had just come down from the bar on the top floor of The Standard on Aug. 28, when several men in the lobby approached them and offered to buy them drinks.
When they sat down at a hotel restaurant a man approached Washington and introduced himself. She says moments later a security guard whispered something to the man and ushered him away.
The security guard later came to the table and said, "Come on, ladies. You can buy a drink but you can't be soliciting," Washington recalled in an interview with Alternet.
"We were like, 'Soliciting?' He said, 'Don't act stupid with me, ladies. You know what you're doing. Stop soliciting in here.' We were like, 'Soliciting what?'" she said.
"I'm a lawyer," Washington told the security guard, "and these women are educators. What the hell would I be in here soliciting prostitution?"
She says the man responded, "I don't know but that's what you're doing."
Washington said they were the only black females in the vicinity and she believes she and her friends were racially profiled.
Comment: There have been numerous disturbing incidents recently where black women and even children have been accosted and accused of prostitution for doing nothing more than appearing in public: