+
Sign up for
The Upworthiest
Our top stories of the day delivered straight to your inbox.
Inclusivity

10 Black women sat in first class on an airplane and it revealed a lot about race in America

10 Black women sat in first class on an airplane and it revealed a lot about race in America
via Angie Jones / Twitter and Matt Blaze / Flickr

This article originally appeared on 07.29.21


Software developer Angie Jones' recent girls trip revealed that America still has a long way to go when it comes to race.

To most, that's not surprising. But what's unique is how the specific experience Jones and her friends went through revealed the pervasive way systemic racism still runs through our culture.

Jones is the Senior Director of Developer Relations at Applitools, holds 26 patented inventions in the United States of America and Japan, and is an IBM Master Inventor.


On July 27, she tweeted about a flight she took with nine other Black women and they all sat in first class. "People literally could not process how it was possible," she wrote. "Staff tried to send us to regular lines. Passengers made snide remarks. One guy even yelled 'are they a higher class of people than I am?!'"



Jones and her friends were the targets of racism that ranged from the seemingly unconscious — people who assumed that Black people don't sit in first class — to the blatant — those who were seriously bothered that Black people were being treated as having a higher status.

It's interesting that she didn't mention anyone saying "good for you" for succeeding in a world that often holds people of color back. Instead, she was greeted with incredulity and jealous rage.

There are a lot of white people who can't stand the idea of a Black person being elevated above them. It's disturbing that in 2021 there are still some who will admit it publicly.

Jones' tweets inspired a lot of people to share their stories about the racism they've experienced while flying first class.



Jones' tweets also angered some people to the point that they denied her story. To which she responded, "To those saying I'm lying, you're a huge part of the problem," she wrote. "You tell yourself a notable person is lying (for what reason, I cannot figure out) before you believe there are actual racists in...America."





One Twitter user came up with the perfect retort to the person who asked, "Are they a higher class of people than I am?!"


From Your Site Articles
racism
Badge
CARE
CARE
Heroes

Women are struggling in war-torn Ukraine. Here’s how you can help.

Photo courtesy of CARE.org
True

You may be surprised to learn the following facts about the leading cause of death worldwide:

  1. It affects women far more than men
  2. It’s a completely preventable problem
  3. It’s hunger.
Keep ReadingShow less
care
Joy

Woman shares her pre-pandemic tattoo as worst case of 'bad timing' in the history of body art

Unbelievable. 😂

via wakaflockafloccar / TikTok

It's amazing to consider just how quickly the world has changed over the past 11 months. If you were to have told someone in February 2020 that the entire country would be on some form of lockdown, nearly everyone would be wearing a mask, and half a million people were going to die due to a virus, no one would have believed you.

Yet, here we are.

PPE masks were the last thing on Leah Holland of Georgetown, Kentucky's mind on March 4, 2020, when she got a tattoo inspired by the words of a close friend.

Keep ReadingShow less
covid-19
Family

Woman shares heartbreaking experience of forgetting her child but not her 'maternal instincts'

Nesh Pillay suffered from a long-term brain injury that caused sudden memory loss. A viral TikTok shares how even when she didn't remember having a daughter, she panicked over the child's well-being.

@pillay.nesh/TikTok

“Even if one day my brain fails me, she’ll always be in my heart.”

It sounds like a nightmare come to life—having no recollection of a loved one, least of all your own child.

However, this was the situation that Nesh Pillay found herself in. The Toronto-based mom suffered from a long-term brain injury brought on by a car crash, which caused sudden memory loss.

Though Pillay shares multiple aspects of her memory loss journey in her TikTok videos, a clip detailing how she forgot her own 6-year-old daughter, but not her “maternal instinct,” is going viral.

It's a poignant testament that love remains, even when memory fades.

Keep ReadingShow less
video
Pop Culture

Parents who grew up in the '70s and '80s remember the experiences that blow their kids' minds

Kids were tougher then for a reason.

via Wikimedia Commons

Island School Class, circa 1970s.

Parents, do you think your child would be able to survive if they were transported back to the '70s or '80s? Could they live at a time before the digital revolution put a huge chunk of our lives online?

These days, everyone has a phone in their pocket, but before then, if you were in public and needed to call someone, you used a pay phone. Can you remember the last time you stuck 50 cents into one and grabbed the grubby handset?

According to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission, roughly 100,000 pay phones remain in the U.S., down from 2 million in 1999.

Do you think a 10-year-old kid would have any idea how to use a payphone in 2022? Would they be able to use a Thomas Guide map to find out how to get somewhere? If they stepped into a time warp and wound up in 1975, could they throw a Led Zeppelin album on the record player at a party?

Keep ReadingShow less
parenting
Family

The surprisingly simple parenting advice that almost always works, even when all else fails

It's meant for babies and toddlers but works like a charm on kids of all ages.

Photo by Lubomirkin on Unsplash

Baby playing with water in a bucket.

Becoming a parent is many things—exciting, scary, joyful, messy, wonder-filled, smelly—but mostly it's a bit overwhelming. Even if you are thrilled with having a baby, there's a lot you have to learn and figure out as you go. To help you through that learning process, there are about a thousand parenting books filled with "expert" advice, at least half of which simply won't work for you or your kid.

Genuinely universally helpful parenting advice is a unicorn; it simply doesn't exist. But occasionally, a golden piece of age-old child-rearing wisdom manages to break through the noise—something that works most of the time for most kids and parents. Something your grandma or auntie passed along that sounds too simple to be effective, yet works like a charm. Something that few if any people could possibly find controversial or problematic.

Keep ReadingShow less
parenting tips
Pop Culture

People are sharing the weirdest things we accept as 'normal’ and it has people questioning reality

What will people say about us 50 years from now?

via Pexels

People living to work, not working to live.

If we looked 60 years into the past, there are a lot of things that were accepted as “normal” that today most people find abhorrent. For example, people used to smoke cigarettes everywhere. They’d light up in hospitals, schools and even churches.

People also used to litter like crazy. It’s socially unacceptable now, but if you lived in the ’70s and finished your meal at McDonald’s, you’d chuck your empty styrofoam container (remember those?) and soda cup right out of the window of your car and onto the street.

Keep ReadingShow less
the future
Pop Culture

Server got a $10 tip from a party of 21. TikTok users increased it to thousands in a few hours.

"If we can't use our collective power for good, we don't deserve collective power."

Spotlightshanell TikTok screenshots

Server received a $10 tip from party of 21, so a TikTok creator stepped in.

It's not a secret that servers are typically underpaid and make most of their money from tips, which means if people don't tip, the server is losing money on that table. That may sound confusing if you've never waited tables, so I'll try to explain since waiting tables helped put me through college. The federal minimum wage for tipped workers is $2.13 an hour. If you have to Uber to work, you're starting your shift in the hole.

So when customers don't tip, it's even harder to recoup that money lost just getting to work. A table being occupied by non-tippers takes away the opportunity for the server to earn a tip from a different customer who could be seated at that table. Working as a server is a constant numbers game to make sure you leave your shift with enough money to meet your needs for the day.

Keep ReadingShow less
service industry
Trending Stories