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10 Black women bought first-class airplane tickets, and it revealed a lot about race in the U.S.

"Are they a high class of people than I am?"

via Angie Jones / Twitter and Matt Blaze / Flickr

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

Software developer Angie Jones' recent girls' trip revealed that America still has a long way to go regarding 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 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. 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 gave the perfect retort to the person who asked, "Are they a higher class of people than I am?!"

The sight of 10 affluent women of color was upsetting to some, probably because it upset their sense of racial hierarchy. To those who have the ingrained feeling that white people should always be above Black people, it had to be a shock to the system. Especially when they are sitting in economy and the Black women are in first class. To those who harbor racial resentment, they probably had to confront their own feelings of insecurity when seeing that these Black women have been able to succeed in a world where they're supposed to be on the bottom rung of the social ladder.

This article originally appeared three years ago.


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This teacher is showing her students how to use white privilege for good.

Abby Erdmann had a pretty privileged upbringing, which she says she thinks about constantly.

But Erdmann was also something of an outsider, despite her privilege. Growing up in New York in the 1960s, Erdmann was one of three Jewish students in her school. And — by her own admission — she was fat. Some of the kids she grew up with didn’t let her forget that.

York Prep in NYC. Photo by Jim Henderson/Wikimedia Commons.

“I was aware of being marginalized. In high school, a very popular student drew a caricature of me, and had an arrow to my mouth, and said ‘n-word lips.’ I think that raised my consciousness,” she said.

The resulting awareness would eventually become her biggest asset because that combination of privilege and being an outsider helped Erdmann empathize with all kinds of people.

After she graduated from college, Erdmann became a teacher.

And Erdmann — now retired — wasn’t “just” an English teacher.

When a student in one of her classes said "race is just skin-deep," she wanted to explain to that student that it was so much more than that, but she didn't know how, and she didn't feel comfortable trying. She let the moment pass, but her discomfort sparked something within her.

Eventually, Erdmann came to recognize that she was a white woman in a world that favors whiteness. She had privilege. So, as a teacher, she decided to take her lessons beyond books. She wanted to tackle race too.

Abby Erdmann, center, with two of her former students after a workshop on Talking About Race at Primary Source. Used with permission.

In her classroom, Erdmann taught her students about race in a very unique way.

She offered support to her students of color, but she put most of the responsibility in the hands of her white students: “Because of your privilege, you have tremendous power,” she told them.

She taught her white students that they had the power to listen, to offer support to students of color, and to challenge the power structure that undermines people of color every day.

“The problem of racism isn’t the problem of black kids, it’s the problem of white kids and the white power structure. So I used to work with white kids to teach them how to listen to kids of color when they spoke up, to see their own privilege, to understand definitions of racism,” she said.

This is incredibly important because you can’t challenge what you don’t understand. You can’t fight a problem if you don’t realize it exists. And you can’t do either of those things if you don’t listen to and understand the stories of people who are suffering as a result of that problem.

Erdmann gave her students the tools to understand race and to understand different perspectives, and it changed everything.

Tatiana Fernandez, a former student, nominated Erdmann for an Olmsted Award in 2011. The prize awards exceptional secondary school teachers with $3,000 and their schools with $2,500 to be used as they see fit.

In her nomination letter, Fernandez said of Erdmann: “She always knew how to be a support for minority students in particular and recognized the importance of having difficult and sometimes uncomfortable discussions. Abby was the first person to teach me, as a Latina woman, about whiteness, and be open about things like white privilege, and she was the loudest advocate for those who are normally silenced.”

Erdmann won the Olmsted Award and used that money to start a new initiative, Race Reels, in which films are shown at school assemblies/gatherings to give students and educators a jumping-off point to engage in difficult conversations about race.

For Erdmann, there’s no shame in being white, but there is responsibility.

“Racism is a problem of the 21st century ... and if people like me don’t take it on then who is going to take it on? And it’s not up to black people to fix it; they didn’t make the system, and we’re benefitting,” she said.

She puts the onus on people of privilege, like herself, to dismantle the system.

And while she’s made her share of mistakes along the way, she doesn’t think that experiencing discomfort should mean retreating away from the problem.

She tells her white students, “Guilt is not helpful. Shame is not helpful. Action is.”

With the country so divided, teachers like Abby Erdmann matter. They give us hope for the next generation.

With so much talk around keeping refugees out, with children in poor communities drinking poisoned water, with black bodies strewn across the street, we can begin to feel helpless. Erdmann reminds us that we can make a difference, every day, and that's on us.

What can we do? We can speak up when we’ve been hurt. We can speak up when we see injustice. We can listen. We can be allies. Together, we can challenge what’s broken in our world through acts of empathy and compassion. Together, we can follow people like Erdmann and make this world a better place.

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What I have to lose if Trump becomes president is intangible, but scary.

As a millennial woman, this is what I have to lose if Trump becomes our president.

“We are going to make America great again!” Trump spits from my screen.

Thousands cheer; millions tremble. Most of us watch, horrified, elated, transfixed.

“He won’t win,” my roommate assures me. “And even if he does, he won’t be able to do all the things he wants to do. There are enough good people… They won’t let him get away with it.”

I nod, and we fall silent.

Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images.

For some of us, it’s easy to distance ourselves from this election because it feels so absurd and surreal … like a nightmare unfolding in the palms of our hands.

As long as there’s a screen between us and the fear, as long as presidential debates feel more science fiction than "Black Mirror," we can hide behind sassy sound bites and meticulously manufactured indifference without ever pausing to ask ourselves that terrifying question:

What if Trump actually wins?

But for others of us, this election holds a lot of evident risk.

This August, Trump asked Americans of color what they have to lose if they vote for him. Upworthy staff writer Erin Canty posted a powerful response. And when I read what she had to say, the screen cracked. For the first time, I thoroughly considered the consequences — the true consequences — of a Trump presidency.

As a cisgendered middle-class white woman, I’d never really had to think about it. In this election, my privilege is evident. Trump’s America would be kinder to me than it would to almost any other demographic and that security can make it easy to become complacent.

When I finally set aside the blinders of my privilege, though, I remembered two very important things:

First, I remembered that being an intersectional feminist means concerning myself with the difficulties that all men and women face — and not just those that directly affect me. This is easy to forget and important to remember. There is much at stake in this election, especially for the minority members of our communities.

Second, I am reminded that there are certain losses from which checks and balances cannot protect us. These are losses of a less literal nature that require no legislation, that we would all suffer the second the results of the election reveal my worst fear.

It turns out, in Trump’s America, there’s actually a lot both you and I stand to lose, the least of which has to do with one important idea: hope.

Image via iStock.

1. As a woman, I would lose my self-worth and sense of security.

When you look at his words and actions, Trump’s misogyny paints in vivid detail what life as a woman would look like in his America. It involves women figuratively dropping to their knees, and no, it’s not a "pretty picture."

Trump’s America isn’t one that respects its women. Trump’s America is an America that values us based on the appearance of bodies we aren’t legally allowed to control. It’s an America of legislators that would pass more regulations on my uterus than on a corporation, that would punish women in back alleys but pardon men in locker rooms. It’s an America where you get six months for being a rapist and 16 years for exposing one.

Trump’s America is an America where men have more rights to my body than I do. I can’t feel valued; I can’t feel safe in an America like that.

2. As an American, I would lose my national pride.

America is a flawed country with so much work to do. But when I look back at how far we’ve come, I’m so proud to belong to a nation that always strives to become better than we were.

But how can I be proud of an America that won’t acknowledge its mistakes? An America that condemns the audacity of the first lady reminding us that our nation was built by slaves, yet refuses to see the problem witha country whose government only took one year to kill 102 unarmed black men but 232 years to elect one.

I can’t be proud of an America where guns have more protections than the people who die by them,an America that’s horrified by a transgendered person in the “wrong” bathroom but numb to the news of yet another mass shooting. I can’t be proud of an America of nearly 4 million square miles that only has room for Native Americans on its sports jerseys.

I can’t be proud of Donald Trump’s America, an America that refuses to change.

Image via iStock

3. As a human, I would lose some faith in our future.

Progress is never perfect. There’s no civilization in this world that has only just moved forward. Every now and then, we falter, take a step back, and then find our footing again.

But we can’t afford to fall this far. America needs to keep moving. If we backtrack now, I don’t know how we’ll recover. If we let our fear paralyze us, or turn us on each other, hate will divide us.

At the end of the day, no matter who you’re voting for, one thing is true: We all want America to be great.

I don’t believe in Trump, but I believe in that.

Image via iStock

From now on, I'm making a promise to stop pointing fingers at the “bad people” who made this mess and the “good people” who will fix it. It’s time to take responsibility for my country, to turn my disillusionment into determination and my inaction into incentive.

It’s time to ask ourselves what we can do to make this America one we can believe in.

Let’s get to work.

What the hell do you have to lose?

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8 real talk tips for non-black people who want to be better allies.

'When we tell you how we feel, don’t just listen to respond. Listen to understand.'

Are you helping more than you’re hurting?

Ally(-ies) / noun (pl.) / A person who associates or cooperates with another; supporter.

A protest against police brutality in Berkeley, California in 2014. Photo by Annette Bernhardt/Flickr.

I’m an activist, and my main platform is Twitter, so I am constantly trying to help people be better to one another in whatever ways I can.

Recently, some of my followers asked me an important question: What makes a “good” ally?

Good intentions? Solidarity? No one truly has the perfect answer, but after a good hour or so, I came up with a basic set of guidelines. Here they are:

1. Don't divert the conversation.

Am I telling you that you’re not allowed to ask about other problems? Are you supposed to care about black people's struggles and only those struggles? Of course not!

What I’m saying is that, when talking about one problem, your answer shouldn’t be to ask about another. You wouldn’t go to breast cancer rallies asking, “What about brain cancer?” so please don’t do it about black lives.

2. Amplify us.

This has always been a problem with the ally-ship of the black community. It seems as though non-black people can never tell the difference between using their status to amplify our voices and speaking for or over us.

Photo via iStock.

I’m gonna be honest: We don’t need you to pretend to know our struggle because we know you don’t. Non-black people will never experience America like black people will, and that is just something you will have to accept. But we do need you to amplify our stories, to give us platforms to speak.

3. Please stop using black pain for attention.

There have been many instances in which non-black people have used our anguish for attention. This is also known as "black pain porn." It’s a tactic news outlets occasionally use when you see the overrepresentation of black people in tragedy, but it pushes the agenda that we are somehow always in turmoil.

4. If you know you have black followers on social media, be cautious of the stuff you share.

Exposure is so important in times like these when we can watch the death of black bodies like home movies anywhere, anytime. This has brought to light so many injustices, but it has also desensitized us.

Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images.

But consider how traumatizing it is to see people who look like you being murdered in the street, their bodies left to rot in the sweltering heat, glamorized and projected everywhere you look. Knowing that someone was killed for just looking the way you do and that their killer will likely receive no repercussions does something unexplainable to your psyche. So, when we ask you not to post anymore videos of black bodies dying, please respect that.

5. Join organizations that help us. Black Lives Matter isn’t the only source of support.

Listen, not all of us are big fans of the Black Lives Matter organization, but that’s not an excuse to not participate in our liberation at all. It is also not every black activist’s job to point you in the right direction. The internet is an amazing source of information — look up ways to get involved in your community.

6. When we tell you how we feel, don’t just listen to respond. Listen to understand.

Communication is important when it comes to social justice — but know the time and place for it. A perfect example is when we riot. As Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Rioting is the language of the unheard.”

A riot is a symptom of extreme systemic problems. So hear us out. Don’t listen to my concerns to disregard them. Don’t listen to me to prove your own point. You may not understand or agree with what I experience, but that doesn’t give you the right to invalidate my feelings. You don’t have to condone our response to injustice to understand it.

Photo by Yana Paskova/Getty Images.

7. Talk to your family and friends.

If you know your surroundings are anti-black, try to fix that. Defend us when we’re not there to do it ourselves.

You’re no help to me if you’re only an ally to my face, but silent behind closed doors. All of this starts from within. Use your privilege to nip any injustice in the bud. Actions will always speak louder than words.

8. Check up on us. Our mental health is almost always overshadowed.

In the chaos that comes with movements and liberation, mental health is often pushed to the side for the sake of reaction. In fact, mental health has always been a taboo subject in the black community, so I can see how you might forget to ask, “Are you OK?”

However, it’s not fair for us to be subjected to this hate and injustice and still be expected to come out of it unscathed. Some might say, “Well, I don’t need anyone to check up on me. I’m not weak.” But that’s not the point at all, is it? It is not weak to have people care about your well-being. You’d be cheating yourself if you kept yourself from that. So ask, please ask: How are you?

What now?

Non-black allies, you don’t have to move mountains or give speeches.

Photo by Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AFP/Getty Images.

But you can be considerate. You can listen. You can ask. You can act. You can refuse to be silent. We don’t get the luxury of ignorance. Neither should you.

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