New in First Class

Walt Jacobs on June 25, 2014

I had an interesting experience recently on a flight from Atlanta to Milwaukee. I was in First Class, and my seat-mate was a young African American male (in his 20s). “This is so awesome,” he said to the flight attendant as he came down the aisle. “It’s my first time in First Class!” When he sat next to me he said, “we get blankets? And pillows too?” “We also receive free bottles of water,” I informed him. “Awesome!” At the end of the flight he told the flight attendants that he enjoyed his first time in First Class. It was nice to see someone so excited about a new experience!

Comments 3

MA — July 1, 2014

Mmm, I don't like this; it's highly racialized. This seems to say that this man was so excited to sit in first class because it's not often that black men in their early twenties are able to do so. If you wanted to just call attention to "someone [being] so excited about a new experience", you needn't have mentioned his race...or maybe even his age.

I wonder what other people's thoughts on this are.

Chris Uggen — July 1, 2014

Glad you were there to share it with him! With all the indignities of modern air travel, we sometimes forget (whether in coach or first-class) that flight is a pretty amazing experience. But the stark separation by class on airplanes sometimes reminds me of an intro sociology simulation game. The racial dynamics of the airplane class divide were especially clear and powerful to me on recent flights to Rwanda, where colonialism took such a terrible toll.

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