Angie Jones is a software developer and late last month she shared on Twitter that she and her girls wanted to take a vacation in style.
They had first-class flights booked but instead of a pleasant experience, the trip started off with a ton of side eyes and racism.
This was her tweet:
this weekend I went on a girls trip. 10 Black women flying first class. People literally could not process how it was possible.
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?!"
Stay mad.
— Angie Jones (@techgirl1908) July 28, 2021
According to BET Angie is a Senior Director of Developer Relations at Applitools, and she holds 26 patented inventions in the United States of America and Japan, and she is an IBM Master Inventor.
Homegirl is accomplished! But even with all that, her presence in first class was odd to many including the first-class cabin crew.
Angie did not name the airlines, but people started to share similar stories of racist experiences on the airlines, based on pure ignorant bias.
Here are a few stories:
I’m brown and this happened to me. I had enough credits to upgrade my flight from SFO to YYZ to biz class. Standing the priority boarding queue a white man behind me told me I may be in the wrong queue. Showed him my boarding pass, aisle seat at row 1. He shut up quick.
— marino (@virtualized6ix) July 28, 2021
and:
I was in the business class line behind a Black man in sweats and a baseball cap once. The (white) woman behind me reached over me, tapped him and told him he was in the wrong line. My jaw dropped. He just laughed and ignored her.
It happens all the time. And needs to stop.
— Jenny ?? ?? ?? (@JCT_212) July 28, 2021
and:
I remember sitting in the priority area and an old white guy who was a passenger asked to see my ticket to see if I'm in the right place. ??♀️??♀️
— Noni (@NoniYess) July 28, 2021
and:
"One guy even yelled "are they a higher class of people than I am?!""
Well, if they have more frequent flyer miles or $$$ than you do, then yes, they are, as far as the airlines are concerned. 🙂
— KadyM (@KadyMuhammad1) July 28, 2021
What was crazy, was even with so many stories being shared, there were so many people on Twitter who blatantly accused Angie of lying.
This did not happen.
— Lauren Chen (@TheLaurenChen) July 29, 2021
and
Too bad it happened. I have flown millions of miles and never heard or seen anything of this nature. Ever. Not even once. Not in a club. Not in 1st class. Not in the worst seats. Not saying it didn’t happen. I AM saying that these random things are NOT America or commonplace.
— Midwest Patriot (@NE_SCWilson) July 29, 2021
and
The fact that there are so many blk ppl in the comments saying you're lying is sending me!!! Why do we do this to each other?!?!?!
— Kendra Ockimey (@TheRealMsHarley) July 28, 2021
Sad.
Read this story we shared in 2016 about an architect who tried to cash a check at a bank. This stuff happens all the time.