American Airlines Apologizes To Humiliated Woman That Attendant Told To Cover Up We Are Policed For Being Black

The staff member asked her if she had a jacket to “cover up” and was unpersuaded by Rowe’s protestations. She and her son were taken outside the aircraft and told that what she was wearing was too revealing.

Rowe, who is a family doctor in Houston, Texas, then said she felt obliged to wrap a blanket around her waist for the flight. When she got home she tweeted about the incident which she said made her feel “humiliated.”

She tweeted that the airline told her she couldn’t board the flight “without putting a jacket over my ASSETS. My shorts covered EVERYTHING but apparently was too distracting. I’ve seen white women with much shorter shorts board a plane without a blink of an eye. We are policed for being black. Our bodies are over sexualized as women and we must ADJUST to make everyone around us comfortable.”

She later told BuzzFeed: “I felt powerless. There was nothing I could do in that moment other than give up my money and my seat to defend my position that I was completely appropriate. To me, there was never an ounce of empathy, an ounce of apology, any attempt to maintain my dignity throughout the situation.”

On Tuesday the airline said it had given an apology and a refund to Rowe and her son.

“We were concerned about Dr Rowe’s comments, and reached out to her and our team at the Kingston airport to gather more information about what occurred,” a spokeswoman said in a statement to media.

“We apologize to Dr. Rowe and her son for their experience, and have fully refunded their travel. We are proud to serve customers of all backgrounds and are committed to providing a positive, safe travel experience for everyone who flies with us,” the BBC reported.

In 2017, The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) warned African-Americans they could face “disrespectful, discriminatory or unsafe conditions” with American Airlines, according to The New York Times.

This was lifted last July after the airline agreed to training its 130,000 staff members and also a new discrimination complaint resolution process, the Times reported.