Cabin Pressure: African American Pilots, Flight Attendants, and Emotional Labor

174 Pages·2013·0.8 MB·English

by  Louwanda Evans

Cabin Pressure
Perspectives on a Multiracial America series
Series Editor: Joe R. Feagin,
Texas A&M University
TheracialcompositionoftheUnitedStatesisrapidlychanging.Booksintheserieswill
explore various aspects of the coming multiracial society, one in which European-
Americans are no longer the majority and where issues of white-on-black racism have
beenjoinedbymanyotherchallengestowhitedominance.
TitlesintheSeries
BreakingtheCodeofGoodIntentions,byMelanieBush
MiddleEasternLivesinAmerica,byAmirMavastiandKarynMcKinney
ShadesofDifference:AHistoryofEthnicityinAmerica,byRichardRees
ProtectingOurOwn:Race,Crime,andAfricanAmericans,byKatherynRussell-Brown
EmotionalBridgestoPuertoRico:Migration,ReturnMigration,andtheStrugglesof
Incorporation,ElizabethM.Aranda
StructuralInequality:BlackArchitectsintheUnitedStates,VictoriaKaplan
GlobalizationandAmerica:Race,HumanRights,andInequality,AngelaJ.Hattery,
DavidG.Embrick,andEarlSmith
AdoptioninaColor-BlindSociety,byPamelaAnneQuiroz
DoingBusinesswithBeauty:BlackWomen,HairSalons,andtheRacialEnclaveEcono-
my,byAdiaHarveyWingfield
FadetoBlackandWhite:InterracialImagesinPopularCulture,byEricaChitoChilds
CyberRacism:WhiteSupremacyOnlineandtheNewAttackonCivilRights,byJessie
Daniels
RacismandDiscourseinLatinAmerica,byTeunA.vanDijk
CommodifiedandCriminalized:NewRacismandAfricanAmericansinContemporary
Sports,byLeonard,DavidJ.andC.RichardKing
EverydayFormsofWhiteness:UnderstandingRaceinaPost-RacialWorld,2ndedition,
MelanieE.L.Bush
TheUrbanRacialState:ManagingRaceRelationsinAmericanCities,NoelA.Cazenave
EverydayInjustice:LatinoProfessionalsandRacism,byMariaChávez
AnimatingDifference:Race,Gender,andSexualityinContemporaryFilmsforChildren,
C.RichardKing,CarmenR.Lugo-Lugo,andMaryK.Bloodsworth-Lugo
TheCosbyCohort:Race,Class,andIdentityamongSecondGenerationMiddleClass
Blacks,CheriseA.Harris
Cabin Pressure
African American Pilots,
Flight Attendants, and Emotional Labor
Louwanda Evans
ROWMAN&LITTLEFIELDPUBLISHERS,INC.
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Evans,Louwanda,1975-
Cabinpressure:AfricanAmericanpilots,flightattendants,andemotionallabor/LouwandaEvans.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-4422-2135-2(cloth:alk.paper)—ISBN978-1-4422-2136-9(ebook)
1.Airlines—UnitedStates—Employees.2.AfricanAmericanprofessionalemployees.3.Racism—
UnitedStates.4.AfricanAmericanairpilots.5.Flightattendents.6.UnitedStates—Racerelations.I.
Title.
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Contents
Foreword ix
JoeR.Feagin,TexasA&MUniversity
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xix
1 Introduction 1
2 TrappedatThirtyThousandFeet:InfiltratingWhiteSpace 15
3 OnDisplayatAllTimes:FlightAttendants 55
4 EmotionalLaborandSystemicRacism 79
5 TheEmotionalLaborofCopingandResistance 101
6 Conclusion 121
Notes 131
References 143
Index 147
AbouttheAuthor 153
vii

Foreword
Joe R. Feagin, Texas A & M University
Today,muchoftheracistworldthatisstilltheUnitedStatesisintellectually
covered up or sanitized by elite and ordinary white Americans. An assort-
ment of sincere, and not so sincere, fictions parade across the vision of
anyone who watches mainstream television and internet media or listens to
talk radio: a post-racial America, an end of white racism, a major decline in
white dominance, and significant “reverse racism.” Such sanitizing notions
typicallyappearwithlittleornosupportingdata,albeitoftenwithaperfunc-
torycitationofBarackObama’selectiontotheU.S.presidency.
One reason that such fictions about U.S. society have staying power is
that white or white-vetted voices control most of the public discussion and
dialogue about racial matters, as they have for centuries. What is ordinarily
missing in these mainstream media analyses is the strong voice of the very
Americansofcolorwhoaresofrequentlydiscussed,stereotyped,ordenigrat-
edinmainstreamportrayalsofU.S.racialissues.
Inreadingthissavvybook,weencounteraninnovativeandcriticalanaly-
sisofhighlyoriginalfieldresearchbyanewtalentinU.S.socialscience,the
sociologist Dr. Louwanda Evans. In this analysis Evans, herself a former
flightattendant,demonstrateswellthatthereisnorealitytothewhitefantasy
ofapost-racialAmerica,thattherehasbeennoendforwhiteracism,andthat
there is a high level of persisting white power and privilege. Drawing on
extensive andin-depthinterviewingwith African American pilotsandflight
attendants, Evans shows that even the African American professionals that
manywhitesandothersviewasproofofapost-racialAmericacurrentlyface
substantiallevelsofracialdiscriminationandotherracistmistreatmentatthe
handsofwhitesofvariousages,classes,andstatuses.
“Success”inU.S.society,asarticulatedbyprominentwhiteadjudicators
oftheadvancementofAmericansofcolor,involvessignificantachievement
ix