Photo by Massimo Insabato By Ashlee Banks ·April 8, 2021April 8, 2021
United Airlines announced earlier this week that it would hire more women and people of color to work as pilots. The company aims to diversify an industry that is dominated by White men, according to a tweet from the airline. Over the next decade, the airline aims to hire enough women and minorities to account for at least half of the 5,000 pilots it plans to train at its new flight school.
Any logical person would say this move is a good look for United Airlines and a huge win for women and minorities. In 2020, while the Nation was grappling with a deadly virus, the Black community was also dealing with the emotional and mental trauma of witnessing the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery. Protests erupted across the nation due to these senseless killings, with some turning violent and deadly. The nation also saw a rise in hate crimes against Asian Americans, who were targeted primarily because of racist rhetoric used by former President Donald Trump.
The airline’s announcement triggered White supremacists who want to do everything they can to preserve Whiteness. There’s absolutely no reason for White men to dominate the airline industry when there are women and people of color who are trained and skilled enough to excel in the same position. However, some people see this shift toward equality within the airline industry as something that’s unfair and even dangerous.
“United Airlines is now prioritizing race and gender over qualifications for hiring future pilots,” New York Times best-selling author Brigitte Gabriel tweeted. “They are literally putting the lives of their customers at risk in the name of being woke.”
Conservative Author Nick Adams agrees with Gabriel. “Race and Gender are the LAST things that should matter when hiring a pilot, he posted. “United Airlines is going to put their riders at risk all so they can make liberals happy. This is sick.”
Fox’s Tucker Carlson couldn’t hold back and felt the need to weigh in with his remarks as well. Carlson said during a broadcast earlier this week, “You do not want to live in a completely racialized country— where a person’s genetics are the most important thing about them, where you are reduced to your DNA, dehumanized.” Hmm? Isn’t that exactly what Black people have been facing in this country since slavery? Carlson is literally highlighting the racial issue in this country. The only problem with his statement is that he’s blaming United Airlines and its diversity plan instead of White supremacy.
BIPOC are constantly reduced to the color of their skin and are denied jobs and service simply because of their DNA. Carlson has once again missed the mark. United Airlines isn’t further exploiting the racial divide in this country, unlike Carlson and Fox News. Instead, the company is empowering diversity and letting women and minorities know that their lives matter and that they are more than capable of succeeding in the airline industry.
At the end of the day, United Airlines is a company that experienced a financial setback due to the pandemic just like every other airline. The company wouldn’t chance losing more revenue by hiring incompetent pilots in the name of diversity. These people need to wake up and realize we are no longer living in the Jim Crow era. It’s time for everyone to have access to the same opportunities.
TOPICS: racial equity Racism united airlinesThe post United Airlines Faces Criticism Over Plan to Train More Women and Minorities as Pilots appeared first on Essence.
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