These are troubling times. But as American Airlines CEO Doug
Parker can attest, they can also offer hope -- even if that hope comes while
flying on a rival airline.
Doug Parker
Parker’s enlightening experience, detailed in a first-person
account, happened as he sat in the back of a Southwest
plane flying from Dallas to Panama City, Fla. on Monday. (“All of our seats
were sold out!” Parker explained.)
About an hour into the flight, he was joined by black flight
attendant JacqueRae. (Parker didn’t provide her last name.) Motivated by the
killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, Parker
wrote that he had recently resumed reading the book “White Fragility: Why It’s
So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism,” by Robin DiAngelo. JacqueRae
had seen Parker carry the book onto the plane and wanted to ask about it.
Parker said he told the woman that the book is about how
terrible white people are at talking about racism and that what is needed are
real conversations. But by then the Southwest flight attendant was already
crying.
“I told her I was trying to learn and through tears and a
mask, she said, ‘So am I,’” Parker wrote.
The pair talked for about 10 minutes, and eventually Parker
told JacqueRae that he is the American CEO. As it turns out, JacqueRae’s mother
works for American at Washington Dulles. By the time the plane landed, Parker
had already heard from JacqueRae’s mom, thanking him for comforting her
daughter.
But to Parker’s mind, it was he who should have been doing
the thanking.
“I was the one who was blessed by that conversation,” he
wrote back. “I am better for it and more resolved to do what I can to make the
world better for people like her (and people like me). Thank you!”