Selective Airline Dress Code

                A lawsuit has been filed by two young men against U.S. Airways this week over an incident that occurred last August. Brothers Miles and MacCraig Warren were returning to Los Angeles from Denver with first class tickets after a relative’s funeral when they were stopped at the gate by an employee. They were told that they would not be allowed into first class until they changed clothes. MacCraig was asked to remove his baseball cap and Miles was told to change into a button up shirt, nice shoes, and slacks because jeans and hoodies weren’t proper. Neither brother wanted to cause any trouble and decided to follow the dress code without complaint.

                However, once they got onboard, they were shocked to see Michael Heffernan and his friend Edward DeLeon, sitting right across from them, wearing jeans and hoodies, the exact clothing the brothers were told not to wear.

                Now this is surprising, as I am sure we all would agree. I mean, who would want to be made to follow a dress code of it only applies to you? Isn’t that a little unfair? The Warren brothers have our sympathies for being so inconvenienced by this I am sure…

                But wait! There’s more!

                Unfortunately there might be darker and… stinkier motives behind what went on last August. You see, the Warren brothers are both black, so you can imagine the shock they must have felt when they realized that these two other passengers, one white and one Filipino, were not asked to change clothes.

                The airline claims that the incident was “company policy.” Because the brothers were traveling first class via a discounted “buddy pass” and got their tickets through a family friend who’s a U.S. Airways employee, the airline was compelled to follow the policy, which set clothing requirements and prohibited items like baseball caps and tee shirts

                Neither brother had been informed of such regulations and expectations nor that there were different policies that applied to reduced fare passengers that didn’t to regular fare passengers until after they had reached the gate.

                So what is the problem here? Is it policy? Or is it discrimination? Or is it both?

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                To me it seems like this “company policy” is something that has the potential to be used as an excuse for discrimination. Seriously, what does this policy accomplish in the first place? Why do reduced fare passengers in first class need to wear dress clothes? It accomplishes nothing, and honestly, no one gives a crap about what you are wearing on an airplane! You’re good as long as you have clothes on! And even then, I’ve seen a guy wearing naught but a grass skirt and a coconut bra before, and even HE wasn’t asked to wear dress clothes instead (although they made him put a tee shirt on and take off the bra because it was freaking some people out).

                Maybe I’m wrong because I’ve never flown first class before, and I have no idea if it’s an entirely different culture of people up there who expect all people who got their tickets with reduced fare to dress up as if they’re going to a funeral (which ironically is the reason the Warrens were actually travelling in the first place). If that’s the case, then I am content as can be to never travel first class ever if doing so means I might have to subscribe to some stupid, elitist rule that seems like something from a different era decades ago.

                Or maybe racism and discrimination DID have something to do with it, and maybe the only reason the Warrens had to go through such an embarrassing and humiliating spectacle is bacause they are black.

                The sad thing is that either way, be it because of policy or because of discrimination, these two brothers had to feel what it was like to be singled out from amongst all others and forced to follow rules no one else had to follow. No matter the cause, the feeling of uncertainty of whether this entire ordeal was based off of the color of their skin or not will never truly or definitively be settled, and peace of heart and mind isn’t likely to come to easily to either of them.

                So the question remains: is this the work of policy… or discrimination?

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Here's the link to the original article. No, not there, HERE.