Air Travel Is For White People....

This is not a racist statement, but a statement that you might make if you actually looked at the constituency of the ticketholding people flying in an airport, even a large metropolitan airport like O'Hare or LaGuardia.

Over the last few weeks, as DNA traveled across the country, he noticed that about 99% of his fellow air travelers were white. In Minneapolis, it was about 99.9%. In contrast, about 90% of all the employees he saw at the airport were not white (excluding pilots and flight attendants). He had noticed this before, but this time, as the disparity was pummeling him, he actively looked to disprove his current and previous observations. As he looked closer, at every airport he stopped at, his observations were confirmed. In the last month, DNA was in the St. Louis airport, Minneapolis, Detroit, Atlanta, Buffalo, and some others. This seemed like a representative enough sample.

Given these basic facts: Whites make up about 74% of the population (2008 census statistics). This is approximately 221 million people. Blacks make up approximately 12.5% of the population which is about 37 million people. Those that consider themselves Hispanic (of any race) make up about 14% or 44 million people. Some of those people consider themselves white, some consider themselves black and some consider themselves other. DNA is going to ignore hispanics for the sake of this argument. But, hispanics, this is nothing new, right? America has been ignoring your contribution to our society for about two hundred years already.

The number of white people considered in poverty is about 8.6% of the white population. The number of black people considered in poverty is about 24% of the black population. No other group, including hispanics, are even close to this level of poverty.

So, whites make the vast majority of people in this country, and at the same time, whites make up the smallest minority of the poorest people. Hmmmm.

Given the information above, if all other things were equal, how many black people should you expect flying from place to place? Well, if poverty were equal, you would expect about 12.5% of the flying population would be black. But, given that there are more blacks in poverty as a percentage of their total population, then the percentage of black flyers should be smaller than 12.5%, since financial ability to fly would impact who flies. By how much? Well, let's first throw out people in poverty, white or black from our pool of flyers. That's 19 million whites and approximately 9 million blacks. In other words, even though blacks only make up about 12.5% of the population, they make up about 32% of the population in poverty. Once we ditch all those freeloading losers of the two races that don't want to work and apparently like living at or below the subsistence level, (we'll just assume they don't fly very often) then, of the remaining population, about 81% are white and about 11% are black. So, you should expect to see, all things being equal, about 11% of the flyers in an airport who are black. Removing the poorest of the poor of both races, we still need to consider overall distribution of wealth. $50,000 or more is a good cut off to look at when considering who can afford air travel. Anything less than that, in DNA's completely unscientific perspective, and people don't have enough disposable income to afford flying regularly. Of the total population, 51% who make more than $50,000 are white. About 32% of the population who make more than $50,000 are black. So, only about 32% of the original 11% of the black population can actually afford to fly. One third of 11% is about 4%. Now we are getting closer to the 1% or so that DNA has witnessed in actual airports.

The effects of this obvious racial divide is not lost on blockheads like DNA, who blithely goes about his daily life untouched, at least directly, by the effects of racism. So, how much more apparent do you think it is to the vast majority of airport employees who are not white? How many times do you think they have to serve their customers before they begin to accept the message drummed into their heads which vibrates through the very concrete of the terminal, that white people afford the luxury to fly, and black people serve them food, shine their shoes, and carry their luggage? If DNA can see it, and honestly, he wasn't really looking for it, how obvious is it to a black traveler?

There is not a more stark barometer of our country's racial health than airports. Are there other reasons besides the undeniable economic divide which might support the hypothesis that air travel is for white people?

Yes.

Skymall.

Simply reading Skymall makes you white.

Airlines don't really share much information about the racial composition of their flights. Wonder why? However, airlines don't really need to. All you have to do is open your eyes and count the next time you are in an airport. Until 12.5% of our nation's air travelers are black, then DNA thinks it will be safe to say that racism is alive and well in the good old USA.