Airline Incident Involving Texas Doctor Offers Our Nation a Dose of Historical Medicine

Dr. Latisha Rowe is back at work, taking care of patients at her family medicine office in Houston where she has offered medical advice on local TV. But, around the country and especially in the conversations of most Black women, she is being supported for calling out American Airlines after a flight attendant decided Rowe’s travel attire was inappropriate and told her to wrap a blanket around herself before she and her son were allowed to fly from Jamaica to Miami. Rowe and her eight-year-old son were humiliated.

“Just when we, as a nation, thought we had witnessed Black people being profiled for everything ranging from cooking in a public park to sitting and waiting for friends in a popular coffee shop, we are reminded of how a Black woman such as in the case of Dr. Rowe, can be profiled for inheriting the body shape of her Black female ancestors,” said Dr. Lillie Fears, professor of multimedia production and a gender scholar at Arkansas State University. “The entire incident is beyond body shaming and is one more reminder of how the psychological damage caused by the cultural and historical baggage associated with Black women’s bodies still haunts us today.”

On Twitter, Rowe wrote that she was “disgusted” by the incident, adding that she was tweeting “so I won’t cry.”  And, she posted photos of her outfit.

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Dr. Nadia Brown whose research includes identity politics, legislative studies, and Black women’s studies says, “I think Dr. Rowe got it right. Black women’s bodies are overly sexualized. This is historically the case. Black women’s bodies being overly sexualized is part and parcel of the American political project.”

Both Brown and Fears trace American society’s view of Black women’s bodies to slavery.

“The status of being a bondsperson was tied to the mother regardless of who the father was, you followed the status of the mother,” Brown explained. “Even before the country had its racial categorizations, Black women already had an inscripter of otherness on their bodies. In practice and then through these laws, they were re-inscribed as these sexual beings…these people who are here to reproduce human beings as enslaved people for the state and for the state to capitalize off their labor…so, if you’re used for your reproductive labor in addition to your other labor, you are not viewed the same way as white women.”

Fears offers a similar viewpoint, “The same body type that white male slave traders and owners exploited for centuries is now deemed as inappropriate for boarding a plane, even when adorned in summer attire appropriate for traveling from a tropical summer destination.”

American Airlines issued an apology to Rowe which Brown sees as a “step in the right direction.” In the meantime, word of the incident continues to trend via social media.

Brown adds, “It is unfortunate that Black women are still dealing with these issues, but I am overjoyed by some aspects of this new age of social media because cases like Dr. Rowe’s are brought to national attention. Previously, in black sister circles, we would talk about this happening to us or someone we know, but her posting this and tagging American Airlines, and it being picked up and going viral is really important. The way we are able to change the culture is happening by Black women themselves. We are not sitting around and asking these corporations or society to think differently of us…we are driving the conversation.”

According to Rowe’s attorney, she is considering filing a lawsuit. American Airlines hired a chief inclusion and diversity officer after the NAACP issued a travel advisory in October 2017, warning Black passengers the airline could “subject them to disrespectful, discriminatory, and unsafe conditions.” The civil rights organization lifted the ban in July 2018.