32 min listen
Strange Fruit 243: ‘Flying While Fat & Black’
FromStrange Fruit
ratings:
Length:
39 minutes
Released:
May 16, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Description
Amber Phillips flies a lot, and she knows what can happen to people whose bodies don't fit perfectly in small airplane seats.
So when she sat down for a short flight from Raleigh-Durham to Washington, DC late last month, and her arm was touching a fellow passenger's arm, she was worried.
“I was thinking, I really hope she doesn’t treat me mean,” Phillips would later tell the Washington Post. "She was fidgeting, and finally she looks at me and goes, 'Can you move over?'"
But Phillips was in the window seat, and there was nowhere else to go.
This week on Strange Fruit, she tells the story of what happened over the next 45 minutes while the plane made its way to Reagan National Airport, and after it landed.
Like so many news stories lately, it culminates in a white person calling the police on a black person engaged in an everyday activity. Or as Phillips put it in a later tweet, "The cops were called on me for flying while fat & Black."
So when she sat down for a short flight from Raleigh-Durham to Washington, DC late last month, and her arm was touching a fellow passenger's arm, she was worried.
“I was thinking, I really hope she doesn’t treat me mean,” Phillips would later tell the Washington Post. "She was fidgeting, and finally she looks at me and goes, 'Can you move over?'"
But Phillips was in the window seat, and there was nowhere else to go.
This week on Strange Fruit, she tells the story of what happened over the next 45 minutes while the plane made its way to Reagan National Airport, and after it landed.
Like so many news stories lately, it culminates in a white person calling the police on a black person engaged in an everyday activity. Or as Phillips put it in a later tweet, "The cops were called on me for flying while fat & Black."
Released:
May 16, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode
Titles in the series (100)
Strange Fruit #40: Don Lemon Says Don't Litter!: While we spent the week celebrating Jai's birthday and recovering from [EOY](http://www.eoy.net/), CNN's Don Lemon was busy making people mad and [agreeing with Bill O'Reilly](http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/bestoftv/2013/07/27/nr-lemon-no-talking-points.cnn.html). In our Juicy Fruit segment this week, we deconstruct his list of advice for black folks. The video is worth a watch, but if you're pressed for time, it boils down to pulling up your pants and not having babies out of wedlock. It was a disappointing reminder that just because someone's family doesn't make them immune to the lure of respectability politics. But as Doc said, he's certainly no [Boykin](http://keithboykin.com/) (and we did agree with him that littering is gross). Also this week we bring you part two of our chat with Louisville activist Carla Wallace, and author Chris Crass. Chris was in town recently to celebrate the release of his book, [Towards Collective by Strange Fruit