simply can’t keep silent this time

To all the Alaska Airlines flight attendants who have an excuse for not offering me my MVP chocolates. . . I am not one who complains often (LOL) and I really dislike the way social media is used to try to humiliate people and solve problems that should be solved in private.  I am more likely to keep the daily, weekly, monthly incidents of racism I experience to myself.  But today, I feel compelled to share this in the hopes I never have to experience it again and so that other African-American 75 Gold MVP travelers out there never have to experience this again as well.  When I am in a business suit and traveling during business hours, it is a 50/50 chance the Caucasian person next to me is thanked for their business and offered a chocolate and I am not.  On the odd chance, I am overlooked I will politely ask for my chocolate and the flight attendant apologies and gives it to me with no question.  When I am traveling for pleasure or had enough time to take off my St. John suit and Ferragamo pumps, it is a 90% chance that I will not be acknowledge and offered a chocolate.  Today was one of those times.  The two people next to me were called by name by the flight attendant, thanked for their business and given chocolates.  The flight attendant did not call my name or offer me a chocolate. She asked me if I wanted a beverage and attempted to move on.  I politely said “I would love to have my MVP chocolate.”  She looked at me, looked at her list, looked at me and then came up with an excuse for not offering it to me in the first place.  “Oh, I am sorry your name must be on my paper list, Dr. Edwards.”  I thought to myself, if my name is not on the list in her palm held device and on the paper list that she didn’t have at that moment, then how did she know my name was “Dr. Edwards?”  I truly believe people make honest mistakes and I do not believe that every incident of discrimination I experience stems from racism, but for all of the flight attendants who have ever assumed I am not worthy of my name being called, thanked for my business and offered a chocolate, I am pretty sure at minimum unconscious bias played a part.  Whether it is unconscious bias, conscious bias, intentional discrimination, racism, and/or plain old ignorance, as a Black woman who has chosen to be loyal to your company, and who treats everyone I encounter while traveling with respect, and who has on more than one occasion given up my first class seat to avoid a fist fight between grumpy, white privileged travelers who are convinced they are higher status than me, I find it rude and disrespectful not to acknowledge every customer by name and to thank them for their business regardless of whether or not their frequent flier status has earned them a free chocolate or not.  And you wonder why black people feel the need to kneel, hold a sign that says #BlackLivesMatter, and sometimes scream at the top of our lungs from frustration.  This is why.