Cabin Pressure: African American Pilots, Flight Attendants, and Emotional Labor

Cabin Pressure: African American Pilots, Flight Attendants, and Emotional Labor (2013) is a well-written and thought-provoking book on a unique topic: emotional labor of African-Americans in the airline industry. Emotional labor occurs when “the worker manages feelings and expressions to help the organization profit” (Grandey et al., 2013, p. 3). It is typically studied in relation to people working in external facing, customer-focussed jobs, such as cashiers, clerks, and customer service representatives. The term was widely introduced by Arlie Hochschild (1983), who focussed on the emotional labor of overwhelmingly white^[1] female flight attendants^[2], but left a vacuum regarding the raced or raced and gendered labor required of men and women of color. Seeking to “give voice to those marginalized” in the airline industry, Dr Louwanda Evans sought to further develop theories of emotional labor to include the major role of social identity in interactions in the airline industry, and by extension, other industries. Thus, although the research setting and participants in Cabin Pressure are narrow, the subject – emotional labor and the role of social identity in workplace interactions – has broad and widespread relevance to those perceived and treated as they do not belong in various jobs and industries.

Some 30 years after Hochschild, as a former flight attendant and racial insider turned sociologist, Evans interviewed 33 African-Americans in the airline industry. She obtained rich, candid, and often painful recollections of their emotion work associated with interactions with customers, coworkers, and other airline personnel. Chapter 1 opens with two quotes to set the stage for the depth of emotional labor required of Blacks employed in the airline industry. “Would you mind getting someone else to bring me my drink? I would prefer you not touch my cup.” The black female flight attendant's assumption that this request was based on religious doctrines was disconfirmed when the customer soon took a drink from a white female flight attendant. In the other introductory quote, a uniformed black male pilot waiting to catch a ride home on another flight observed an older white man go to the gate and say “That nigger better not be flying my plane.” Although neither the flight attendant nor the pilot said anything to either offending passenger, both were acutely aware of the role their racial identity played in the episode.

Evans notes that for African-Americans in the airline industry, their identities and judgments of whether they are capable are intertwined and are a “manifestation of larger structural beliefs about race and gender” (p. 2). These include beliefs about who is appropriate for certain jobs and roles, and stereotypes about the abilities and competence of those who do not fit raced and gendered expectations for job incumbents. Blacks are also aware of the need to conform to the required rules for emotional display, as not doing so would confirm negative stereotypes about people like them (e.g. angry black person). Thus, Blacks are often in a quandary when faced with racist acts by customers, coworkers, managers, and other personnel who question their competence and abilities, and should be challenged, but cannot be challenged by the targeted African-American. This “cognitive labor,” in which Blacks wrestle with appropriate responses to racist acts, takes significant time and energy and is continuous in industries where they are underrepresented. This underrepresentation results in simultaneous hypervisibility, in which they are always observed, on display, and scrutinized; and invisibility, in which they are relegated to subordinate status or completely ignored.

In Chapter 2, Evans details the experiences of African-American pilots, who cannot escape the emotional labor emanating from the white male dominated workspace. She looks closely at the consequences of racial and gender ideologies that affect black pilots’ interactions with other airline employees as well as with customers who view the role of “pilot” as being one appropriate for white men and for which Blacks are not competent. According to one interviewee, “The difference between being a black pilot and being a white pilot is that if you’re a white pilot the assumption is that you know what you’re doing. If you’re a black pilot, the assumption is [that] you don’t know what you’re doing […] You’re assumed to be inept” (pp. 16-17). This systemic racism and assumptions of who does and does not belong and who is and who is not competent lead to customers’ displays of racism toward black pilots. In some instances, airline employees also exhibited racist behavior toward black pilots. In one case, an airline trainer gave study materials to an African-American trainee the day before the exam – much later than he had given white trainees the materials. The trainer was surprised and disappointed that the black trainee, who studied all night, still passed the exam. In another instance, black interns were emailed a different start time for orientation than white interns were sent, presumably to cause them to be late and prove that the black interns “couldn’t show up on time” (p. 31), a common stereotype about Blacks. These efforts to sabotage black interlopers who had “infiltrated the white space” were not uncommon. For the Blacks in both these incidents, because nothing explicitly involving their race was said, the burden of proof that the events were racially motivated fell upon them.

However, sometimes, the racism was extremely clear. In one situation, after six weeks of training, over dinner, a drunk white trainer expressed to black trainees that he had never previously had black students and that he had expected to “have to lower the bar” to get them through. He “didn’t know black people could learn like that” (p. 35), reflecting a common stereotype about Blacks’ intellectual inferiority. Questions from fellow pilots about their backgrounds, flying experiences, and abilities reiterated perceptions about Blacks’ perceived incompetence as pilots. One senior pilot recalled customers hastily and vocally (“What the hell!”, “Oh, shit!”) exiting the plane across spans of two decades, including one in the prior year; little had changed. Such questions and actions reflected the common perception that black pilots had obtained their jobs through affirmative action, quotas, and means other than hard work and “merit” and were unqualified to fly. Blacks noted Whites’ comfort with and failure to see the unearned privilege of obtaining pilots jobs through their pilot fathers and other old (white) boys’ networks.

In addition to raced experiences, for pilots, the cockpit^[3] is a space viewed as appropriate only for white men. One black male pilot recalled when a woman piloting another plane had come on the radio frequency during a flight and the white male pilot stated that the woman's presence in the cockpit meant there was “another empty kitchen.” Such sexist comments, coupled with far more banal references to women pilots, served as constant reminders to Black pilots that they also do not belong in the white male space.

In Chapter 3, Evans turns to flight attendants, opening with a story of a white child asking a black flight attendant if she was a monkey – a common “centuries-old depiction of African Americans” that has repeatedly been applied to US President Obama and his family. Passengers’ treatment of black flight attendants as servants who were to fulfill the passengers’ every request and need, however demeaning, also reflects historically subordinate status of Blacks in America. A black senior flight attendant recalled working first class and being called to the back of the plane by a passenger who, unhappy with her treatment by the white flight attendants specifically asked to speak with the “colored girl.” Her stated request for the “colored girl” (not an adult woman, and not White) allowed her a position of superiority, power, and domination; surely the colored girl would not talk back to her. For the black flight attendant, that her white coworkers brought her the insulting request, with a snicker, was doubly troubling. Black male flight attendants also reported being treated with overt disrespect by customers who addressed them rudely (e.g. “Boy, can you get me some more coffee?”) or refused to comply with safety rules until asked to do so by a white flight attendant.

As was the case with black pilots, gate agents and other airline personnel frequently automatically assumed the person in charge was the white flight attendant, even when the black attendant's badge indicated her senior, lead status on the flight. White pilots’ and white male customers’ interactions with black female flight attendants often included overt displays of stereotypical beliefs about black female sexuality. At times these requests for sexual favors were thinly masked by comments about preferences for black coffee with sugar, as though sex was also part of the job.

In Chapter 4 Evans notes that due to systemic racism and norms of behavior constructed in white, middle-class cultures, for Blacks in such settings, some emotional expressions allowed and deemed to be appropriate for others are prohibited for Blacks. Displays of anger and frustration, associated with stereotypical notions and fears of Blacks, are particularly forbidden (e.g. Wingfield and Alston, 2014). And, because Blacks’ authority and knowledge is continually questioned by passengers, coworkers, peers, superiors, their inability to express anger and frustration in response is a particularly burdensome job requirement. Some pilots reported being specifically told that “you can’t present yourself as the angry black person” (p. 83), and being warned about how they (the black person) can better avoid raced conflicts in the future. In these cases, rather than the racism, the (reasonable) reaction of the black employee targeted by the racism became the problem. Even in the face of persistent racism and lack of consequences for the perpetrators, Blacks usually did not complain for fear of being perceived as a problem child, or worse, fired. Enforced emotional norms for Blacks include passivity, conformity, and deference, painfully associated with the racialized US history.

Thankfully, Chapter 4 also offers a few positive interactions for black pilots and flight attendants. Whereas some white passengers hastily exited the aircraft upon seeing a black pilot, black customers sometimes hastened to acknowledge and shake the hand of black pilots. Pilots reported that black passengers on their aircraft and passersby in the airport frequently stopped to say how proud they were to see a black pilot. In the face of overt racism from others, these expressions of encouragement helped Blacks cope and contributed greatly to their ability to remain on the job.

Chapter 5 offers six ways in which black pilots and flight attendants cope with and resist racism and the resulting emotional labor: deconstructing white racism; resistance through the defense of other “others”; active and planned resistance; going above and beyond; standing up to white racism; and resistance through networks. Through deconstructing white racism, Blacks came to realize the changing nature of racism – from Jim Crow to “James Crow, Jr, Esquire,” who denies the existence of racism. Blacks devised more subtle forms of resistance to deal with the subtle forms of racism, while more actively resisting more active, old fashioned forms. In defending others, Black pilots also sometimes spoke up for other “others” who were being disparaged, including Muslims, Mexicans, and women. In active and planned resistance, black pilots and flight attendants took time to determine an appropriate response, and then confronted the actor. By outperforming Whites, Blacks showed that indeed they were qualified and able to do the job, even better than their white counterparts. The necessity to always be ready to prove their ability, however, was also a form of emotional labor.

In the final chapter, Evans included poignant statements from interviewees about their jobs, the industry, and the state of race and gender relations in organizations. Despite the continued exclusionary and often hostile nature of the industry, the interviewees emphasized the importance of resilience and persistence in the pursuit of equality. In her conclusion and suggested solutions, Evans stresses how the work environment and the normal job incumbent's social identity (e.g. White, male, heterosexual) are key factors that shape the emotion work that outsiders in such environments are required to perform. One can easily think of situations where outsiders are required to perform emotional labor in response to racist and/or sexist behavior at work, including women firefighters, police officers, and physicians, or minority faculty in predominantly white universities (e.g. Kupenda, 2012; Lugo-Lugo, 2012; Wallace et al., 2012), among others.

Diversity scholars and diversity and human resources professionals across industries should be cognizant of the requirements for emotional labor as a part of successful job performance in their organizations. Importantly, they must also consider how those requirements differ and are worse for people working in environments where the emotional labor rules and display norms were created in previously homogeneous environments, where certain people (women, racial and ethnic minorities, people with disabilities, etc.) are perceived not to belong. Evans recommends that organizations:

1. ensure there is sufficient diversity in the workplace and that members of devalued groups have opportunities for promotion, rather than remaining clustered at the bottom of the hierarchy or isolated and hypervisible or invisible elsewhere;

2. go beyond surface changes and occasional training to continual in-depth diversity change efforts and dialogue;

3. acknowledge the existence of discrimination through continual monitoring, investigating all claims, and sanctioning employees and customers engaging in discrimination; and

4. provide formal mentoring opportunities for underrepresented and devalued groups, and engage them in seeking and implementing solutions.

In summary, Cabin Pressure is well written, engaging, understandable, and accessible to academics, practitioners, and individuals whose jobs require emotional labor. It contributes significantly to the theory of emotional labor – emphasizing the need to consider the important role that social identity plays in workplace interactions. Upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students in management, psychology, and sociology will find substantial theoretical grounding to help understand the antecedents and consequences of emotional labor at work. Scholars will find this a unique, helpful resource for expanding the study of intersections between social identity and emotional labor. Lastly, although its focus on the emotional labor performed by people of color working in the airline industry is on the surface limiting, the book and its ideas are quite relevant to such labor in other industries, including academia (e.g. Gutiérrez y Muhs et al., 2012). Those working in any industry will discover a wealth of data on the emotional labor associated with devalued social identities, along with ideas to help minimize requirements for emotional labor and mitigate its harmful effects.