EFL
A Southwest Airlines flight attendantâs variation on a rhyme with a racist history did not discriminate against two black passengers, a federal jury decided. The U.S. District Court jury of seven white men and one white woman deliberated less than an hour Wednesday before reaching its verdict. Grace Fuller, 49, and her sister Louise Sawyer, 46, both of suburban Kansas City, filed the suit over comments flight attendant Jennifer Cundiff made after they boarded a Southwest flight to return from a Las Vegas vacation three years ago next month. As the two were trying to find seats on the crowded plane, Cundiff said over the intercom, "Eenie, meenie, minie, moe; pick a seat, we gotta go." (You can just hear the racism!)
| Oh, horrors! Oh, hold me, Ethel! |
Sawyer and Fuller said the rhyme immediately struck them as a reference to an older, racist version in which the first line is followed by the words "catch a n----r by the toe." They testified at the two-day trial that they were embarrassed, humiliated and frustrated. Fuller said she suffered a small seizure on the flight home, which said was triggered by the remark. Later at home, she said she had a grand mal seizure and was bedridden for three days.
(Wow this lady must have had her sensitivty meter oh HIGH! Letâs call out the ACLU, Rainbow Push, NAACP, Muslim Brother on this one.)
Cundiff, 25, of Argyle, Texas, testified that she had never heard the racist version and that she was only trying to inject humor to make the flight more enjoyable and memorable. She wanted passengers to take their seats so the plane could leave.
(I had one tell the passengers that if they didnât know how to buckle the seat belt âthey shouldnât be flying!â)
Fuller said after the verdict that there was enough evidence for jurors to have found she had her sister had been discriminated against. "If we had jurors of our peers then we would have won the case today, and we should have won the case today, with all the evidence shown," she said. "Itâs a shame that the jury pool we had to draw from did not have one black and not one minority," she said. "Something has to be done to make sure there is justice in America for blacks."
(Where is Jesse and Al when you need them.)
Fuller and her sister testified that they first wrote to Southwest complaining that they felt the rhyme was racially offensive, asking that flight attendants stop using it. They said they decided to sue because they felt the airline did not take their complaints seriously.
(I think they are still laughing at you, as are the rest of the civilized world!)
This is why we need TORT reform NOW! |