Please join us Wednesday November 3rd at 4pm for a discussion of Prof. Brenda Gayle Plummer’s (History, Afro-American Studies) chapter, “Aviation Discrimination’s Roots in Jim Crow Practices.” An abstract of the book is below. We will meet from 4pm to 5pm on Wednesday, November 3rd, at the following Zoom link:
The chapter was previously circulated but is attached here again for your convenience.
Book plan: Contemporary national security protocols have their roots in Jim Crow practices, repurposed in the present anxiety surrounding borders, safety, and national belonging. The enjoyment of free movement by some exists side-by-side with the prohibition of mobility for those whose unhampered circulation within the society is deemed a threat to the preservation of order. The book starts with the African American experience and sees race reemerge in the context of commercial aviation as an inventory of possibilities: ways of engineering inequalities without explicit racial content, available for creative deployment and use on varied populations.