United Airlines announces that 50% of new pilot trainees will be women and people of color. Now, if we see a woman or person of color entering the flight deck, we thing nothing of it. But soon, we will think, “I wonder if that person is really qualified to fly this airplane. I wish I’d taken another flight.”
Let me tell you a story. I knew an elderly Jewish man. His father was a leading ophthalmologist in Los Angeles in the 1930s and 1940s. At that time, anti-Semitism was common. A prominent man wrote anti-Semitic letters to the LA Times. So the doctor was surprised when that man came into his office. He asked the man why he was entrusting his precious eyesight to a Jew when he disliked Jews.
The man replied, “Sure, I don’t like Jews. But I figured, if you got into medical school in spite of a quota against Jews, you must be pretty smart.”
There is the argument against quotas. Affirmative action first meant that you went out to under-represented groups and tried to interest them in a place at your business or school. But now it means quotas, as with United Airlines. Just as the anti-Semitic man sought out a Jewish doctor because of a quota against him, now many people will try to avoid a woman or a person of color as a pilot – or a doctor, a lawyer, or whatever – because of quotas for them.
Everyone knows this is true, but almost no one dares to say it. When people fear to speak the truth as they see it, you know the country is no longer free. The motto of United Airlines was “Fly United.” That’s not easy when we continue to be disunited.
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