On a recent trip from South Africa my daughter and I re-discovered that privilege has many benefits. There are multiple levels and shades of privilege, I realize, so when driving in east Austin (my hometown) or touring the former townships and rural areas of South Africa I’m aware that in comparison my family are an economically privileged percentile.
On August 11th, however, our OR Tambo International departure date, we were massed with about 350 Lufthansa Airbus 380 economy passengers in a cordoned off pre-boarding seating area, which butted up against the inaccessible First and Business Class ONLY pre-boarding seating. Whereas economy had limited seating and zero amenities, First and Business had a ample seats and a magazine rack stocked with every imaginable language newspaper to help bored passengers pass the time.
Boarding began (Lufthansa seems to have no boarding protocol, so all customers converge en mass at the gate like livestock at a corral or dipping chute) and almost immediately we noticed the check-in agents were reaching around and over one another, tearing up previously issued boarding passes and reissuing new ones. Wondering what the agent chaos was and why, upon delivery of our boarding passes to the agent (the day before we paid via online a modest dollar amount to be upgraded from “regular” economy to “premium” economy) we were instructed to exit the economy line and proceed to board via First and Business.
It did not register with us what was happening until the First/Business Class agent congratulated us on having been upgraded to business class – I perceived the agent’s unspoken message to be, “Congratulations! You have been selected among all your undignified travel companions to share and bask in the glory of business royalty and identity!” My just-turned eighteen-year-old daughter was simultaneously ecstatic and incredulous, which I’m sure made the Lufthansa agent feel especially good. Apparently the flight was overbooked in economy and in an effort to fill up every seat they upgraded some.
Our shared euphoria and callousness to the plight of former travel companions lasted several hours—through the pre-takeoff sparkling wine served in elegant wine glasses by the purser himself, through the self-exploration of all the Business Class amenities, including the amazing 180-degree reclining seat with lumbar and cushion firming adjustors, large screen TV, Bose headset, personal care kit with toothbrush and shaving kits, ear buds, sock footies, eye mask, et cetera.
The cherry on top of purchased privilege had to be when the purser came around and asked each of us if we wanted to be woken for breakfast – noting our response on his flight pad. Menus were visually detailed and elegantly presented, with three-course meal offers, plus a wide (free) selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. Unlike economy, which serves food with all plastic containers and cutlery, BC meals came in courses, served on fine china with stainless steel cutlery. Even the rolls were hot, with a wide selection of fine German breads, and the purser incredulously kept asking us, “Is that one piece all you want?!”
It wasn’t until post-dinner and movie, when I had reclined my seat fully and settling into an unfamiliar five-hour, in-flight snooze that IT hit me. IT being both conscience and consciousness of my unexpected privilege relative to the majority of passengers.
Did IT compel me to get up, go downstairs to economy and offer my privilege to someone else? No, but IT did cause me to: be mindful of my privilege, give thanks for an underserved privilege, and resolve that if life ever allowed me this (or any other) gift of opportunity/privilege on a regular basis that I would make it a discipline to forego my privilege on a not infrequent basis so as to never lose sight, experience, sensitivity, to what the majority of life sojourners experience on a daily default basis.
I wish leaders and celebrities of each and every imaginable type and geographic place would be like-minded and like-willed. Perhaps, then, we might live in more equitable, peaceful and social justice minded communities and societies, where the proverbial religious Golden Rule was neither golden nor a rule, but merely the essential and everyday mindset of one and every person for another and all persons.
While I recognize some of you who regularly fly First or Business Class – or daily live a privileged life – will rationalize that you pay for your privileges, and work hard to afford them, it’s also true what The New York Times op-ed columnist, Nicholas Kristof wrote in a recent piece entitled, U.S.A., Land of Limitations? – “Success is not a sign of virtue. It’s mostly a sign that your grandparents did well.”
Life 