Source: Earl Gibson III / Getty
It’s been 72 hours since American Airlines reportedly kicked Tamika Mallory off a flight over a seat assignment dispute, and though a spokesperson for the airline did provide a brief statement to the New York Daily News regarding the incident, the activist and Women’s March on Washington co-chair says she’s yet to hear from the airline since the dispute.
“Had to rebook last minute flights on a different airline after being discriminated against on @AmericanAir,” Mallory tweeted Wednesday morning. “Paid double the price + it appears 1 of the reasons I haven’t heard from senior management at @AmericanAir is becuz they have decided to lie.”
Mallory, who missed the wedding of Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter because of the matter, went on to allege the airline attempted to explain their side of the story in a news article, though CASSIUS was unable to locate the article at press time. According to her tweets, she plans to share a link to the article along with a detailed account of what happened on Sunday.
On Tuesday, Mallory held a press conference to announce a call to action regarding the matter, making her first public appearance since being removed from her flight with her attorney, Royce Russell.
“As a spiritual person, I understand that this happened to me because other people need to have their voices heard,” Mallory said. “… I want to ensure that there are policies instituted in American Airlines that ensure that what happened to me will not happen to another person. And if it does, that there will be immediate action taken to reprimand to whoever disrespects and discriminates against a person.”
Mallory isn’t the only one to experience problems with American Airlines as of late. Shortly after reports of her encounter began circulating, Briana Williams, a Black Boston mom, reached out to New York Daily News stating that she, too, had been booted from a recent American Airlines flight—along with her four-month-old daughter.
Williams was heading to Brooklyn from Atlanta to visit family on August 21 when an argument ensued about retrieving her baby stroller. As a result, she and her baby girl were forced to sleep in the airport overnight while waiting for the first flight scheduled to leave the next morning.
“This type of unregulated discretion is a segue into discriminatory policy,” she told New York Daily News. “The pilot put me in a potentially dangerous situation with law enforcement as a young, Black woman, saying that I was a ‘threat.’ This type of rhetoric paralyzes the African-American community, and I want to ensure that policies are put in place that regulate the pilot’s discretionary abilities.”
Williams has since received 25,000 flying miles (a roundtrip flight) due to the flight crew’s “deviating” behavior according to a customer service representative. Mallory, on the other hand, still awaits as little as an apology.
According to New York Daily News, Mallory is considering filing a lawsuit or joining a pending legal complaint filed by the Rev. William Barber II, president of the NAACP’s North Carolina branch, who was removed from an American Airlines flight last year after getting into an argument with an allegedly racist passenger.
“Someone should be calling me to tell me that what happened to me is wrong,” Mallory stated Tuesday. “I have no choice but to believe that they stand by his actions.”
Read Mallory’s tweets below.
