[Update] Another Bad Guy

And it's an airline employee. Is anyone surprised when an airline employee turns out to be racist, sexist, homophobic, or amazingly ill-informed on matters of religion or culture?

This time, it was a flight attendant (the story doesn't say what sex the attendant was) who, when a passenger went comatose, told a doctor offering to help, "“Oh no, sweetie, put [your] hand down. We are looking for actual physicians or nurses or some type of medical personnel, we don’t have time to talk to you.”

The doctor's problem? She was black and female and we all know that unless you are a white male, you can't be an actual physician or nurse‽^†

The airline in question was Delta, but it hardly matters anymore. All of the American airlines are dreadful, as are most of the European. I met a multi-million miler while waiting for a delayed flight once who told me that he consistently got better service on African airlines, where at least the crews were pleasant and the atmosphere congenial.

The radius for driving rather than flying increases every year. I'm up to twelve to fourteen hours, depending upon how long I'll be at the destination. Most of my colleagues are up in the six to eight hours, although some have reached ten.

If this country had a decent high-speed rail system, there wouldn't be a domestic airline flying.

Update

The Washington Post has a follow-up article. It helpfully includes a photograph of the doctor in question. In the future, all flight attendants will be required to carry a copy of this photograph, so that in case of an emergency, they can see what a doctor looks like. I was going to add "in 2016", but the first black doctor in the United States, James McCune Smith, earned his degree in 1837, graduating at the top of his class. The first woman doctor in the United States, Elizabeth Blackwell, earned her degree in 1849, although the medical establishment was so appalled that she was forced to practice in Europe for several years. Perhaps that could be Delta's new motto: "The Airline Most Recommended by Antebellum Doctors".

^†The character at the end of the sentence is the beloved interrobang. It expresses those cases where excitement and puzzlement mix. In this case, why would the flight attendant not assume that the woman was at least a nurse? Has she never seen a person of color as a medical professional before? Where does this flight attendant live? Mars? I live in a state that has a black minority of only 2.1% and I have had both black doctors and nurses. Routinely. This flight attendant is a racist idiot! See how handy an interrobang is? It summed up a whole paragraph in one character. In fact, it summed up a whole character in one character.