Apreciate the lenghty response 
I apologize if I gave the impression I believe this, that I thought he responded poorly, to be clear, I do believe that the couple was being racist, and I also believe that’s why she didn’t want the author to sit with her.
But while my only point was to say that the Airline was not being deliberately or unconsciously racist, meaning I didn’t believe that the pilot or the airline where being racist, I also realize that I weakened my position when I wrote:
And now that I’ve thought about it some more I’m coming to the conclusion that:
1.- The pilot was not being deliberately racist, not the way that the couple was being deliberately and openly racist.
2.- Except he was totally being racist in the institutionalized sense. I mean, I stand by what I said, I believe the captain just wanted to deal with this with as little hassle as possible, the path of least resistance.
And that’s where the racism is hard to purge, because if the lady was really racist and was egging on her husband to defend her racist position, then, even if we grant that the captain knew this, it was probably going to be near impossible to have the couple back down from their position, certainly not without more raised voices and a phone call, and some letters to the airline, followed by even more phone calls.
If anybody here has worked in customer service before they probably know the type of people I’m talking about, which, from what I read, is what this couple seems to be like.
So yes, if the captain knew that this couple was discriminating against this person, he should have done everything in his power to curb it, I think everybody here can agree with me on this.
But on reflection, it desn’t really matter, the path of least resistance was still to pick on the darker colored skin not because he would have believed that the author was something less then a person, but because of the privileges, real and imagined that the white couple possess.
That lady KNEW she could fight back without much in the way of reprisal because she is white, and her husband backs her up apparently, and she is used to this.
The author KNEW he wasn’t going to get anywhere once he was singled out, he probably hasn’t had much luck in the past with this either.
Its a sort of con-game white get to people play if they so choose isn’t it? Doesn’t have to be true, everybody involved just has to believe its true, or true enough. (Just like a scientific theory, we don’t know if its ultimately true but we can use it to make accurate predictions about reality)
So I take it back, yes, I still believe the pilot was not trying to be racist and yes, the author could have handled himself better and handled this in a smarter manner (which I didn’t mean to say but other people hinted strongly at), but there’s something similar in this situation to saying a woman has to work twice as hard as a man in some fields in order to get half the respect.
Its unfortunately true in real life, but its still not fair.
