everyday racism

Black Woman Harassed by White Passenger on Delta Flight Praises Company for Response

"I just thank God that this didn’t flip onto me because too many cases Black people are guilty until proven innocent," Demetria Poe wrote in a Facebook post

Delta Airlines planes at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
Jeff Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A Black woman who said she was harassed by a white passenger on a recent Delta Air Lines flight is praising the company for taking a stand against racism, NBC News reports.

Demetria Poe, who lives in Minneapolis, said she was traveling to Washington, D.C., on Thursday for the Commitment March, a civil rights rally, when a white female passenger came back to her seat wearing a Blue Lives Matter face mask.

Blue Lives Matter shows support for police officers and is considered counter to the Black Lives Matter movement.

"She proceeded to remain silent until take off but once we took off she started the conversation with me by saying, "I support blue lives because I support our officers.' I explained to her blue lives do not exist," Poe wrote in a Facebook post on Monday. "The life of an officer exists but there is no such thing as a blue life and that statement is nothing but a rebuttal to the fact that BLM [Black Lives Matter] has been disregarded time after time after time."

Poe said the woman continued to make inflammatory comments, including that "having Blacks in America has been the best thing for them because they can work they way up."

Eventually, other passengers on the plane spoke up to defend Poe, and a flight attendant offered to move the woman's seat. Poe did not immediately return a request for comment on Saturday.

Read the full story on NBCNews.com

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