After getting kicked off an Alaska Airlines flight on Friday, a woman is claiming discrimination because she said she was booted from her flight because her “stomach was showing.”
In reality, she says that she was targeted for being a “fat, tattooed, mixed-race woman.”
Ray Lin Howard, 33, from Fairbanks, Alaska, said that the staff for Alaska Airlines harassed her during her flight, so she took to TikTok, sharing her experience.
“I was harassed about my outfit,” Howard said to authorities in her video that has since gone viral with almost 300,000 likes and 2.1 million views as of Tuesday.
Howard said in the video she was asked to put a shirt on over her crop top style shirt that she was wearing, and even after she did, the flight attendants continued to harass her.
“I put my shirt back on, and when they approached me again, saying that I can’t wear this, my stomach is showing — and it’s inappropriate,” Howard explained to the authorities after the fact.
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The police were called, and she was then escorted off of the plane and into a room where most of the footage in the TikTok was shot.
“If you’re going to kick me off, kick me off. I’ve done what you asked me to do; I want you to leave me alone,” Howard said in the video after being approached for the third time.
While being detained by the officer, Howard asked him to let her go, saying that she has a show to perform. The officer then acknowledged that she did not do anything wrong or commit any crime.
“I felt like I was being discriminated against for being a fat, tattooed, mixed-race woman, which in turn left me full of emotions like anger, disappointment, helplessness, humiliation, and confusion,” Howard told Jam Press.
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Howard has since posted several follow-up videos giving more context on the situation and what happened.
“Throughout my life as a fat person, I’ve had to deal with fatphobia, especially growing up in the Midwest — but not to this degree,” she said.
Howard showed the outfit she was wearing and shared that she never raised her voice or became confrontational with the staff.
She even shared an Instagram comment she received backing her up, saying, “the only voice I heard raised at all was the flight attendant.”
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Alaska Airlines responded to a request for comment from the Washington Post, saying, “We’re in contact with the guest. We’re committed to finding out what happened and taking the appropriate actions. It’s our goal to provide caring service to all of our guests. When we don’t live up to that goal, we do everything we can to make it right.”
After Howard was released, the artists made it to her performance. She even shared that the airline called her to apologize, offering a discount code for future flights. She called the offering from the airline “hilarious” in one of the follow-up TikTok.
