Former Vogue Editor Says She Stormed Out of First-Class Plane Seat After Discovering Fellow Passengers Were All ‘White Middle Aged Men’

Xavier Collin/Image Press Agency/Sipa USA via AP Images

Former Vogue editor Gabriella Karefa-Johnson revealed this week that she stormed out of an expensive plane seat after discovering all of her fellow first-class passengers were old, white men.

“I just downgraded myself from first class to business class on my flight to Milan,” Karefa-Johnson announced in a social media post on Tuesday:

In a cabin of 6, 5 of the passengers were white middle aged men… then there was me, a 30 something black woman who travels in that cabin often, and a male flight attendant who thought I’d be okay with substandard service and persistent micro-aggression from the moment I sat down. He was… wrong. I don’t suffer fools, and i would sacrifice physical comfort to protect my emotional and mental well being any day.

After a social media user commented, “I’m sorry you had to do that-you deserve to be anywhere and everywhere. They belong in economy,” Karefa-Johnson replied, “Hard agree! It’s just such a bummer that humiliation is part of the gratification for racists. Protecting my peace felt like letting him win and I hate that.”

The former Vogue editor’s rant quickly went viral online, where she was mocked for being “just like Rosa Parks.”

“The microaggression: ‘Would you like a glass of champagne, madam?'” joked the satirical newspaper The Sunday Sport, while Townhall writer Amy Curtis commented, “Oh, the humanity.”

Karefa-Johnson resigned from her position as editor-at-large of Vogue in October 2023 in protest over Israel’s invasion of Gaza.

“I resigned as kind of a material action of solidarity and because it was just time for me to move on,” she said at the time. “There’s so many things that these institutions represent that I’m not.”

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