On Monday, Southwest Airlines staff demanded that a white mother provide Facebook posts to prove maternity of her multiracial son, sparking debate about how today’s increasingly diverse families are perceived and permitted to function in the world.
Gottlieb, who is white, is mother to Jordan Gottlieb-Martin, who just turned one in early May. Patrick Martin is Gottlieb’s fiancé and Jordan’s father, and he is black. They flew to Denver for the holiday weekend without incident.
It was on the flight back to Oakland that Gottlieb and Martin ran into difficulty—difficulties Gottlieb believes are connected to the physical differences between her and her baby boy.