> > I think his thoughts are: blacks down below doing the
> > dirty work, whites up above out of touch.
>
> Uh, so, kind of "what did you expect those blacks to do?" ...?!?
I think what the reporter was getting at is that the Kittyhawk is kind of an image or projection of American society as a whole. The atmosphere aboard the ship, saturated with both ultra-modern technology and archaic religion, full of consumerism with its phone booths and barber shops, formally individualistic in permitting the sailors to behave like civilian consumers, yet at the same time highly regimented, home-like in its creature comforts yet utterly lethal, with an unacknowledged yet highly visible class stratification based to a large extent on skin color, with an ever-present undercurrent of rage and violence, is a concentrated simulacrum of the society that sent it forth. This is Little America. The elite pilots who take off from the flight deck of this floating community, their hearts full of patriotic emotion and righteous anger, rain death and destruction on people of whom they know nothing, returning right on schedule, like commuters, to a place just like home, where you can kick back at the end of the workday, have a drink, and watch CNN for a while. These few elite pilots are supported by a vast population below-decks, who labor in horrid conditions and sleep in crowded barrack-like rooms. The latter are recruited with carrot and stick--the promise of a job and the chance for an education once they've completed their service, and the threat of prison. Good article, I thought.
Jacob Conrad