Eh, I don’t think I’m your typical anti-American kneejerker. But in this case I gotta say the preponderance of evidence suggests to me panicky stupid ( may or may not be racist, may or may not be American - maybe German tourists are the ones who bitched ).
Sure - it’s not smart. But again preponderance of currently available evidence suggests to me an overreaction.
Well, exactly.
Again, you’re correct. But that’s only one item. Add them all up and I’m sticking to my opinion for now.
You can never trust a person with a beard - especially a woman - they are always hiding something, even if it is only the remnants of their last meal among their foliage!
Hmmph. I could have sworn it was in the CNN report originally but can’t find it there now. No matter. Here’s another version in WaPo.
Not to mention what books passengers may try to bring through TSA security, what sorts of t-shirts they can wear and what sorts of scarves are appropriate, please.
From personal experience, exactly like it. I’m just the right shade of brown that people looking for terrorists give me the eye, and cops looking for the Inappropriate Presence of Negros On Public Roads do as well. It’s fun. (Not as much fun, generally, though, as when I’ve flown El Al to go to Israel.)
Why, in case they’re the new breed of jihadist airplane bombers who don’t expect whatever havoc they’re intended to commit to be a suicide mission? And because so many people survive airplane explosions caused by bombs?
Guess what dumbo, the people yanked off the plane today were all born and raised in Michigan. They aren’t Mideasterners. They’re Americans.
Or I suppose you’re suggesting differing standards of behavior on Yasmine Bleeth, Shannon Elizabeth, Shakira, Sen. Spencer Abraham, Bobby Rahal, Sen. John Sununu, Congressman Darrell Issa, Ralph Nader, Jamie Farr, Doug Flutie, Kathy Najimy, Casey Kasem, Tony Shalhoub, Marlo Thomas, Benny Hinn, Vince Vaughn, John Zogby, Amy Yasbeck, Steve Jobs, F. Murray Abraham and Catherine Keener?
Oh, no, wait, most of them just look white and the women don’t wear hijab, so they can just carry on.:rolleyes:
Guess what, dipshit? That’s what the word “descent” already recognizes.
OOOH! Michigan. MidWesterners. That’s even worse. Those Detroit Three have been holding all of us hostage and who can forget the infamous Pinto Explosions?
But as already been pointed out to you, the family+friends weren’t actually of Middle Eastern descent.
Why not just say “scary-looking swarthy people” and be done with it?
So monstro the idiots on the plane wouldn’t have been more scared that they were of Pakistani descent what with Mumbai and all? - Nah - they probably stopped following that story before it turned out those terrorists were trained inside of Pakistan.
Nevermind.
I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Unless they had some Freepers, or some Bill O’Reilly types on board, it was probably just stupidity. Never attribute to malice, and all that.
Stratocastor, for example-I don’t think he’s smart enough to to feel that way-he honestly thinks that the airlines acted reasonably.
monstro, you’re picking nits. Apologies for the imprecision of my characterization of the family in question. Change it to, “people who appeared to be of Mideastern or South Asian Islamic descent.” It changes nothing else of what I posted–it is exactly as reasonable or unreasonable to you as it was before, I believe.
Fuck you, too, genius.
Personally, if I heard a bunch of people with that creepy Detroit accent talking about the safest places to sit on a plane, I’d get freaked out too. Clearly they were dangerous…
On second thought, I’m gonna stick with my initial assessment and say this was a horrible, horrible fuck-up by AirTran and I hope it costs them big time.
I haven’t checked bios on all of those and some I know of their heritage, but Steve Jobs? Yeah his adoptive father was of Syrian heritage but does that really count?
His biological father was named Abdulfattah Jandali.
ETA: Apparently you got that backwards - his biological dad was the Syrian :).
I suppose you agree cops harassing blacks and latinos too.
That’s the world we currently live in–a world where the bad acts of a few will often result in prejudiced acts toward millions of innocents. Yet rather than fight against it you resign yourself to it. You would limit others’ freedom out of said resignation rather than speak out against such injustice?
Yup. My mistake. Sorry.
Would it help your argument if I admitted to kicking puppies too? Why in the world would you suppose this?
I think you missed my point. I was suggesting that I wanted to wait for further details before concluding that an injustice has in fact occurred. Assuming their remarks could reasonably have been interpreted as something other than innocuous means any “injustice” is principally the fault of the “bad acts of the few.” None of us enjoy all this enhanced scrutiny and airport security and such, myself included. That family apparently did not create the need for this, but neither did the airline or the pilot or you or me. The Islamic fundamentalists, those you correctly identified as the minority, those guys did.
As pointed out, it’s his biological father. And yes, all of those people are of “Mideastern descent” which is Stratocaster’s sole criterion for having to comport themselves differently than the decent people who don’t blow things up.
Watch out for that Congressman Issa, he’s a real terror.