That’s pretty much where my mind went as soon as I heard about this story (and why I included the concentration camp reference in the OP) - I did nothing when they came for you (because you were a Muslim, and probably guilty of something anyway; if nothing else of being different from me and not believing in my holy Jesus), but now they’re coming for me!
I disagree emphatically with this. The people of America cried loudly and longly that they didn’t feel safe, and they didn’t care what it took to make them feel safe again, and your politicians have acted on that ridiculous, non-attainable mirage. The cynic in me says the government is more than happy to have scared citizens, because scared citizens are docile citizens (Patriot Acts I and II, anyone?).
Reasonable people can disagree on this, I suppose. But the trigger in any event were the unpleasant fellows flying planes into buildings and trying to explode their shoes in flight and sending out videotapes expressing their commitment to our destruction, do you agree? IOW, this fear wasn’t manufactured out of whole cloth, right? Can we assign a tiny bit of the blame to the guys toppling buildings in Manhattan?
And it’s amazing how white people can do horrific things and then others of the same race or religion or ethnicity are allowed to go about their business without being hassled.
It’s just more of the “All of us are unique and should be judged as individuals. All of them are the same and should be judged as a group.”
Actually I think you kinda missed my point. I get your position on this particular instance of discrimination, but you said, in essence, that Muslims have to deal with more shit because unfortunately that’s just the way the world is right now. Muslims have to watch what they talk about with their families because that’s just the way the world is right now. You have passively accepted the limitation of others’ freedoms. You can blame terrorism on a handful of Islamic fundamentalists, but you can’t blame a handful of Islamic fundamentalists for racism and discrimination against Muslims. Racism is an individual, irrational choice that every person makes and is responsible for, and when enough individuals make that choice it becomes systemic. No catastrophic world event excuses it. You seem to be classifying it here as some kind of inevitable injustice, when it is in fact a personal choice people make.
I don’t think it did - this is what I hoped to discuss. How far do you let systematic racism go before you are talking about concentration camps? Would that make Joe Sixpack comfortable again, if all American Muslims were penned up someplace so they weren’t on his flights, having conversations?
If the passengers really are so concerned, why not let the scary passengers through security once more and let the plane wait a few minutes? I’m not suggesting that this instance even came close to warranting that, but in cases when there is some real concern. Maybe they actually know what a security theater an airport is. In cases such as these, I wish the airliner would book the complainers on a different flight instead of teh scary looking dark people.
Congratulations, you’ve never had to take, say, Ryanair or easyjet. It’s “first get on, first serve.” There’s “groups” for boarding (pay extra, board sooner) but in most airports that gets ignored. Sometimes it felt like the only reason no knives were being flashed was that nobody had one.
I’m white enough to be guessed American by border agents in Florida or the US-Mexico border (I’ve had an agent tell me “you should have gone to that other line” before seeing my maroon passport), but brown enough to be frisked an inordinate amount of times if I take a plane further north. And lemme tell you, it’s a pain in the neck.
Thing is, the FBI cleared them (they even complimented the FBI for how the FBI handled it) and the FBI asked the airline to accept them, but the airline still refused. That’s not a safety issue – that’s a bubba issue.
So, you’d agree with me if I slightly altered your statement, would you?
That’s the same sort of broad brush you’re painting with, and if you find one acceptable and the other not, well, I would want to know why. If you find both truly acceptable, however, and would support similar treatment of an American who made a similar innocuous comment about safety during invasions, well, then I have no argument.
Therein lies my main beef with the situation. The airline acted prudently, IMO, given the general nature of what was reported to them. After the FBI cleared them, they should have been accomodated. This whole after-the-fact “we’re so sorry, here, fly home on us for free” probably wouldnt’ve come about had one of the offended mentioned the possibility of a lawsuit.
Diogenes, now you’re nitpicking. The point wasn’t that those guys were on the flight, it was that their misbehavior created the need for all this security and scrutiny. And I already addressed the nationality issue.
Perhaps you can educate me then. Who were the white-bread, Ward Cleaver types I’m overlooking, who created the need for airline security, the guys who tried to detonate their shoes after boarding, or who flew planes into NY buildings and slashed the throats of stewardesses with box cutters, or who–having successfully destroyed said iconic buildings, killing a few thousand people in the process–sent videotapes out assuring us of their unflagging commitment to our destruction, in case we were worried they might be taking some time off?
I missed those guys in the news, maybe you can refresh my memory, unless you’d rather just continue in the uber-PC chorus, rending your garments and gnashing your teeth, wailing over our imminent departure to the concentration camps. If you’re otherwise inclined, you might take notice that there were a few in this thread capable of disagreeing in a calm, reasonable manner. Perhaps that’s not as fun.
