Dervorin, sorry, I can’t make sense of the analogy you’re trying to draw. Are you suggesting that unless I feel a certain way about the invasion of Iraq, it’s illogical to be concerned if I’m sitting behind an Islamic fellow on a plane who is speculating about the best space to occupy should the plane explode? Regardless of my own opinion on the invasion of Iraq (which I have not offered here), that analogy seems a bit tortured for a number of reasons. Did you mean something different?
Why shouldn’t there be outrage? What happens when it comes out that this single Muslim man was afraid of flying and just watched a documentary about flight TWA 800 and was concerned about the same type of fuel tank explosion?
Is it fair to single him out for being a terrorist? Because he’s Muslim?
You know, I hate to see a family singled out like that, but why do we blame Americans? Blame the assholes who perpetrated 9/11, who are still in hiding, and the governments who are still in power that give aid and comfort to them.
The U.S. was the victim on 9/11. Nobody is talking about concentration camps, but with 3,000 dead, Al-Qaeda still viable, and the borders as still porous as ever, maybe we can forgive some overreaction, no?
Sigh. featherlou no this episode does not show systemic racism or even systemic discrimination. It does not show that America is ready to march uppityswarthy types off into camps. It appears to shows some stereotyping and profiling based on some ignorance and stupidity by a few people and perhaps seems to provide some evidence of institutional infiltration of that stupidity. That is all. This anecdote does not show systemic racism.
Now if you, separate from this anecdote, want to argue that there is systemic prejudice against Muslims in this country, you can do so. I would tend to agree and you wouldn’t have to go any farther than Obama’s treating the accusation of his being a Muslim as an insult. Implicit in his denial is acceptance that being of that faith is bad thing in America. But this one episode is minor in that claim.
And jumping from the fact that there are a large numbers of Americans who have prejudicial views of Muslims to concentration camps is the definition of Godwinizing. It doesn’t even show hate, it just shows ignorance.
Look, I hate to defend profiling. I think profiling imposes an unfair burden upon particular segments of our population. And this was particularly stupid profiling badly handled. But most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, do profile all the time. If you are walking home alone at night which street would feel more comfortable walking down? The one that has only a little old man walking down it with his cane, or the one that has only a 6 ft tall guy with his pants hanging off and tattoos walking down it (don’t even bring in race, the guy is White with a shaved head and a straggly beard). If you just admitted to a little more fear of the big guy with baggy pants and tattoos then congratulations, you are honest enough to admit that you too profile. But no that does not mean that you are a step to being a Nazi.
Yes, I have, just as I have accepted the fact that my own freedom has been limited as a result of the misbehavior of a small minority. I don’t believe any rights are absolute, and I accept that there must be a practical element in the our protection of rights. I understand your position, I just disagree with it.
Let me ask you a question, not intended to be snarky–a hypothetical, which I know everyone just loves around here. Suppose in your town, there were a series, say a half dozen or so, of explosions that were traced to a biker gang. They seem to be racially motivated–maybe certain ethnic churches are targeted. If you were entering a building and saw a large, bearded, tattooed, denim-jacketed biker type leaving, and he said something ambiguously alarming to you, is there any circumstance where you’d think it best to report the situation? Would you say to yourself, “I don’t even know if this guy belongs to a gang, let alone to the gang setting off the bombs. It’s not even clear to me what the racial connection is to this building! And what he said could have been intended as innocuous.” Would you just walk on in? Is there anything that might tip the balance for you, something that might lead to this probably innocent guy being questioned because of how he looked, combined with recent events. Just interested in your perspective.
I think the better solution, especially once the FBI had cleared these people would be to let them get back on the plane and tell anyone who had a problem with that to STFU or GTFO. Let the bigoted freakout “ohnoes Muslims” idiots be inconvenienced and forced to pay more to take another flight.
Practically speaking, I’ll bet that the plane already took off by the time the family was cleared by the FBI.
Everybody went through security again. The plane did take off without them and the airline refused to reticket them on another flight or to compensate them for the additional cost incurred by having to get a ticket on another airline (until a day of international bad press resulted).
Again stupidity badly handled.
Positive Note:
With all this talk of racism, its good to know that passengers aren’t afraid of blacks and the airlines aren’t refusing service to blacks because they are black.
And these incidents are really quite rare, if you think about it. There’s been quite a few shark attacks , people hit by lightening and Pit Bull maulings since the Minneapolis Imams detainment, which is the only other one I can recall.
The rules of modern air travel are actually very simple: if you are Muslim, or Jewish, or perhaps Puerto Rican, or in any way swarthy, sunburned, or in need of a fresh razor blade, refrain from mentioning terrorism, explosions, accidents, and words like “Dynamint” and “balmy.” Likewise, don’t discuss air safety, ask where the emergency exits are located, or ask for a blanket or any other object that can be readily folded into a turbanoid shape. Don’t sit by the window, as it may look like you are scanning for landmarks; don’t sit in the aisle, as it may look like you’ll spring up and rush the cockpit; and don’t sit in the middle, as nobody would voluntarily choose the shitty middle seat unless they were trying to “blend in.” Don’t strike up conversations with strangers, as it draws attention and may make others nervous (especially if you trill your R’s), and don’t sit silently—it’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. If you have any questions, don’t ask the flight attendant—they’re required by law to report all supicious behavior, and isn’t *any *behavior by a supicious-looking person such as yourself necessarily suspicious?
In fact, it might just be better if you drove instead. But about renting that car…
I think the issue of systemic racism has been adequately demonstrated here already.
I thought about this some more, and I would like to amend my earlier statements; the parallel I’m really drawing here is the internment camps for Japanese Americans and Canadians during World War II. We felt fully justified in taking American and Canadian citizens out of their homes and marching them off to armed camps.
From this site:
That sounds familiar to me.
The government isn’t rounding anyone up though. What’s really despicable about this is we’re leaving these judgement calls up to the common people, like gay marriage. There are some things we just shouldn’t leave up to idiots just to make them feel more powerful and better about themselves. Turning in your neighbor is something we really, really don’t need to encourage.
Very well put, Vinyl Turnip
I have the feeling our definitions of ‘‘ambiguously alarming’’ are quite different. While I might feel some anxiety in the presence of someone who fits the biker gang profile, I would acknowledge the completely irrationality of inconveniencing some complete stranger due to something weird they said. Assuming we’re in a good-sized town with 10,000 people, and the biker gang consists of 50 people, this means the probability of stumbling into a terrorist would be about .005. When we extrapolate it’s pretty clear the odds are even smaller for stumbling into a real-life, America-hating terrorist.
Look, I’m an anxiety prone person with a fear of flying. You think I’ve never gotten nervous around an airborne guy with a turban before? I understand how things like implicit association tests work. I know enough about social psychology to understand that generalizations like this are hard-wired into human perception.
But we have more than just emotional reactions. As humans, we are blessed with a sense of ethics and the ability to reason. I can’t always control what I think, but I can always control what I do. The bottom line is that this kind of discrimination is just not rational.
And while I understand you feel you’ve given up a little freedom for your safety, I don’t think the freedoms that Muslims have lost in this country can really compare. You might have to take your shoes off at the airport now, but you don’t have to endure discrimination because you talk with a funny accent or are a suspicious shade of brown. In the days immediately following 9/11, my college dorm-mate could not worship in her mosque because there were threats against the lives of anyone who showed up there. While things may have calmed down a bit, this kind of irrational fear, discrimination, and harassment is still pervasive today.
Thank you. And I miss the days when I caught my typos before posting, goddammit.
Ouch.
What misbehavior? It was an American family asking questions any other American family might ask. So tell me how they misbehaved, and back up your assertion or retract it.
In Strat’s defense, he was saying that the “misbehavior” of the 9/11 hijackers has created the need (in Strat’s opinion) for this kind of paranoid scrutiny and overreaction. I don’t agree with him, but his use of the word “misbehavior” referred to 9/11, not to this family.
How about the white guy who committed the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 and injured hundreds more? Not an airplane-related terrorist act, granted, but why don’t we hear stories about white folk being detained and questioned for talking about the safest way to transport fertilizer? He was a terrorist, just as surely as the 9/11 terrorists. McVeigh was about as white-bread as they come, but I can’t see any profiling as a result of his actions. Perhaps because he wasn’t the correct color to be profiled?
(bolding mine) I disagree with this entirely. An attack by one group of people on one day did not create the current theater of mostly pointless “security” procedures, our own neurosis and fear did.
The need for airline safety is a given, and we should indeed demand it through the application of simple common sense, strong regulation, and level-headed procedures. But in the end, it’s simply not possible to guarantee that nothing will ever go wrong with your flight - whether accidental or through deliberate malfesance. The “security” that we claim we have a right to, is just not realistic. Like walking down the street or getting into a car, we simply cannot protect ourselves from all possible lunatics. All we can do is take reasonable precautions – not against unsafe people, but against unsafe actions. There’s a difference. There have been airplane hijackings for decades–why did it take 9/11 for someone to come up with the idea of locking the cockpit door?
The post-9/11 climate of fear and paranoia made us feel vulnerable, so we put our hand lotion in ziploc bags and take off our shoes and give swarthy folks the stink-eye because we think it makes it safer. Does it? Probably not, but some may feel more “secure.” You know what would make me feel “secure?” An airline that wasn’t going bankrupt, and an airport where the air traffic controllers weren’t overworked and underpaid. I don’t blame the Muslims - radical or not - for that.
{stands up, starts clapping}