I’m not sure narrow-minded is quite right. I think cowardly is a better description.
You realise that the shoe bomber had a vanilla white English mother and a Jamaican father?
Ahh I misunderstood then. Apologies.
Are you being serious? Does this come up much? You think fertilizer transportation safety discussion is getting a free pass, do you?
Unlike brave guys like you, here in message board land.
Are we talking past each other, perhaps? It’s clear we’re in disagreement over what constitutes concern enough to alert someone, though I do appreciate your acknowledgement that visual prompts can be quite visceral. I disagree, as I’m sure you already suspected, re: the hypothetical biker as well. At some point, the practical demands action over what I concede are real, though not absolute, rights. I consider us responsible to each other as well–should a building blow up, I’m not the only in danger.
But I fully agree that the sort of discrimination you describe here in this last paragraph is reprehensible. Your college dorm-mate was treated badly, and there’s no excuse or reason for that. I just don’t see how we must either always consider someone’s background and heritage, regardless of circumstance, or never do so. I don’t think those are the two choices. I’d still suggest that someone of obvious Islamic background speculating about explosions on a plane (again, depending upon the nature of the comments) is a circumstance unto itself. I know we disagree on that, but we have no disagreement that the animus you describe toward Muslims is simply wrong.
Thanks for your response, I appreciate you took the time.
Yes, thanks, Diogenes.
Frankly, as someone who travels a lot for business, I’ll tell you that I agree that much of the alleged safety measures feel like nonsense to me, that they are mirages, pointless bureaucracy to create a sense of security.
But that doesn’t mean that ANY scrutiny or action is pointless. I’m not suggesting we give swarthy folks the stink eye, though I realize that’s become a convenient straw man to chuck rocks at in this thread. I have suggested I wanted more details on this case, given witnesses’ allegations that people of Islamic backgrounds were discussing where they should sit should there be an explosion on the plane on that flight. I honestly don’t think there’s a single person posting in this thread, with all the butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths outrage being expressed, who doesn’t know exactly why that is at least possibly (again, depending upon the details) a situation to mention to someone in charge.
That’s the Ward Cleaver type everyone’s been referencing, eh? That guy? 
My point was that it is not a fear made from whole cloth that some Islamic fundamentalists have committed or attempted to commit acts of terror, this lunatic member of al-Qaeda included. IOW, if someone is asking why a situation today on an airplane that clearly involves people of Islamic background–like this one–could possibly be a cause for alarm, the shoe bomber is further evidence. I was not suggesting this nutjob was analogous to this family in any other way. I was responding to jsgoddess’s shock–shock, I tell you!–that we excuse the horrors committed by white-bread Christian types on planes, villains like me who are clearly cause for similar alarm. If you place Reid in that same category, okee-dokee.
The 9/11 hijackers weren’t dressed in Muslim garb. They were dressed like young college guys.
I recommend we profile against young college guys. If they’re not up to one kind of trouble, they’re up to another.
But they were Muslim, and that was (for them, not for most Muslims) the foundation of their evil acts. If your argument is that a real terrorist wouldn’t draw attention to his religion, there’s a logic to that. But that doesn’t mean we don’t know someone is Muslim in another circumstance, even if we may not have recognized it then. I’m not aware of any young college guys who, by nature of belonging to that group, committed acts of atrocity that make me nervous when I see them on a plane. So if you want to profile based on what was essentially a disguise, you’re missing the point.
I’ll go back to my biker hypothetical, since it was so popular based on all the responses to it. If a biker shaved, showered, put on a suit, and then planted a bomb, we’d be right in saying, “Who knew when that guy walked in?” That doesn’t mean the next time we see a biker type, he’s not, well, a biker; nor does it mean that bikers didn’t act in a manner recently that makes them cause for concern if they again behave in a way that seems alarming. (Again, I’ll point out that I have not concluded that’s what occurred here–this family may well have behaved in an innocuous manner, in which case, they had every right to expect to be left alone.)
But do white guys in trucks get pulled over at random all the time because they’re a white guy in a truck? Do people pulled up at a stoplight next to a white guy in a truck call 911 to report it to the cops ‘cause there’s a suspicious white guy driving a truck and, y’know, there was that white guy who blew up a truck that one time, and it never hurts to be cautious, y’know? Do white guys in trucks get stopped, held for questioning for hours, and then released with no charges, no explanation and no apology after the background checks come out clean? Do you EVER hear of incidents like that? Of course not, and that’s the point here - two white guys’ plot to blow up a truck has not managed to taint everybody’s impressions of whether a random white guy is dangerous when he’s driving a truck, but somehow 9/11 means that ALL brown guys on a plane are suspicious and should be checked out, and that’s “regrettable but hey, that’s the world we now live in.” THAT’s where the racism accusations are coming in.
You still haven’t addressed the fact that even after the FBI cleared these people, the airline refused to let them back on the plane. What exactly do you think that suggests?
What he said was that it was an insult to Muslims for people to insinuate that being a Muslim is something bad. You have zero evidence that he ever took being called a Muslim as a personal insult. I say that with confidence because it never happened.
If white, brown, yellow or blue guys are behaving in a way that is suspicious of something extremely dangerous, assuming that suspicion is measured against some “reasonable man” standard, I have no problem with due process being applied–some reasonable precautionary measure, questioning, etc. “White guy driving a truck,” by itself, however, doesn’t do the trick for me. That’s the equivalent of “Muslim family boarding a plane”–there’s nothing inherently suspicious about it.
Yes, I did. I said I didn’t think the airline handled that well, I believe. I think it’s suggestive that the airline didn’t believe the matter was settled. I have no idea why that was the case, nothing beyond speculation.
Lots of Muslims are young college guys. It’s not a disguise or a costume. They shave and shower and everything. Normally, I mean, not just on days that they want to bring down an airplane.
Four thousand Muslims are serving the United States in the armed forces. Only nineteen guys brought down planes on 9/11. Why does what those nineteen guys did carry so much more weight with you than what those four thousand soldiers are doing?
You might just as well see someone in Muslim garb and say, “Cool, there goes an American hero.”
It was in this instance, no? I’m not suggesting all Muslims look or dress alike, or that there aren’t Muslim college guys; if you’re inferring that, it’s not logical. I was reacting to the notion that the attire of the 19 means we should now profile for frat boys. The 19 were dressed in a way that was either a disguise of sorts or simply not relevant or memorable in any meaningful way.
They don’t, unless there’s something strongly and reasonably suggestive of a connection greater than appearance.
I must admit, it is satisfying to hear people shout this out at me. 
I guess this is where we differ. Whether someone was Muslim-looking or not I’d consider anyone speculating about explosions on a plane to be a circumstance unto itself. Depending, of course, on the nature of the comments. I just think when it comes to the potential dangerous acts of terrorists, there’s either suspicious behavior or there’s not, and race and ethnicity really shouldn’t enter into it.
I appreciate your acknowledgment that the discrimination my friend experienced was unjust.
Just a WAG, but once you’ve yanked “suspicious” people off a plane, it’s probably better not to put them back on when you’ve got at least a couple girls apparently primed to create a disturbance at 20,000 feet. Airlines like docile passengers.
I’m not saying it’s right.
My understanding though is that their flight had already departed but the airline refused to send them out an a different one. AirTran’s behavior here is really incomprehensible.
I understand; that’s a separate issue. I’m just explaining why the airline might not put them back on that same flight.