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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums‘I’m not comfortable flying with un-American bigots’: Twitter hammers Southwest Airlines
Adam Lidgett
Posted with permission from International Business Times
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Days after news broke that two men were barred from boarding an airplane because a fellow passenger was afraid to fly with them after hearing the two speaking Arabic, people on Twitter lashed out against Southwest Airlines for the incident. The two men, Maher Khalil and Anas Ayyad, said they were profiled in Chicagos Midway airport Wednesday trying to get to Philadelphia, WCAU-TV, Philadelphia, reported.
Both men are originally from Palestine, moving to the United States about 15 years ago. Trying to leave Chicago after visiting family, they were stopped at the gate and told apologetically by a gate agent they werent allowed on board.
Assholes on parade
My wife is a Chinese national. Americans are shitting their pants over the Chinese too. I wonder if this will happen to her on her puddle jumper flight to LA the day she goes back to home. After all, she isn't a white Christian Murikan. God damn, my country sucks these days.
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)blackspade
(10,056 posts)villager
(26,001 posts)House Harkonnen will have the country in its clutches for the foreseeable future.
IronLionZion
(46,128 posts)A lot of people still can't handle the fact that Americans look like me (brown Indian) even though I was born and raised in America and Christian. My Dad and uncles have gotten the private extra questioning by TSA screeners asking them why they have suspiciously American sounding names and accents to go with their US passports as if it must all be excellent fakes that are not fooling anyone who knows what "real Americans" look like. Assholes. Don't get me started on the blatant discrimination I've encountered with jobs that are "not for you, only for US citizens".
One of the oddest arguments against interracial relationships I have ever heard is that mixed children may look "vaguely Middle Eastern" which can cause problems with idiots who need to label someone as one thing or another.
Populist_Prole
(5,364 posts)Talking to some relatives and their friends: Boy are they curmudgeons of the highest order. It's not just race, but culture in general. Anything that offends their 75 year old upper middle class white of northern european descent, stiff upper lip worldview has just got to go.
They look around, scoff and sneer/snarl angrily when they see anything different from their 'Leave it to Beaver' mindset: Racial diversity, uppity-ness of youth, different hairstyles or clothing, lingo etc. They ask me if I am concerned with "what this country has become" and are dismayed when I tell them I'm OK with it. Somebody doesn't bother me - I don't bother them. That's it.
There's been generational shifts throughout mankind's history, and EVERY generation groused at how the succeeding one is making the world go to pot. I say this, they stubbornly agree; BUT: It's as if this they think this time is different...It really is the end of all that's good and wholesome.
They are OK people otherwise but they piss me off so much it's everything that I can do to lay into them with a fusillade of what vile loathsome gits they can be.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Who is "shitting their pants" over the Chinese?
yuiyoshida
(42,110 posts)There is already a ton of them living in SAN FRANCISCO!!! ohhhh my!!!
Exactly!
tech3149
(4,452 posts)I love you in so many ways.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)And I thought they were all Japanese !!
Joke joke.. my ex is Chinese.
ToxMarz
(2,179 posts)TexasMommaWithAHat
(3,212 posts)My son-in-law is Asian, and he's encountered racists making fun of his eyes, but I don't think anyone is afraid of him. I'll have to ask...
And, of course, stereotyped as brilliant, which he doesn't feel like he is because his younger brother actually is brilliant.
whathehell
(29,352 posts)The OP is extrapolating rather poorly. The Chinese haven't been physically attacking anyone lately.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)Chinese Exclusion Act will happen. Especially if Trump is elected.
whathehell
(29,352 posts)I doubt anyone on the thread has that much time.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)lose in 2016.
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for meand there was no one left to speak for me.
whathehell
(29,352 posts)Things have changed a LOT since 1943, and Asian Americans are firmly ensconced in
the fabric of this country...Their status and situation is NOTHING like that of the Syrian refugees.
I think I've probably got quite a few years on you, Feeling -- As for Niemoller's words,
You didn't have to post them, I know them by heart, having read them long ago,
probably before you were born.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)whathehell
(29,352 posts)My spouse did a two year Peace Corp stint in Malaysia in 1973-1975.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)And I just moved here to Petaling Jaya and in my 10th year in Asia.
whathehell
(29,352 posts)He was present when the 1967 "Emergency" was still a recent memory. He lived for a while in Petaling Jaya before moving to a small town in
rural Perak, teaching at the local secondary school. Since then he has spent thirty years working for multinationals, on projects in India and Japan.
Amimnoch
(4,558 posts)Since pretty much every single school shooting that I know of was perpetrated by white males.
Since pretty much all mass shootings in the US that I can think of were perpetrated by white Christian males.
Since Oklahoma city bombing - WCM.
Well, doesn't that allow me the right to feel scared of travelling with those dangerous people on my flight as well??
Of course, I'm not at all serious, that would be absurd, but someone really needs to drive home that point with the MSN and our leaders. Odds are, in this country, if you are gong to be part of a terror plot or mass shooting, it's not going to be a Muslim, it's going to be a white Christian male doing it. That kind of fear should never be allowed to dictate policy though.
marble falls
(59,609 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)TexasBushwhacker
(20,515 posts)secondwind
(16,903 posts)Known Traveler Numbers, the cost is about $80.
You go to the government website tsa.gov/tsa-precheck. on the left side, they will find TSA PRE and 'APPLY'...
If they apply online, when they go for their appointment, it will only take a few minutes.. since all the information has already been received and verified.
Feeling the Bern
(3,839 posts)How many Americans attacked us on 9/11? Oh yeah, none. They were American citizens.
jeff47
(26,549 posts)SusanCalvin
(6,592 posts)I wouldn't, on principle.
The terrorists are doing a real good job of causing us to destroy ourselves.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,492 posts)Did I just read that un DU?
Maybe they should were little Crescent patches.
FLPanhandle
(7,107 posts)Remember they are willing to move women away from Hasidic Jews too.
The airlines need to get tough and tell people "If you don't like who you are flying next to, then get the fuck off the plane. We aren't playing your game".
LittleGirl
(8,299 posts)Arugula Latte
(50,566 posts)by giving them the option of flying in cargo, or on the wing, or in the wheel well. On mostly empty flights they could be stuffed in the overhead bins if they so choose.
whathehell
(29,352 posts)Good one.
greymattermom
(5,779 posts)so that they don't have to sit next to a woman. Only fair if they want to restrict the "cargo" in the next seat.
LittleGirl
(8,299 posts)wtf? have these passengers ever left the shores of the US? My gawd people, I live in Europe and I don't speak the local language yet so you can be sure everyone hears me speak english all of the freaking time. If someone wanted to deport me because I'm American, I would have a meltdown. This is my home.
Think!
kairos12
(13,062 posts)jtuck004
(15,882 posts)and bomber TImothy Mcveigh, good christian and all that, fly off in the plane?
Humans are often afraid of the wrong things...
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)the look of other passengers---
TAKE THE NEXT FLIGHT!
The problem isn't with that brownish person-- it's with you.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)disagree. Who is it the MIC have been scaring us with lately? Anyone from the ME (brown skinned people) and China ( we need the TPP so China doesn't get an agreement.).
The one organization that benefits the most from fear is always either the MIC (when it is foreign) or NRA (when it is domestic).
Religion has little to do with either.
JCMach1
(27,698 posts)jwirr
(39,215 posts)started talking about a "Christian nation". The minister broke in and told them there was not such thing as a christian nation because there were christian people in every nation. And he could have turned that around by explaining that most nations have many different religions.
JCMach1
(27,698 posts)green, or blue eyes and I have known Emiratis who are as dark as Africans.
Circassian Syrians, for example, tend to have Red Hair and blue/green eyes.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)When my Native American son in law was in treatment for alcoholism I wrote him and told him that he needed to think of himself as human because we all have the same strengths and weaknesses. He saved the letter.
JCMach1
(27,698 posts)whathehell
(29,352 posts)decidedly not limited to these shores.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)whathehell
(29,352 posts)spanone
(136,800 posts)Marr
(20,317 posts)Response to Feeling the Bern (Original post)
Marr This message was self-deleted by its author.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)I flew from Tampa to LAX a couple of weeks ago, and there was a group of very clearly Muslim men on our flight. As we were sitting in the airport waiting for our boarding time, it also became pretty obvious that some of my fellow passengers were less than thrilled about it. Several of them kept staring at the men, and the seats around them were oddly empty.
I tend to read while flying and wasn't paying a lot of attention to the world outside my book, but at one point a woman at the counter loudly exclaimed "Why should I have to change my flight? THEY are the problem!" I looked up to see a middle aged white lady talking to the Delta gate agent. She'd apparently complained about the men and presumably tried to get them thrown off. The gate agent obviously didn't agree.
We all started boarding about 20 minutes later...bigoted white lady included...and had an uneventful flight.
OffWithTheirHeads
(10,337 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)MurrayDelph
(5,368 posts)I frequently travel between Los Angeles and two hours northwest of Portland (17 to 20 hours of drive time). With only one exception, of the last forty times I've made that commute, I drive. And that one exception, the lack of ground transportation options to get home meant it took just as long for having flown than if I had driven.
Now back when I DID have to fly a lot for my job, I avoided Southwest because it's business model attracted more assholes (both among passengers and personnel) than most other airlines at the time (20+ years ago).
Daniel537
(1,560 posts)Nice way of showing your true colors there, assholes. I hope a multi-million dollar lawsuit is in the cards here, not just against the company but against the individual employees themselves. People need to start being held accountable for their bigotry.
MBS
(9,688 posts)and a reminder that far-right politicians, Fox news and the Koch brothers (etc) are far from the only ones to blame for the sorry state of our democracy. It's the voters who vote for those politicians, who buy the lies and the small-mindedness and the fears. It's the voters with mindset like this - the passenger who complained , and the airline staff who side with that passenger.
If we lose our democracy, we have only ourselves to blame.