First Civil Rights Violation of the Year?
Jan 7th, 2009 by nick
I was planning to start off the new year on this blog with a positive or uplifting post, but this story is too frustrating to ignore. Evidently a Muslim family was kicked off a plane flight on New Year’s Day because they were overheard discussing the safest place to sit on an airplane. I am bothered by three aspects of this incident. First, it’s blatantly racist. I have no doubt that a white family in western garb making the exact same comments would have had no trouble whatsoever. Second, the whole thing was an extreme over-reaction. Even after being cleared by security, the family was not let back on the plane. Most frustrating to me, however, is that this incident is representative of our whole reactive and asinine approach to airline security. The airline, while sort-of apologizing, insisted that, “While ultimately this issue proved to be a misunderstanding, the steps taken were necessary…” Really? Because one or two fearful and ignorant passengers were scared, it was “necessary” to inconvenience and embarrass an entire family who did nothing wrong? How, exactly, did that increase airline safety?