I have an idea about what to do when airline passengers encounter scary fellow passengers.

[Stinky The Clown]

They ought to be invited to GET THEIR RACIST FUCKING ASSESS OFF THE PLANE and be made to explain to the FBI why they feel it appropriate to violate the civil rights of other passengers.

I'm just sayin' .......

The incident in the news right now is a disgusting example of racial profiling and white people's fear of anything not seemingly as pasty white as they are.

[babylonsister]

1. McSame, Palin, etc., did their job well by reinforcing this disgusting

meme. I heard the injured party is suing; I hope they get loads of dough. Maybe that will make airlines think twice.

[Liberal_in_LA]

24. The lawyer (who was kicked off plane) was on rightwing talk radio, he wasn't getting much sympathy

but he held his ground and articulated his point of view. The rightwing talk show host kept saying "the airline erred on the side of safety". The victim pointed out that if it was just an "err on the side of safety" they should have been allowed to continue on the plane. They were held and not allowed food, water, diapers. The family heard the pilot say, as he passed, them something like "she saved us from disaster". (can't remember the exact wording)

[EstimatedProphet]

2. Uh...link?

[uppityperson]

4. DU link...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3668469

[EstimatedProphet]

7. Thanks. That's fucked up.

[Posteritatis]

8. What's fucked up is people defending the airline's actions

Particularly the whole "refusing to rebook them" bit. Ugh.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

3. Have they identified the passengers who complained?

Or do they get the cover of anonymity for their bigotry and cowardice?

[MineralMan]

5. By their Freep name shall you know them.

They're all over this story over there. The consensus is that no Muslim should ever be allowed to fly on any airline. Indeed, they should be returned to the land from whence they came. I'm not sure what plans they have for native born American Muslims.

[mrreowwr_kittty]

9. How do they get back to whence they came if they can't fly?

That'll be a mighty long ship cruise and bus ride.

[MineralMan]

10. Details...details...details...

They are thinkers on a big scale over there, you see. They leave the details to others, along with the facts.

[babylonsister]

22. Most of them were native-born American Muslims.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=4752549&mesg_id=4752549

[Douglas Carpenter]

6. EXACTLY!!I and if they don't like sitting next to people who are different, whether Muslim or

whatever...they can get their dirty, filthy racist asses out of America.. America is about diversity and the future will be more diverse than the past... so if they hate mixing with Muslims or Arabs or Jews or Blacks or whatever....America is not a country for them. They should leave!

[Cleita]

11. Why doesn't the airline have a procedure for these types of incidents?

Or are their executives and employees racist too? Personally, if I were a member of the crew or security, whoever dealt with this, I would have asked the passengers who complained to get off and take the next flight if they were so concerned.

[MineralMan]

14. There's an old airline story, probably apocryphal,

that fits in here. It seems a plane leaving from one of our southern capitols was pretty full, except for one seat up in first class. This supposedly occurred sometime in the 1960s

One gentleman had been seated, at random, next to a black woman, from which the gentleman took umbrage. He summoned a stewardess (or so they called them in those days) and complained about the seating arrangements loudly and at length.

The stewardess listened to his complaint patiently, then asked the gentleman if he wouldn't mind standing so they could make an adjustment in seating. He did, stepping into the aisle. The stewardess then led the black woman up to the empty seat in First Class, leaving the gentleman to ponder the situation.

[Cleita]

18. There's just enough truth in that story that it could have happened.

I once worked at Continental Airlines back in the early sixties and one of my jobs was filing passenger unusual incident reports. Most of them were about drunks and such but some of the stuff that happened on the airplane was even weirder than that. Reshuffling passengers from coach to first class to diffuse incidents was one of the techniques used to maintain order. However, no unruly passenger would have been seated in first class, therefore, the well manner African American lady would have been moved there rather than the obstreperous, racist passenger. If push came to shove, one of the cockpit crew would have subdued a really unruly passenger until they could deplane him at the next airport. Back then most of the pilots were ex-military, so they were up to the job.

[Blue_In_AK]

12. I agree.

I just read that story, and I'm appalled. There was nothing suspicious about these people except their appearance. AirTran should be ashamed.

[unblock]

13. just out of curiosity, do we KNOW the accusers are pasty white, or is that just a guess?

might be a pretty good guess, but whites don't quite have a monopoly on bigoted anti-islamic terra fear.

i'll agree that the accusers should be detained as long as the accusees, until the situation is resolved. bigots should not have license to torment others in the name of anti-terra-ism.

[opihimoimoi]

15. Them complainers should be liable for damages,,,,

[ThisThreadIsSatire]

16. This happens all the time...

A few months ago, an Iranian-born American citizen (who was tortured for 3 1/2 years in Iran for converting away from Islam -- in spite of the fact he was already an American citizen, or perhaps because of it) was trying to put his teenage daughter on a Delta Airlines flight. After being given wrong instructions by a Delta employee and afraid his daughter would miss the flight, he said "You people are driving me crazy."

The police were called, he was threatened with arrest, and his young daughter who did nothing more than become afraid that her father was going to be taken away from her again, was denied access to the flight. The airline, of course, maintains they acted responsibly.

Don't you feel safer with all this 'professional security'?

http://www.nikbin.org

[Cleita]

20. The problem is that it's not professional but ill trained minimum wage

employees who are made to deal with these situations. Hopefully, some competent people will come in with the Obama administration and write some meaningful training programs and procedural manuals to do this.

[stray cat]

17. If you see something say something is the meme in NYC subways and I agree with it

let the people in charge decide if its relevant and let them deal with the fall out. I don't care what color the person is - the system should be able to handle false alarms.

[RB TexLa]

19. Who notices other people on the plane, you can bring a dvd player, Ipod whatever

I couldn't care who is on the plane, what goes on on the plane or what happens to the plane.

[dipsydoodle]

21. There could be issues against the passengers who complained

if those adversly affected decided to push it in the UK :

Hate crime

Hatred is a strong term that goes beyond simply causing offence or hostility. Hate crime is any criminal offence committed against a person or property that is motivated by an offender's hatred of someone because of their:

* race, colour, ethnic origin, nationality or national origins
* religion
* gender or gender identity
* sexual orientation
* disability


http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/crime-victims/reducing-crime/hate-crime/

[Douglas Carpenter]

23. one kick for the next shift