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January 02, 2009

They Should Have Been Allowed to Fly

A little over two years ago now, we had quite the extended discussion over whether or not an airline was justified in barring several Muslim clerics from flying. Based on the police and witness reports, I felt the airline made the right call, but many here disagreed with me and saw it as pure racism. Today's news about a Muslim family being barred from flying by AirTran is an entirely different matter, and is clearly an incident of racial profiling.

Officials ordered nine Muslim passengers, including three young children, off an AirTran flight headed to Orlando from Reagan National Airport yesterday afternoon after two other passengers overheard what they thought was a suspicious remark.

Members of the party, all but one of them U.S.-born citizens who were headed to a religious retreat in Florida, were subsequently cleared for travel by FBI agents who characterized the incident as a misunderstanding, an airport official said. But the passengers said AirTran refused to rebook them, and they had to pay for seats on another carrier secured with help from the FBI.

Kashif Irfan, one of the removed passengers, said the incident began about 1 p.m. after his brother, Atif, and his brother's wife wondered aloud about the safest place to sit on an airplane.

Compare the supposedly "suspicious" comments made by Atif's family members to the clearly suspicious actions by the Muslim clerics:

The specific behavior that led to the removal of the Imams included:

- Loud praying in the concourse and repeatedly shouting "Allah"
- Switching from their assigned seats to a pattern of seating associated with the 9/11 attacks (two in the front row of the first class section, two in the middle of the plane on the exit aisles, and two in the rear of the cabin), giving them control of all exits
- Asking for, but not using seat belt extenders even though they were not needed
- Criticizing President Bush and talking about al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden
- Sitting in first class even though their tickets had not been upgraded for first class
- Despite choosing to sit separately, getting up repeatedly to go talk to other members of their group
- Some traveling on one-way tickets

There is no doubt that racism was involved in both of these incidents. In the earlier one, however, it was also reasonable and rational to react with caution and remove the clerics from the plane based on their behavior, which I happen to believe was deliberately provocative. In any case, if we allow ourselves to be so obsessed with avoiding the appearance of being racist that we cannot engage common sense in dealing with a racially charged incident, then we are not safe now and never will be.

Posted by Becky at January 2, 2009 08:43 AM