Comments on: What really happened to the Muslim passengers who were kicked off the plane?

By: Michele

Michele — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 18:30:29 +0000

While I think the captain acted judiciously, I think the end result is extremely unfortunately. What if this flight was needed to make a connection? I think we’d be very upset…and not that people aren’t inconvenienced everyday. I personally, like one commenter stated, keep my opinion to myself. Once on board, you are fairly stuck in your seat. There is a way to do everything. The person at the gate would be the first one to contact if you had a concern about your safety not those in your travel party. It’s sad to think a couple of jerks could get a group thrown off the plane simply ’cause they don’t like how they look and what they think they said. If I recall correctly, those attempting and actually hyjacking didn’t have any conversations about seating, safety, etc. I have seen far more suspicious or weird acting folk boarding planes. It’s very possible that some of them may have been dangerous to fellow passengers. We are all in a climate where we have to be careful when traveling, didn’t some guy get held by officials for making a joke about bombs. I think that the airline, along with offering them money back for the tickets should address suspect comments in a better manner. There has to be some security person, even from the FBI, that can tell airlines how to conduct a preliminary investigation from a passenger comment. There is no way I should be able to randomly pick a family I don’t like the looks of, say they were talking about planes and safety, and get them kicked off. Our airlines would do well to take a page from countries that deal with safety and efficiency better than we do.

By: Ned Levi

Ned Levi — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 02:03:03 +0000

Prabuddha, your statements bring to mind the quotation, “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.”

You might want to check your history better. The first recorded aircraft hijack was on February 21, 1931, in Arequipa, Peru. Byron Rickards flying a Ford Tri-Motor was approached on the ground by armed revolutionaries. He refused to fly them anywhere and after a ten day stand-off Rickards was informed that the revolution was successful and he could go in return for giving one of their number a lift to Lima.

By: Prabuddha

Prabuddha — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:25:47 +0000

For the man who notices things and thinks all terrorists on planes are Muslims :) go read up your history. The first hijacking in History was carried out by Irgun who hijacked a plane out of London to pressurize the British to release their members who had been arrested for blowing up Arab schools in Palestine. And if you dont even know who the Irgun were they were a group of Zionist terrorists who went on to form Israel . Some of their leaders held cabinet positions later on. The reason the Israelis take terrorism so seriously is that they know it can work. Their own country was founded on that basis. For that matter George Washington used guerilla tactics including sniping of opposing officers. For the moralities of 18th century war based on the proportionality of force sniping was a much worse act then suicide bombing would be for 21st century morality. But so what if terrorism led to American Independence ; it was justified. Remember one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter and the victors write the history. So instead of making moral judgements based on religion try to stick to enforcing the law. Racism just makes the Islamist fundamentalists job of recruiting easier. The appropiate response to such a complaint is to detain the passengers for clarification but as the US constitution gives one the right to confront ones accusers the complaining passengers should also have been detained and deposed by the FBI as witnesses. If people know their frivolous actions are going to inconvenience them too they will not use the serious issue of airline safety to act out their racist worldviews or to play pranks. For all we know this was the act of someone in a middle seat who saw an easy way to have some empty seats around him by raising a false alarm.

By: Prabuddha

Prabuddha — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:11:13 +0000

Lets do a thought experiment. Lets say I am on a plane. I know that Israelis are very unpopular for their human rights violations. I also know that Jews are associated with Israel even though a lot of Jews do not agree with Israeli policies. Now lets say from the safety point of view I say I don’t want to sit next to any Jews. After all if a terrorist started killing Jews he might miss and shoot the person sitting next to him/her. Now if I request the flight attendants to put all the Jews in their own separate section of the plane say section G for Ghetto. Do you think this would be acceptable? Hell no. So why is discrimination against Arabs acceptable? BTW as a Hindu I personally have no skin in this game but the hypocricy sticks in ones craw.

By: AKFlyer

AKFlyer — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 20:47:15 +0000

Yeah, Bill, and we “Christians” have certainly done an excellent job of keeping other Christians from committing atrocities over the centuries!!

And by the way, “Caucasian” is a race while “Muslim” is a religion. You can be a Muslim from a Caucasian background, just as you can be a Caucasian Buddhist. Your confusion regarding race (which is in itself a subjective human construct) and religion (which is a personal choce all US citizens are guaranteed by our Constitution) makes it clear that your bigotry originates in ignorance. Maybe you need to travel more outside the flyover states.

By: Karima

Karima — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 17:01:06 +0000

I guess next time I get on a plane i should just not talk because these days a muslim girl like me cant even say the word “safety” without gettting searched…………………………………………………………………………………………..:)

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 04:50:03 +0000

The muslims were behaving inapropriately on the plane. If they had concerns about where to sit on the plane for maximum safety, they should have done it before they got on the plane. Once you’re onboard, it is too late to be figuring out stuff like that, and quite frankly, it gets people worried, no matter what religion you are.

As for the Muslims, as long as they are unwilling to cull the bad ones from the herd, allow them to use religious facilities for meetings for terrorist activies, etc, they are always going to be eyed with suspicion. It is not only what you do but what you do not do (stop the bad ones) which gets the attention.

Once they were cleared, they should have been put on another flight. I have seen caucasians put on a different flight when there’s been a problem on the original one they had booked. The “muslims” should stop crying racism and be more mindful of what they discuss on a plane.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:37:40 +0000

I don’t know why my post was not correct, but between my two quoted statements, I wanted to say that definition 2 supports the original statement of what makes an act racist. I didn’t mean to imply that “The Man who Notices Things” was racist. Just wanted to clear that up.

By: Amy

Amy — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:35:45 +0000

Is it really necessary for grown adults to act like they’re on a playground here? Seriously, some of you should read your posts back before posting them. (And why not just make up a name besides “Anonymous?” No one here knows you personally, anyway…)

>>>“Basing a decision or action on a person’s race makes that act a racist act”.
INCORRECT.

According to the dictionary I used:

. The belief that race accounts for differences in human character or ability and that a particular race is superior to others.
2. Discrimination or prejudice based on race.<<>>The Man who Notices Things said: Terrorists are ALL Islamic – there are no Basque, Christian, or Kurd terrorists threatening to blow up, hijack or otherwise terrorize the air transportation system.<<<

Is terrorism restricted to air travel only? If that’s what you think, then the ground terrorism must have been due to bad plumbing, or electrical wiring. As far as I can tell, Timothy McVeigh and the Unibomber were not Muslims, yet they caused significant terrorist damage here in the U.S. And if you want to stand by your statement, I think you need to prove it, because there are several thwarted attempts you don’t hear about, and those attempts may not all be by Arabs. Take your time, you will need it.

I personally don’t agree with AirTran’s decision not to accommodate the travellers once they were cleared, but it’s also not my decision. If AirTran wants to create a potentially bad PR situation, they can help themselves. I don’t know what I would have done because I don’t have the full facts of the situation – we only have the slivers that were reported to the media. From what I have read, the family should have been rebooked, even if it meant flying them separately. I think the passengers overreacted out of fear and prejudice (that’s right, I said PREJUDICE), but the captain can remove anyone from his plane at any time. I think the treatment of the family was inappropriate, and they should have been rebooked as soon as they were cleared. What happened was disgraceful.

As long as we have races, we will have racism. As long as we have religious differences, we will have conflict. Perhaps it’s just me, but I am not interested in having my life be ruined by prejudice and fear. I understand what the Islamic faith is about and why the extremists act the way they do. I don’t agree with it, but am I going to recreate the Salem Witch Trials based on my suspicions? If I’m ever in that situation, I will take my own ass off the plane. If indeed it was a dangerous situation, then I’m lucky to be alive. If not, I deserve the inconvenience of rebooking caused by my own prejudices.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:00:25 +0000

@AKflyer: You’re really not worth it. So now, we are supposed to refer to people as “fellow citizen”, even if the citation of their religion, comes from news articles, not our words. Oh, except in the cases where one is white, Christian, or male, in which case it is perfectly acceptable to stereotype. Hypocrite.