American Airlines backs stewardess who announced she was "watching" Muslim passenger in Seat 25-A, then kicked him off flight

Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2016/07/21/american-airlines-backs-stewar.html

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Can we please have some European and Asian stewards/esses start doing this to random Americans on board their flights. With all these mass shootings going on they better be “watching” them.

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I hope that Mr Radwan is able to sue the airline and the attendant.

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To be fair, he was acting all Muslimy.

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That will back fire. Americans love attention.

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The attendant, especially. There’s this weird idea circulating in the U.S. that only some people need to be personally accountable for their own actions. Let’s disabuse them of that notion.

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Funny, I’ve never had an employer who was that concerned about my comfort. Guess I’m in the wrong job.

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I’m not sure that being racist is a workable way to combat someone being racist, regardless of the intention.

All it’ll achieve is to legitimise racism, on both ‘sides’.

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What I find interesting is that none of the other passengers got involved. I understand that tickets are expensive and getting kicked off too would be a giant hassle and no one flies these days unless it’s important. But with all of these cases and all of the co-passengers involved, there hasn’t been one person who was in a position to do the right thing?

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How tannoying.

sorry but I never, never get to make that joke.

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Welcome to Trump’s America. Enjoy your flight.

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'Murrkan Airlines

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“We thoroughly reviewed these allegations and concluded that no discrimination occurred.”

I think we can all agree the flight attendant lacks discrimination.

… oh, that’s not the sense they meant? They were trying to deny that the attendant is an ignorant bigot? Even though she so obviously is, and is misusing her authority and their company in service of her dumbassed prejudice? Why would the company do this, why would they risk their reputation by backing this clear liability of an employee?

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I was thinking of exactly this question, of what I would do as a witness to this abuse. I’m not sure I would vocally protest; after all, the victim isn’t being physically harmed or endangered, and I would want to get to my destination and have no idea when or how I’d do so if I made a spectacle of myself or expressed solidarity with the victim.

But I’d record the facts, and would use them to make as much noise as possible once there was no risk to my cowardly self. A few strongly worded letters really are the least you can do.

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It’s really not enough for companies to say “we concluded nothing was wrong” as though that’s in any way a satisfying answer. They need to justify it. They need to say WHY they’ve concluded that, to give us facts. Especially when the only possible explanations would involve mind control or time travel.

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Hey, maybe there are some facts about this case that we just don’t know. Maybe he was wearing his best “Death to America” t-shirt and muttering “jihad jihad” under his breath. Maybe he looked at her with his Evil Muslim Death Glare™ - heck, maybe he was being all suspicious by refusing to eat pork or being too brown. We just don’t know.

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[quote=“beschizza, post:1, topic:81917”]
Mohamed Ahmed Radwan had boarded a plane in Charlotte, North Carolina and the flight attendant went to the tannoy and said: “Mohamed Ahmed, Seat 25-A: I will be watching you.”
[/quote]What the heck is this even supposed to accomplish? “I had been planning on killing everyone on board this flight one way or another, but now that you’ve said you’ll be watching me, well, I’m all turned around on the subject! I mean, I wouldn’t want to get into trouble – gosh, you might even deny me my little packet of pretzels!”

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Evil nefarious Muslim activities only work when no one is paying attention to them, you see. Also, if you say “Radical Islamic Terrorism” three times, they disappear in a puff of smoke.

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Same as it ever was: power corrupts. Small minded individual gets cut off on their drive in to work and decides to vent at some poor innocent at the first opportunity.

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I’d be interested in a little primer on just what training flight attendants for spotting and handling ‘suspicious’ or otherwise problematic behavior in passengers. But I’m not really figuring how an announcement like that would fit into their approved procedures.

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