All my joking aside, I agree. People die in car wrecks, from the flu, crossing the damn street, etc in higher numbers… But ebola is and sounds scary, and of course, in our news echo chamber, if it bleeds it leads (no joke intended there).
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Lets face it, this country thinks it’s on a reality TV show and everything needs to be overly dramatized. We must be one fucking bored society,
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Hi, welcome to BoingBoing!
Let me re-write the headline for you:
"Black Guy Sneezes on Plane, Comments About Having Ebola, Sparks Rational Reaction to Deadly, Contagious Disease "
( they tend to leave details out here )
again, welcome!
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They should have reposted the exact same article with a different title and let voting substitute for editing and a near-complete lack of moderation. That would have been the responsible solution.
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Fixed that for you.
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It is clearly not a joke, it’s almost a mantra!
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When he walks by and says “I ain’t from Africa, sheeut”, its almost, but not quite, funny.
And presumably they gave him the option of leaving on his own first, before bringing in the guys wearing hefty bags?
Ok, so… hypothetically, ( hint: here is the tie-down ) if he would have said he had measles the reaction by authorities would have been warranted?
Of course it wouldn’t, and the absurdity of that suggestion should help you gain some perspective on how disproportionate their reaction was.
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Then I’m not sure what your point is.
Someone who acts sick, suggests that its Ebola while riding in a sealed tube with dozens of other people. And when your government reacts but- its somehow an overreaction because it was a black guy?
Perhaps its the weed, but I dont get it. Please elaborate?
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I kind of feel like there was just a puff of dust as your trap sprang, but now its cleared and I wasn’t in it, and it was made of balsa wood.
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Off topic, but you should feel lucky.
Dare answer my question?
A proper course of action is to ask for details. If it turns out it is a joke, wave it off. If further information show it is not, THEN it’s time to a biohazard-handling protocol - if possible without panic-inducing big fanfares, quiet and low-profile.
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Understandable, I see your valid point. But if YOU, or YOUR spouse and/or children had Ebola because your authorities asked questions before taking decisive action would that be an acceptable explanation for you?
I’ll have a crack…
That the threat posed to the US by Ebola is marginal compared to other diseases and the response is wildly exaggerated due to the press it is getting.
Someone sneezes. Then makes a joke.
Not my government and not a coherent sentence…
Ahhhhhh, so that’s what’s got you all trolled up. Political Correctness gone mad. I think there is a very good chance that a white guy would have got away with that joke, but that is speculation, and not a point I’ve taken up here.
Its probably the weed.
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You say that like its a thing.
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What if they were instead harmed by authorities stupidly overreacting (aka “acting decisively”)? This cuts both ways and it is way more likely that a screwup happens that way. What if the hazmat team was at that moment needed at some real problem?
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Okay, let’s be clear, nobody is ever “forced” to pretend they have never heard of this “humor” thing. No actual terrorist has or will ever joke about being a terrorist in an airport, and the odds of a person who knows they have ebola joking about it on an airplane are equally slim. The flight attendants here were indisputably small-minded, authoritarian assholes, like every authority figure in every airline-security flap ever. The dude should probably have known better, yes, but I’m far from comfortable with saying “you had it coming, trying to tell jokes in a police state like that.”
Agreed that BB’s editorial standards got drunk and fell off a bridge sometime in the last year, and I wish they’d cut it out, but in this particular case it’s pretty black-and-white either way.
The only thing I can say is that I don’t see any evidence that they’re actually racists, as opposed to ordinary assholes. Exactly the same thing happens to white people who are reckless enough to say a dangerous word in an airport.
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This post certainly does have that unmistakable quality of perspectiviness.
BTW. I’ve been needing an antonym for truthiness lately. Any suggestions?
would that count as an alien abduction experience?
