More On the Grounded Imams
On Saturday, I posted on the six Muslim religious leaders who were removed from a U.S. Airways flight because they had made the other passengers "nervous" by their activities. On Monday, several of them, along with other imams, a Jewish rabbi, and several Christian ministers struck back in a wonderfully American fashion: they held a protest. From an AP report in the Minneapolis Star Tribune:
Imams, ministers and a rabbi staged a "pray-in" demonstration Monday at Reagan Washington National Airport and demanded an apology from US Airways for barring six Muslims from a Minneapolis to Phoenix flight last week.
The religious leaders called for an end to racial profiling, saying it was unacceptable in America.
...On Monday, Shahin and a handful of other Muslims bowed down on rugs and prayed in Terminal A near the US Airways ticket counter. Jewish and Christian clergy also said prayers.
After the prayer session, Shahin and other religious leaders boarded a US Airways flight to demonstrate their determination to continue praying and flying. [Emphasis added]
Bravo!
Here, by the way, is a description of one of the things that unnerved the other passengers:
The imams, who were returning from a religious conference, had prayed on their prayer rugs in the airport before the flight. After they boarded the flight, a passenger, who was alarmed by their activity, passed a note to a flight attendant. The men were taken off the airplane, handcuffed and questioned.
Now, does anyone believe that if a white Christian group had prayed aloud before boarding the flight that they would have been prevented from flying? Even if those prayers involved speaking in tongues, the most that would have elicited would be eye-rolls from the jaded business class flyers. But these were Muslims, and apparently of Middle Eastern background, and when they kept getting up from their seats before take-off, some passengers freaked. Does anyone believe that excited white Christians not seated together burbling over their conference, would have gotten that kind of attention?
Here's the thing. Most Americans haven't a clue about the religion of Islam. All they know is that a bunch of people professing that faith flew planes into buildings and killed about 3,000 Americans. They also know, because they've been told so damned many times, that we are at war with Islamofascists who want to destroy America and eat our puppies. That certainly doesn't excuse their ignorance, but given the American propensity for intentional ignorance when it comes to anything not white-bread American, it does kind of explain the response of the passengers on that flight.
What is doesn't explain is the airline's response. If there were passengers who were nervous about the prayers and the color of the imams, why didn't the airline offer the nervous passengers another flight? Why were the imams removed from the flight and handcuffed? It seems to me that what we have here is an extension of the crime of Driving While Black. Now we have Praying While Muslim.
U.S. Airways is "looking into" the situation, and we're already hearing calls for some clarification from the federal government on guidelines, but those guidelines haven't caught up to the reality on the ground. I suspect that the racial profiling will continue, but maybe the outrageousness of this incident will provoke a more reasonable approach. In that regard, there is a slightly hopeful note mentioned in the story:
The Homeland Security Department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said last week that it was investigating the US Airways incident.
Well, now there's an idea.
Imams, ministers and a rabbi staged a "pray-in" demonstration Monday at Reagan Washington National Airport and demanded an apology from US Airways for barring six Muslims from a Minneapolis to Phoenix flight last week.
The religious leaders called for an end to racial profiling, saying it was unacceptable in America.
...On Monday, Shahin and a handful of other Muslims bowed down on rugs and prayed in Terminal A near the US Airways ticket counter. Jewish and Christian clergy also said prayers.
After the prayer session, Shahin and other religious leaders boarded a US Airways flight to demonstrate their determination to continue praying and flying. [Emphasis added]
Bravo!
Here, by the way, is a description of one of the things that unnerved the other passengers:
The imams, who were returning from a religious conference, had prayed on their prayer rugs in the airport before the flight. After they boarded the flight, a passenger, who was alarmed by their activity, passed a note to a flight attendant. The men were taken off the airplane, handcuffed and questioned.
Now, does anyone believe that if a white Christian group had prayed aloud before boarding the flight that they would have been prevented from flying? Even if those prayers involved speaking in tongues, the most that would have elicited would be eye-rolls from the jaded business class flyers. But these were Muslims, and apparently of Middle Eastern background, and when they kept getting up from their seats before take-off, some passengers freaked. Does anyone believe that excited white Christians not seated together burbling over their conference, would have gotten that kind of attention?
Here's the thing. Most Americans haven't a clue about the religion of Islam. All they know is that a bunch of people professing that faith flew planes into buildings and killed about 3,000 Americans. They also know, because they've been told so damned many times, that we are at war with Islamofascists who want to destroy America and eat our puppies. That certainly doesn't excuse their ignorance, but given the American propensity for intentional ignorance when it comes to anything not white-bread American, it does kind of explain the response of the passengers on that flight.
What is doesn't explain is the airline's response. If there were passengers who were nervous about the prayers and the color of the imams, why didn't the airline offer the nervous passengers another flight? Why were the imams removed from the flight and handcuffed? It seems to me that what we have here is an extension of the crime of Driving While Black. Now we have Praying While Muslim.
U.S. Airways is "looking into" the situation, and we're already hearing calls for some clarification from the federal government on guidelines, but those guidelines haven't caught up to the reality on the ground. I suspect that the racial profiling will continue, but maybe the outrageousness of this incident will provoke a more reasonable approach. In that regard, there is a slightly hopeful note mentioned in the story:
The Homeland Security Department's Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties said last week that it was investigating the US Airways incident.
Well, now there's an idea.
Labels: Racial Profiling, Religion
posted by Diane at 3:34 AM
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