Salaam Alaikum wa Rahmatullah<\/p>\n
Well, the title says it all, no?\u00a0 It seems that merely wearing traditional Islamic clothing, or sporting a long beard, or wearing a veil, or simply having swarthy skin is enough to get you bumped from a flight. Just the other day, two Imaams (Muslim clerics),\u00a0 Mohamed Zaghloul and Masudur Rahman, were removed from a flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, after some passengers complained that their mere presence made them feel \u201cuncomfortable\u201d.<\/p><\/div>\n
In my world, if a passenger had expressed discomfort at having to share stale recycled air with a brown man in his pajamas (c\u2019mon, you know that\u2019s what they\u2019re thinking), the pilot or the flight attendants would simply and politely say \u201cI\u2019m sorry you are not satisfied with the color and composition of the airplane passengers.\u00a0 We will be happy to taxi back to the terminal and allow you to deplane so you can wait for a more racially pure airplane that does not have scary brown people on it.\u00a0 Have a nice day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, in the real world, this does not happen.\u00a0 The two Imaams, who had passed through security screening twice, and who were, ironically, on their way to a conference on Islamophobia, were chucked off the plane with hardly more thought than a chain smoker might give to tossing a cigarette butt out the window of his car while speeding down the highway.\u00a0 The pilot would have had the power to ignore the passengers and allow the flight to proceed, but he was the one who insisted he would not take off with the Muslims aboard.\u00a0 Education and the ability to pilot a thousand-ton aircraft apparently does not translate into having common sense. So my poor brothers were humiliated and harassed, profiled and persecuted, all because some idiot didn\u2019t realize that if there was someone on the plane that intended to do harm, he would most likely be clean-shaven and wearing chinos and a blue button down chambray shirt. (Note to FBI agents reading this: I just made that up.\u00a0 No need to scurry and update your profiles or stake out the local menswear store.)<\/p><\/div>\n
The two Imaams have legal counsel now and are considering their options.\u00a0 The airline is zipping its lip and not saying anything after releasing the usual \u201csecurity is important to us\u201d statement.\u00a0 Muslims around the country are shaking their heads and sighing into their coffee.\u00a0 Normal Americans are thinking \u201cthat sucks\u201d while secretly wishing they could travel in their <\/i>pajamas.\u00a0 Tea party enthusiasts are training legions of volunteers in how to feel uncomfortable in the presence of a brown person.\u00a0 Legislators are seriously hoping they don\u2019t have to get involved.\u00a0 The media is returning to covering news of the flooding Mississippi and the split of The Governator and his wife.\u00a0 Life goes on.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
About 4 million people will fly on any given day.\u00a0 Some of those flyers will be Muslim, and many of them will undergo special\u00a0 procedures.\u00a0 Screeners will wand, pat, xray, and feel up men, women, and children in the name of security.\u00a0 Some guys with beards and long robes will be looked at with fearful eyes and will be allowed to fly, or not.\u00a0 The friendly skies are getting less friendly every day, and it does not make us one whit safer.\u00a0 Indeed, it has the opposite effect.\u00a0 It makes the warped jihadi overseas smile because he knows that he can use the video of Muslims being targeted and humiliated as a recruiting tool.\u00a0 He can trot out the tape as evidence that the West hates \u201cus\u201d and that he is justified in declaring war against the infidels.\u00a0 It is another, albeit smaller and less traumatic, Abu Ghraib moment.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t know what I can do about it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
The last time I flew was seven years ago.\u00a0 That was four kids ago, and I really don\u2019t look forward to having to schlep them and all our stuff to the airport even if the goal is a lovely vacation in my husband\u2019s native Egypt.\u00a0 I know that if we do decide to travel one day,\u00a0 I may have to stand there and grit my teeth while some eight-dollar-an-hour security person runs her hands up and down my body.\u00a0 I may have to watch some guy do the same to my kids, undoing years of \u201cgood touch, bad touch\u201d teaching.\u00a0 I may see my tall, bearded husband ushered off for special attention.\u00a0 I\u2019ll try not to cringe, try not to jump out of my skin, I\u2019ll refrain from getting in anyone\u2019s face and telling them to go straight to hell, because I really need that vacation and I haven\u2019t seen the Pyramids in years and I want to eat some fresh dates and cactus fruit.\u00a0 I\u2019ll submit, because I don\u2019t have a choice.\u00a0 But it pisses me off to no end, and it\u2019s made worse by the fact that even if I allow myself to suffer all these indignities I still <\/i>might not be allowed to get on the plane because someone feels uncomfortable.\u00a0 <\/i>If that happens, I don\u2019t know what I might do.\u00a0 If that happens, the redneck in me might come out and I might have to track down Miss Uncomfortable and get in her face and pop her right in her uncomfortable mouth.\u00a0 Then the air marshals would haul me away and I could enjoy my vacation in a nice little cinderblock room being interviewed by the FBI.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
Maybe I\u2019ll\u00a0 tell the husband we\u2019ll be having a staycation this year, just to be on the safe side.<\/p><\/div>\n
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