Travelling while brown - plane delay
 

This on the Jet2 flight from Malaga to Manchester:

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co....hester-7715938
http://www.manchestereveningnews.co....hester-7719592

"The man, described as in his early 30s and of African descent, took pictures of the plane and cabin crew before taking a selfie and snapping the phone’s SIM card. He then threw the SIM down the toilet.

Airport staff and Spanish police carried out security checks before letting him return to his seat an hour later."

His color is mentioned once in the two stories combined, 6 paragraphs in below two photos.

And you make it the key point? Not the fact that he was led off in handcuffs and there was "a scuffle" on the plane during boarding?

Well there is little more than innuendo in there TBH. Basically he took some photos, as FlyerTalk members often do, people were nervous of his behaviour and the police were called, he was then cleared to fly, and some of his passengers decided to get off (delaying the flight further, presumably, while their luggage was unloaded).

No where in the two articles posted by OP does it describe the passenger as "brown" it states he is "African descent"

Which is a region not a color, just as if it was stated he was North American. does that define a color for someone's skin?(besides why does that matter??)

^ Not just the point you make, but the fact that he had been taken off the plane in handcuffs, apparently following some kind of scuffle. I don't care if he was turquoise with green stripes, that would make me nervous if he was let back on the plane.

The cleared passenger being a male of non-European ethnicity is a key point. How likely is it that all the paranoid passengers who refused to fly with the cleared passenger would refuse to fly if the cleared passenger was a seventeen year-old female "chav" of only Northern European ethnic background(s) instead of "brown" or "black"?

Denying the existence of racism where it is? That won't make it go away, as much as the advocates of racist profiling want to deny (or distract from) racism as a factor.

^^ for the pilot of this flight.

Why is it so wrong to give his origin? It's a fact, just as they gave his age and gender. We could go on about gender bias or ageism. As has been said above describing him this way is not racism, racism is what others, who want to, use it to try and make some sort of point that isn't actually there. Don't think we're all tarred with the same brush (and that's not racist either)

A few points here:

* the description of the passenger as being of 'African descent' is in fact a racial description, the key point being 'descent' - a white South African would typically be described as being of European descent, for example

* this is a budget airline on a flight to a bucket + spade destination where people go to eat British food and drink beer in sunshine. Not exactly a cosmpolitan clientele.

* idiot passengers on this exact same route, also on a budget flight, in 2006, caused two men to be ejected from the flight for the crime of speaking apparently-Arabic(it might not have actually BEEN Arabic), the fifth-most spoken language in the world http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-removed.html

* police specifically investigated and the man was allowed to fly, he had also been pre-screened at the airport, authorities in this age are not renowned for being reckless about allowing dangerous passengers to fly

* my view is that the passengers would not have reacted this way if the passenger had fitted the appearance of the typical passenger on this flight - i.e. white and sun-burned.

Indeed. And it's a well-justified view.

The hysterical, racist passengers and reportedly at least one hysterical flight attendant need to consider hiring a private plane or not flying if the sight of a "scary" "brown or black" man in such circumstances catches their imagination's paranoid fantasies about who knows what and makes them go bat crazy in the metal cave.

I have to disagree. The mere fact that he had caused a disturbance and had to be removed in handcuffs would make me nervous to fly with him. Race and gender are secondary to behavior.

People who want to justify racist profiling or who want to deny racist profiling as an involved factor will believe what they wish.

He was released and cleared to fly. That is primary to whipped up claims about "behavior". Do you really believe a seventeen year old girl of only ethnic European appearance in the same circumstances as this guy would have had the same passengers and crew freaking out? If anyone does, I hope they don't go broke picking up their title paperwork for the Brooklyn Bridge.

He was removed in handcuffs because of the behaviour of other passengers freaking out. That's just SOP, when other people accuse you of something. If he had done anything en he would not have been allowed to reboard the flight. Airlines generally have no compunction about kicking disruptive pax off flights. The fact he WASNT kicked off, suggests he did nothing wrong.

You have no basis to conclude that the passengers who left did so wholly or partly over racism. Could it have been (a/the) reason? Possibly, but we don't have any proof of that. They might have also left due to the disruptive incident itself, or the airline's poor handling of it. But absent being able to read those passengers' minds, or a statement by the passengers explaining their deplaning was due to the man's race, none of us knows what was inside any of their heads.

Calling others racist without any proof of such is ridiculous and presumptuous. As is the title of this thread.

(my bolding above) And that's the main point. Someone is black and something negative happens that automatically makes it racism? Nonsense. Not only nonsense, but it's offensive. Playing the victim card by screaming racism whenever you get your feelings hurt doesn't solve any problems and makes the racial divide even worse.

"Do you really believe a seventeen year old girl of only ethnic European appearance in the same circumstances as this guy would have had the same passengers and crew freaking out? If anyone does, I hope they don't go broke picking up their title paperwork for the Brooklyn Bridge."

"People who want to justify racist profiling or who want to deny racist profiling as an involved factor will believe what they wish."