Said David Ryan Harris, quoted in, "Man Says Airline Stopped Him on Suspicion He Was Trafficking His Children/American Airlines has apologized to David Ryan Harris, a Black musician who said he and his biracial children were confronted by an airline employee and police officers after a flight last month" (NYT).
October 5, 2023
"Apparently, a flight attendant had called ahead with some sort of concern that perhaps my mixed children weren’t my children because they were unresponsive during an interaction with her...."
"So we’re met, embarrassingly so, by this A.A. employee and police officers. They question my kids: ‘Are my kids OK?’ And I wanted to go through the roof. But I did not want my kids to see me handle the situation with anything other than grace and class.... I didn’t (and still don’t) think that a slow or tentative response from a 7 year old on an early morning flight should be enough criteria to have the authorities called... I’ve never begrudged the red flag, I’ve always begrudged the apparent lack of diligence on the part of the flight attendant."
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64 comments:
What if they were being trafficked? A polite inquiry shouldn't make headlines.
I’m glad he still has his children.
What kind of diligence could she perform on a flight that would not tip off any potential traffickers and would allow the FA to also do her regular duties?
If it was only based on their interaction with her, I can see how this might be a drastic reaction. Not all kids are friendly with strangers. If she was observing the kids' interactions with the father and they seemed unresponsive to him, that's another matter.
. I’ve never begrudged the red flag, I’ve always begrudged the apparent lack of diligence on the part of the flight attendant."
Sure, let’s begrudge the over-worked under-paid flight attendant who is tasked with doing something she has no proper training to do, but by all means, let’s not blame the half-assed system that made this disturbance inevitable.
Blacks get police defunded which begat more lawless behavior which begat AA flight attendants policing which begat inept profiling which begat blacks unfairly targeted by police…
I didn’t (and still don’t) think that a slow or tentative response from a 7 year old on an early morning flight should be enough criteria to have the authorities called
We live in a culture where if a 7 year old boy says, "I'm a girl," the authorities will investigate and maybe start castration proceedings.
“a Black musician”
The algorithm needs to do better.
Next time make him an astrophysicist.
That's his side of the story.
I have a 50/50 chance of being right, but I would guess the dad is black. Black grievance is now part of their DNA
Don't the kids have to have ID to get on a plane?
Birds of a feather do typically flock together. Humans developed tortured work-arounds per the mixing that occurred with globalization. Every instinct and heuristic points us to physical matches for identifying group membership. And then we become shocked and outraged when our logical and biological programming is not correct.
Just chill. We are silly animals with silly monkey brains.
https://www.howitworksdaily.com/why-do-birds-flock-together/
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/busy-watering-hole-african-wildlife-namibian-savanna-110048211.jpg
This is why people don’t say anything.
Don't the kids have to have ID to get on a plane?
No, not under a certain age. What ID would you have them present?
I don't know what to say here. It's too bad the dad felt insulted, but child trafficking is horrible and needs to be stopped wherever it's found, and non-custodial parental kidnapping is a legal and moral brouhaha too.
We need to crack down on people who try to protect children. Let's make that racist. - New York Times.
That's some serious projection right there. Surprised this hot take didn't come from the pedophiles running ABC News when they're not trading child porn pics.
I just can't figure out the correct politics of this. A black man unjustly suspected? A buttinsky flight attendant? A commitment to liberating trafficked children? Another failure by American Airlines? (If it were United, the plane would have been diverted to Omaha and the passenger beaten senseless for failure to follow orders. If it were Northwest, they would find the cheapest way to inconvenience everyone.)
Yup. Everything is under control. Everything makes sense. Don't panic. Follow instructions without question.
This is not necessarily a racial
issue. Canada requires the following, viz.,
If a minor child is travelling with one parent only
The parent should present
the child’s passport
a copy of the child’s birth certificate, and
a letter of authorization, in English or French if possible, which is signed by the parent who is not travelling with them and includes
the address and telephone number of the parent who is not travelling, and
a photocopy of that parent’s signed passport or national identity card
This has happened to my (all white) family members
1. So is “if you see something say something” no longer the air travel motto?
2. I’m not immediately seeing the connection to Trump. Do they get around to blaming him deeper into the story?
It was the wrong kind of action, by the wrong kind of person, inspired by the wrong kind of system, full stop. Uncover the mess and fix it. People with their kids should not be getting confronted in airports with "Show me ze papers!". Traveling with kids through airports is miserable enough in the first place, but this overweening take-action-first-and-any-questions-are-a-sign-of-guilt police state that we are increasingly living in, really needs to end. Especially when crime is being allowed to rampantly flourish at the border and in certain cities.
I’m kind of torn on this just based on the snippet the Prof posted. I don’t really feel like flipping over.
In another time, not long ago, we would have thanked a semi-official person in authority for their diligence. I know as I once got challenged by police who had been called by a neighbor trying to get into my new house. In the broader scheme of things, it was a neighbor being attentive and the police doing their duty, Turned out to be a great neighbor, too.
But today, I don’t know. People’s sensitivities are up, the moment to be a victim has appeal, and who knows, maybe the FA is just an a-hole. My first wife was an FA and she told me they were trained to look for quite a few things and this was back before 9/11. I don’t remember trafficking being one at the time but given its prevalence today, it makes sense.
If the father showed grace, if the police were respectful and if the airline expressed regret for the error, this seems like a non-story and a waste of space for the NYT. The fact that it made it to print/post is really pretty sad.
rehajm said...
"Blacks get police defunded which begat more lawless behavior which begat AA flight attendants policing which begat inept profiling which begat blacks unfairly targeted by police…"
That formulation is so dumb I laughed out loud. THEN
iowan2 said...
"I would guess the dad is black. Black grievance is now part of their DNA"
Because y'all been so good to us. No, seriously, this is another howler. I don't know how many black people you know, or have around you, but most black people don't give a shit whether or not you exist, so the idea that they're angry is dumb. You're going off of flash mob teenagers and thugs in the street, which has nothing to do with most black people, and how they live their lives. I see more antagonism on this blog, from commenters, than I do from most black people. The "angry white man" with your bigoted opinions are such a fucking cliché by now it's the main reason nobody wants to join the Republican Party. But you be you. FINALLY
Enigma said...
"Just chill. We are silly animals with silly monkey brains."
These are the facts of life. Thank you.
Why is this a story?
He should just travel across the southern border instead. No checks of any kind there.
Well, you can’t be too careful these days. Maybe the flight attendant had just watched “Sounds of Freedom”?
melk said...
"This is not necessarily a racial issue. Canada requires,..."
Canada? Do you not recognize what exists below you? The first time I went up to Canada, they immediately recognized I was an artist from the American ghetto and, wanting to make me feel comfortable, introduced me to a guy with a knife.
Don't talk to me about Canada.
"If it were Northwest, they would find the cheapest way to inconvenience everyone."
I failed to note that the old Northwest Airlines commitment to minimal service and maximum inconvenience for customers has been picked up by Delta.
That formulation is so dumb I laughed out loud…I don't know how many black people you know, or have around you, but most black people don't give a shit whether or not you exist…
Not many but not zero either. The guy I play golf and have beers with definitely liked that last part though…
…also: how’d you manage to get through a post without trying to draw traffic to your ‘new age’ site?
In the US, you can travel with kids with very little documentation. My fair skinned, freckled, red headed, 11 year old nephew went with our very good Indian American friend and his 3 kids to the Osh Kosh air show. Kumar and his family are very dark complected and speak with accents. They flew from Philadelphia to Wisconsin and camped. My Nephew's mom mom provided a birth certificate, notarized letter from both parents, contact information, etc. They were never questioned. I guess they though the one boy just came out white.
We assumed someone would question it. Now on the other side, my nephew is very comfortable with Kumar and his boys, chats up strangers, and they have been friends for years. The boys were having a great time in the airport, snacking, playing on their iPADs and laughing and being 11-13 year old boys. Perhaps behavior and not color is the issue.
This was on American Airlines too.
Having told my kids for years that we sold their misbehaving older brother Jimmy for scientific research, so they better behave, I am glad we made it through their childhood years without a CPS visit. My wife and I also told them there were indeed monsters in the basement, but that we'd hired only the very best monsters to control the giant rats down there. And that the noises from the attic were probably just a serial killer hiding from the police. Childhood should be somewhat terrifying, as preparation for adulthood.
The large number of illegals being flown around the country likely play a role in this. There are minors being sent across the border without their parents, and the airlines may be looking for instances where minors have been taken by an adult border crosser.
so when you see something suspicious, dont say a word
Pee Doh's rejoiced.
Gotta find something to do with the diversity hires. They don’t work very hard or are aincompetent.
This reminds me of the story told by a female comedian whose name, alas, escapes me. She and her teenage daughter had had a fight and had to fly somewhere together. They were stopped at security.
Security officer (to teenager): Is this your mother?
Possible daughter: [sullenly] Yes.
Security officer: Is she a good mother?
Possible daughter: No! I hate her!
Security officer: [to both] You can go through.
might he have fared better if they were in checked bags?
so is this their first time on flying?
which airline was not as iligent?
so is this their first time on flying?
which airline was not as iligent?
Has anyone ever seen any figures on how many/what percentage of trafficked individuals are trafficked using commercial airlines? I never have. Based on what it costs to fly coach these days I'm pretty sure that number is very small.
Diversity failure.
Child trafficking starts at home and is funded through government, NGO, or private (e.g. non-profit) funds. It succeeds in places with poor or unauditable (e.g. certificate of live birth) records, or through appeals to diversity (e.g. racism, classicism).
How is it racial profiling? If traffickers prey on people who are economically or socially vulnerable, Black women and children would be disproportionately represented.
Nof101:
I have no idea about true market pricing but I would think trafficked children would be worth at least a full row of first class seats. Just sayin'.
Is interstate child trafficking on airlines a thing? I can't imagine that it is since it is an obviously great way to get caught. Surely they don't do this but, rather, use cars. (Which is to say that this guy was flat out unjustly racially profiled.)
rehajm said...
"how’d you manage to get through a post without trying to draw traffic to your ‘new age’ site?"
There are some people on this site who get angry that anyone pays attention to me, and there are other people who imagine I'm using this site to promote my own - and that makes them angry. The fact is, I'm a pretty good conversationalist and, especially at this point,. I do the blog for myself. if I link to it, there's a reason, but you just haven't figured it out yet. Which figures.
Offended if you do, offended if you don’t.
I read the article. Neither he nor his children were traumatized. They were inconvenienced and regarded with suspicion, and there was no immediate apology in the aftermath. His response was more or less appropriate as was the suspicion of the attendant. He doesn't intend to sue. There is, however, a white woman of biracial children who had a similar experience and she's suing. If she wins a bundle, he'll perhaps reconsider his decision....Isn't suspicion an organic part of vigilance? If sex traffickers deal almost exclusively in minority children, is it racist to observe such children with more vigilance?.....We now pat down down three grannies in wheelchairs for every bearded guy with a prayer rug. I suppose now more white families will undergo greater scrutiny while they work out their divorce. If white parents opened their families to sex traffickers, none of this would be a problem and there would be no need to for such profiling. There's increasing pathology in white families, but despite their best efforts they have not yet reached the level of chaos that facilitates sex traffickers. This can perhaps be rectified as we advance further into Bidenomics and our sociery becomes more equitable.
@Dave Begley
Exactly.
Diversity offers guidance that progresses these errors. The Social Industrial Complex (SIC) should apologize to the attendant and family. Demos-cracy is aborted... canceled in darkness.
Has anyone ever seen any figures on how many/what percentage of trafficked individuals are trafficked using commercial airlines?
I don't know... but I do know that every women's restroom in every airport I've ever visited (and that would be pretty much every one I pass between door and plane or vice versa, as it is a pain to use the on-plane facilities and we usually have a one- to three-hour drive from airport to wherever we're going) has an anti-trafficking poster on the back of every stall door.
And as another commenter said, just guessing the sticker price for a trafficked person might make it worthwhile to fly. Flying might provide fewer opportunities for the trafficked person to escape, for instance, starting with how much faster it is than driving.
Do you have a tag for "well-intentioned racism" or "ineffectual interventions that sound noble" ? Can anyone find a reported instance in the past few years of a flight attendant correctly identifying sex traffickers? I am sure there are instances of white adults accompanying white minors being questioned, but I bet they are pretty rare.
He's right, good for him, until they start arresting people on suspicion. Here the suspicion was probably, being the wrong colors. It's a fine line.
It was strangely easy for those kids to draw suspicion onto their father. They simply acted unresponsive when the flight attendant asked them questions after she became suspicious based on their not looking enough like him. I wonder if kids realize they can cause so much trouble. I don’t think these kids did it on purpose but I could imagine other kids making terrible problems for the parents.
Well, of course, if he's black, we all owe him an apology, for thinking he might be engaging in criminal activities. "Clutching our purses", they call it. It's much harder to steal someone's purse when she's clutching it, so it really pisses them off. Give it up, bitch, or I'll cap your ass!
I wonder if flight attendants are required to report "anything" suspicious, but are not given the proper training to know what is actually suspicious. (or how to diffuse a situation that, at first, looks suspicious into one that is not suspicious anymore.)
Last time I was in the Atlanta airport the PA system constantly repeated a message about the full commitment of the airport authority to preventing trafficking and that everyone should be aware of this and if they see something say something.
Apparently nobody pays attention to that, either.
This is not unusual. The national hysteria over sex trafficking not only excuses but encourages people to interrogate couple of different races, people with mixed race kids, couples where the woman looks "too young". It's been going on for year to the plaudits of the political class.
Now it's Black While Flying.
I'll put this here so no one has to bother themselves to click over to my place to see it:
Wisconsin's Madison HMO Group Health Cooperative to end acupuncture, massage therapy and other alternative medicine
This is coming a few years after this:
A 'grave error': France to phase out coverage for homeopathy
So things are looking up,...
Media, Leftists Furious That Men Identifying as ‘Non-Binary’ Crashed a Woke Women’s Tech Conference
Another incident engendered by DEI. They have faith that they can abort the baby, cannibalize his profitable parts, sequester his carbon, and have him, too.
Oh, well. This incongruity will not soon be lost in a black hole... black whore h/t NAACP.
I wonder how many women will ask their sons to take a knee. Their daughters, too. The same request that sunk the #MeToo hunt. That, and Kamala "take a knee" Harris, VP. The audacity.
"FleetUSA said...
What if they were being trafficked? A polite inquiry shouldn't make headlines."
Of course it should. The father is Black. BLACK!!!
The comedian at 10/5/23, 8:45 AM is Rita Rudner. The story is around 2:30:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6sjx9oX72U
I pick my niece's three grade school children up two days a week. I take them Cocktailing at places like Baskin Robins after school. Once someone called the cops. I was question as to why I had the children. I explained, gave them my drivers lic, told them to call the catholic school or my niece. They did, I thanked them for their due diligence and concern. I bought them both ice creaam cones.
Everyone involve were white with the exception of the black female cop. You see I exhibited white privilage. I acted rationally, responded yes sir and no mam. I showed respect to the uniform. It's what my father taught me, not that cops are out to kill me. Only bad parents teach their chilgren otherwise. Only an idiot confronts a an offical with the sanction of leathal furce.
Ann @ 11:23: "...I wonder if kids realize they can cause so much trouble." I gotta believe that kids do realize this, and right quick. And bad kids then abuse their power to cause trouble. I'm thinking in particular of kids in school cooking up false complaints against teachers for inappropriate words, deeds or, God forbid, blows.
"I wasn't doing anything and Mr. Smith grabbed me and I felt scared! It still hurts!"
A BS line like that could be a career-ender. And both Smith and the smirking little troublemaker know it. So guess what? Smith studiously ignores the troublemaker, and trouble is duly made.
When I was young, they used to put missing kids on the back of milk cartons.
Now sometimes I get an "Amber alert" on my cell phone.
Of course, we all worry about pedophiles and the sexual abuse of children.
But a lot of missing kids might not be part of the sex trade at all.
I heard a law professor in a Family Law class suggest that many missing kids might actually be part of a custodial dispute. The father or the mother is mad about what a judge did, and ran off with their child or children.
"I don't know how many black people you know, or have around you, but most black people don't give a shit whether or not you exist, so the idea that they're angry is dumb."
And yet, here you are, angry. Again.
To be honest, a lot of what you write on other subjects I agree with. Damn near all of it actually.
Me, while I have no idea regarding rehajm's frequency of interaction with Black folks may be, I've lived in North Minneapolis for decades and spent just as many years working with homeless and at risk youth, kids in gangs, kids exiting prostitution, parenting and pregnant teen moms, kids who've been raped, pimped and worse. And over 85% of those kids were/are Black. Hell, I was even beaten buy a gang of Black youths on Plymouth and Penn, who then stole the bicycle I was riding. It's what compelled me to work with these kids. A turn the other cheek thing. They clearly were in need of help.
So that's why I know that your racist rants are just an act. A flailing for street cred. I find that odd. Well that, and because I've never met a Black person like you in real life.
No one can fool all of the people all of the time, not even you. But on the outside chance I'm mistaken, and you're truly as angry about the plight of Black folk as you claim, here's a suggestion. Go out tonight and kill a couple of White folks, and finally get it all out of your system. You'll feel a lot better. Really, you will.
Or maybe you could do what I did.
Blogger The Crack Emcee said...
I'll put this here so no one has to bother themselves to click over to my place to see it:
Wisconsin's Madison HMO Group Health Cooperative to end acupuncture, massage therapy and other alternative medicine
This is more likely to have happened because of skyrocketing costs than because of a return to logic.
I'm reminded of a red eye from LAX to Philadelphia several decades ago. A Caucasian woman and oriental man came on board with five very young children "in arms." Before taxi a flight attendant (we still called them stewardesses then) stood in the aisle at the front of the plane holding three of the children and said, "I need some mothers."
The response was ... oversubscribed.
I hope that that could still happen today.
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