This story is upsetting on many levels. If this isn’t an example of a corporate police state, I am not sure what is. I will explain how this should be handled.
United violently removes Asian Doctor from flight
United Airlines ‘arbitrarily’ selected to violently remove an Asian doctor from an overbooked flight after he was already seated.
According to RawStory,
United Airlines is coming under heavy criticism after it had security officers forcibly remove a passenger from an overbooked flight. … When the man refused, the officers reached in and did something to cause the man to shout out in pain. Afterward, the officers dragged the man off the plane as horrified passengers yelled that there was no need to resort to such force.
In a statement provided to NBC News, United explained that the plane’s crew initially looked for people to leave the flight voluntarily because the flight had been overbooked. When no one volunteered, they chose a passenger to be removed, and he refused to cooperate, which forced the crew to call law enforcement officials. The airline apologized for overbooking the flight but did not apologize for having security drag the passenger off the plane.
The video is quite graphic. In fact, it seems the man is unconscious as they drug him from the plane. My question is four-fold. Why was this specific person selected? Why, after he said he was a doctor needing to get home to see patients, was he not given additional consideration? Why did the flight crew not continue to up its offer until some people thought it was worthwhile to them? Absent that, should the crew not have instituted some random raffle that all could see thus avoiding speculation that perceived privilege played a part in who got picked to leave the airplane?
What do you think? Do you think this would have happened to a white doctor? I do not want to race bait but we can only fix our country when these incidents are analyzed in real time.
I just reposted a story this morning about an AirBnB host canceling an Asian woman’s reservation. Where the following occurred.
As she approached Running Springs, Ms. Suh sent a text message to her “host,” advising that she was nearly there, and asking how she should pay for the added guests. What happened next was fairly stunning. The “host” immediately reneged on the reservation, saying in essence that there was no way she would rent the “loft” out for the price she’d already agreed to, and suggesting that Ms. Suh was “insanely high” if she believed otherwise:
“I wouldn’t rent to u if you were the last person on earth,” the host wrote back to Suh. “One word says it all. Asian”
When Suh replied that she would report the host to Airbnb for being racist, the host told her to “Go ahead” and “It’s why we have trump.”
“And I will not allow this country to be told what to do by foreigners,” the host added.
Ms Suh, an American citizen who has lived in the U.S. since she was 3 years old, preserved the exchange,
I try to look through the eyes of the young woman and the eyes of the doctor. I think what they saw is clear.