Not being brown is no protection against being profiled as brown [via UB]. You don’t have to be Muslim, you don’t have to be desi, you can even be Jewish and you can still be physically attacked by a vigilante passenger acting in the name of “security”:
Seth Stein is used to jetting around the world to create stylish holiday homes for wealthy clients… As he settled down with a book and a ginger ale, the father-of-three was grabbed from behind and held in a head-lock.
“This guy just told me his name was Michael Wilk, that he was with the New York Police Department, that I’d been acting suspiciously and should stay calm. I could barely find my voice and couldn’t believe it was happening,” said Mr Stein.
“He went into my pocket and took out my passport and my iPod. All the other passengers were looking concerned.” Eventually, cabin crew explained that the captain had run a security check on Mr Stein after being alerted by the policeman and that this had cleared him. The passenger had been asked to go back to his seat before he had restrained Mr Stein … He has since been told by airline staff he was targeted because he was using an iPod, had used the toilet when he got on the plane and that his tan made him appear “Arab”. [Link]
Tan + toilet use + iPod = suspicious passenger.So Wilk felt Stein was acting “suspiciously” because he was swarthy, used the toilet and had an iPod. Wilk complains to the Captain who runs a security check and says the passenger is OK. Wilk still attacks him anyway!
Are the other passengers concerned about this vigilante passenger who doesn’t listen to the Captain and who attacks innocent architects? No – they’re happy to have him on board, making them safer from the dark skinned man:
“This man could have garrotted me and what was awful was that one or two of the passengers went up afterwards to thank him,” said Mr Stein… Mr Stein said: “The other passengers looked and me and said, ‘What did you do?’ It was so humiliating. The fact is he [the police officer] was told I was OK and should have left me alone. [Link]
The story gets weirder – it turns out that “Wilk” may have lied about his real identity, which is fishy behavior for a law enforcement officer:
In a twist to the story, Mr Stein has since discovered that there is only one Michael Wilk on the NYPD’s official register of officers, but the man retired 25 years ago. Officials have told the architect that his assailant may work for another law enforcement agency but have refused to say which one. [Link]
Law enforcement is supposed to fight bad guys and act transparently, not attack civilians and hide their identities.
The airline apologized, sorta, but not really, blaming it all on “Wilk”:
American Airlines apologised to Mr Stein, who was born in New York, but withdrew an initial offer of $2,000 compensation on the grounds it would be an admission of liability. In a letter dated 30 May, the airline said it had done everything possible to try and protect Mr Stein.
It read: “Unfortunately, as in any public gathering, there may be occasions when a conflict arises between people or when one individual’s actions bother another… As our crew members may not always be witness to the inappropriate acts of a particular passenger, there may be a limit to what our crews can do to improve behaviour that is perceived as a nuisance.” [Link]
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p>Yeah – having somebody grab you and put you in a headlock and go through your personal belongings is a “nuisance.” Would it have been a “nuisance” if it had been the other way around?
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p>Stein, obviously, is suing the airline.
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p>This is the reason why I reject the claim that Sikhs would not get attacked if people could better distinguish Sikhs from Muslims. Xenophobia is generic, bigots don’t care. Both as a matter or principle and practice, I prefer to advocate for everybody’s civil rights, not just those of my subgroup.
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p>Note: The original story is dated October 2006.
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p>More on Stein and his high end architecture practice: Firm website, other photos
Related posts: Same old story, Fear of flying, Flying while anybody through Vegas, What’ll get you interrogated, Would you turn down a quarter-million dollars?, Recycling While Brown, Speak American in America!, All brownz must speak English in this airport
I don’t know what’s more sickening—the paranoia, or the incompetence.
NYPD? That had LAPD all over it…
Probably not NYPD, although this raises the question of whether it was Wilk at all, working for somebody else, or somebody claiming to be Wilk, which would be weirder.
just was looking at stein’s work. impressive as shit.
Even if the guy was a cop, since when does the NYPD have jurisdiction in airspace an hour out of New York? That would be some 400 miles NE of JFK . . .
Lawsuit…big time.
M. Nam
Wilk is the average joe as defined by Malkin. This is just sick!
As someone once said
“HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE” And isnt that the truth! What kind of tard goes up to someone and congratulates them for attacking a innocent person?
Hahaha! True, taz!
For serious!
That’s disgusting. American airlines should be ashamed.
Poor George Hamilton, I bet he gets the airplane seat headlock all the time. I feel for all the WASPy hedge fund managers returning from vacation in Bermuda..they are just one bad tan away from Gitmo
The people who thanked “Wilk” for his rotten behavior are the most heinous souls here.
I always go to the restroom when I board the plane, esp. if it takes a while to take-off. I get really sick whenever I travel. I guess I should expect this when I fly. Of course, that’s exactly why I don’t fly – not the fear of being sick, but being assaulted, etc., if I do.
Innocent guy gets choked by paranoid nutjob, who may or may not be a cop, and the airline withdrew the $2000 compensation (cheap as it is) because it’s an “admission of liability”? The story just keeps getting better.
I hope he sues them for millions. But then again, they’ll turn right back around and pass it to the rest of us passengers as some other kind of fee. Notice how taxes and fees and are climbing up to something like 25% of the ticket price?
But I’m sure the govt will be ready with another bailout. Bah!
I wonder what would have happened if Mr. Stein had acted in self defense. For all he knew, the guy putting him in a headlock was the terrorist himself!
As someone once said
“HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE”
That would be Jean Paul Sartre and I agree wholeheartedly.
Ha! ha! So true!! All those tanning products out there are going to make whole alot of people look “Arab”. You have heard of driving while black, well this is flying when brown.
I’m embarassed that anyone living in the West would actually think this argument makes any sense at all. How many xenophobes really care about your religion more than the fact that you’re “Other”, and are therefore stealing their jobs, corrupting their youth, making Baby Jesus cry, etc…?
Intersting thoughts in #15, cicatrix. I hope the airline industry doesn’t get into trouble again. I like it better than the expensive white elephant that Amtrak is.
Can Seth Stein bring assault charges of some kind on “Wilk?” The airline may bring up something lame like they can’t release the passenger manifest. Yeah, cicatrix, taking away the loose change of $2000 to repel any culpability is a pretty cheap shot. Sue away, Seth, my man, sue away.
D’oh — must have messed up the “close blockquote” tag while editing.
Also, I’m not surprised that people congratulated “Wilk” (if that is his real name). That’s the part of the story that ALWAYS troubles me after these incidents. It reminds me of when Jeb Bush went out of his way to congratulate that Shoney’s waitress on detaining those med students right after 9/11. The fact that people LIKE seeing anyone “weird looking” treated like a terrorist is really scary to me.
Nice houses he’s designed.
You did say you’re on the market, right?
I was just thinking that Ennis, we could bond over stories of racial stereotyping and modernist architecture.
The link to the Independent’s article is dated 7 months ago, have there been any developments on the story since then?
He would’ve been on his way to sunny Cuba…Lovely time of the year in the tropics, you know…The wildlife is all friendly (that dog is just being friendly Abdul!), you get to learn new water sports courtesy the USMC and you enjoy that much sought after anonymity, the kind where nobody can get in touch with you for a year or two, and vice-versa…
Redneck terrorism is better than brown terrorism…
As to the idiots who thanked the Jack Bauer wannabe, I hope you go sterile and if you don’t, hope your kids vote for Chelsea Clinton!
What I took away from this story: the best way to draw attention away from yourself on an airplane is to make accusations about anyone “swarthier than thou” (STT.) This way, the captain, flight crew and fellow passengers will concentrate their attention and anxiety on the STT.
A NYPD cop?????
I hope this is not a case of a NYPD cop who was friends of cops who died on 9/11 and has some issues with flying with brown people. Maybe he has some serious emotional issues that he needs to deal with.
I hope this is not a widespread problem with cops and fighterfighters in New York.
If Mr.Stein has defended himself he would not have been sent to Cuba. Some of you people need to stop overdramatizing things.
Maybe you do too:
Let’s hope not clueless! Who knows, you could be in a headlock soon if you happen to be scratching your itchy balls whilst flying with this geezer one day!
A liar. One who attacked somebody who had been cleared.
It’s not a widespread problem with cops and firefighters. They are OK with brown people.
i’m not sure what exactly you mean by that, but even if he was otherwise clean in terms of a security clearance, i’m sure having a name like ‘stein’ must have helped him to some extent, post facto. not to me, but to the general american population. people have gone to guantanamo with much less ‘evidence’ pending against them, and i’m sure an ‘exotic’ name must factor into some standard of bias. clearly ‘exotic’ looks seemed to work against him in the first place.
Very good post and comments. I linked to it and added Sepia Mutiny to my blogroll at China Matters as an exemplar of what a impassioned yet collegial group blog can be. Best, China Hand
Horrible. Poor guy…I’m glad he’s taking action. I gotta wonder, would an average Joe Desi have filed a lawsuit like this, or would he/she be more apt to just “move on and not make waves”?
I saw nothing else. In fact, all the other sources quoted the Independent even in October.
This is a good point. We’ve come to accept it at some level. When I go through airports, I expect a longer more hassled wait. I’m not delusional and believe that I’ll be treated the same way as the blondest, bluest eye’d American. But take someone who’s never faced such irrational scrutiny – and you know waves will be made.
But I wouldnt expect any changes, the white Christian majority will no doubt be open to a few false positives, if it makes them believe they are immune to miss-detects.
This story is old, so I wonder what ended up happening. I can’t believe he didn’t demand to have the “cop” detained for assault when they landed. So it’s ok to put a fellow passenger in a headlock and just say “woops” afterward?
who’s up for contacting him to see what ended up happening?
So funny, but he looks more like he ate too many carrots than brown.
It’s sort of like the Brasilian Jean Charles de Menezes shot on the London Underground. If Mr Stein showed any defense at that moment it could have cost him more. And in the eyes of those stupid thankful passengers and the flipping airline it would have been justified.
out of curiousity, did this happen in economy or in business? I couldn’t get to Seth Stein’s website (taking too long to load), but it gave me the impression that he would be flying business.
Could you image how much worst things would be if Richard Reid not been stopped by other passangers on Flight 63 on December 22,2001. I know Richard Reid was not brown, but his religous background would have gotten alot of attention.
In the end that would have resulted in alot more Seth Stein’s and Joe Desi Singh’s having problems flying.
Jean Charles de Menezes was going about his normal business too and still killed by police, the police who are their to protect. If the guy was a police officer or not does not matter, he was trying to be a have a go hero.
Richard Reid was trying to light the fuse in his shoe when people intervened.
Nobody knew his religious background. He was just another black man. That’s one of the things that makes profiling so dangerous – it squanders scarce resources on false positives.
The USA just made another round of arrests in an alleged terror plot. Most of them men were white and European (Albanians to be precise). Focusing on the guy with the tan ignores the pale skinned guys who, if the US government is to be believed, were training to attack an American military base on US soil.
Rudie C you misread my comment. I was talking about how if Richard Reid had blown up flight 93, then you would have seen alot more of these incidents that Mr.Stein had to deal with.
The problem is that alot of people have FOFWB= Fear Of Flying With Brown or FOFWM= Fear of Flying With Muslim. I know that this is wrong, but it take a long time for people to lose these fears.
yeah but there was a reason to stop him.
There are countless incidents everyday people are stopped (maybe not attacked like this guy) for simple reason of the colour of their skin.
Ennis, I was talking about that Richard Reid religous backgroud would have gotten alot of attention after the plane had been blown up.
Four of the 6 men arrested today were albanians, other 2 were from the middle east. But they all have the same religous background.
Exactamundo. The same reason one can get into much trouble for dialing 911 prematurely/irresponsibly. The same should hold in these situations as well.
Point is, if you’re too busy looking at the guy with the tan, you might miss the pale skinned guy without one. What are you going to do – check foreskins?