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Flying While Muslim, the Prequel

By Amy Sullivan | @sullivanamy | January 6, 2009 | +

Last week we read about a Muslim family that was removed from an Air Tran flight because of “inappropriate comments” that in fact are similar to questions many newbie flyers ask, regardless of age, race, or religious background.

Now comes news that an Iraqi blogger and U.S. resident has been awarded $240,000 in a lawsuit stemming from a 2006 incident in which TSA officials prevented him from boarding a JetBlue flight while wearing a shirt with Arabic script. Raed Jarrar was waiting to board a flight to California at JFK Airport when two TSA officials approached him and demanded he change his shirt, which said “We will not be silent” in Arabic and in English. Wearing that t-shirt in an airport was, they said, “like wearing a t-shirt that reads ‘I am a robber’ and going to a bank.” (Read the entire account on Jarrar’s blog.)

As with last week’s incident, the problem for TSA and JetBlue employees wasn’t the t-shirt so much as the man wearing it. I’m pretty sure if I boarded a flight wearing a shirt with Arabic script, no one would bat an eye. They might even compliment my Rachel Ray keffiyeh.

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  • Paul-no not that one

    “They might even compliment my Rachel Ray keffiyeh.”
    .
    Trolling for Malkin love? Pretty funny, AS.

  • http://pourmecoffee.blogspot.com pourmecoffee

    I have no problem with him being a foreigner and all, but he doesn’t need to put it on his shirt.

  • dumdedumdum

    speaking of Rachel Ray, why does that woman always have her head cocked to the side and her spine all curved up — does she have some sort of spinal issue or is that an “I’m so cute!” thing?

  • Paul-no not that one

    dumdedumdum-
    Rachel, like Giada, has a cranium 1/3 larger than normal. Giada always needs to hold onto something or she tips over. True fact.

  • dunedweller

    “We” simply isn’t specific enough to be an understandable statement, even if written in Arabic. This guy is pretty much a dumb a$$ for wearing that shirt while traveling through a NY/US airport.

  • http://pourmecoffee.blogspot.com pourmecoffee

    I was joking in my #2 above; I can see I better clarify that now.

  • WisconsinLiberal

    i’m just waiting for the day this happens to a us citizen and the airline gets their a$$ properly sued off…

  • newfloridian

    This post has left me madly going through my closet as I write trying to find a t-shirt that will earn me $240,000 on my next flight. Much better than frequent flyer miles.

  • dunedweller

    And I should also clarify #5: …that is, if he wants to get where he’s going – which is what you’d think people want to do in a f-ing airport! (not that he doesn’t have the “right” to wear any shirt he pleases)

  • Cliff

    But did he get a Cinnabon?

  • jose

    This reminds me of the Post Office in the hippie days. They would regularly fire folks for long hair, living in sin, and funny t-shirts. They did this for about five years until they stopped mostly due to the fact they lost every single case.

  • midwestwife

    Raed Jarrar is the guy that Salam Pax was blogging to during the first few years of the war. Our invasion completely disrupted the lives of his family members. He has a lovely, civic-minded, religious mother who wrote heart-breaking posts about the effects of the Iraq war on everyone around them.

    His mother is Shia. His father is Sunni. Because of the sectarianism we introduced in setting up the new Iraqi government, his family cannot live safely in Iraq anymore, but where can they go?

    He’s safe in the US because he happened to fall in love with a woman with American citizenship ties.

    He was flying around the US doing public-speaking gigs to present an on-the-ground-Iraqi point of view of the war. That’s how the stupid teeshirt incident happened.

    He confronted Richard Perle in front of a Frontline camera, and actually appeared to have an impact on the guy. I am so glad that he may be getting this money. I’m sure it will not be wasted or misspent.

    I’m from a part of the US where Arab-Americans have been a respected part of local communities for at least a century, and it infuriates me that we are now so casual about dismissing “arabs” as having no rights and deserving no respect. And no, I’m Scotch-Irish, not Arab-American. I just think tolerant multi-ethnicity is one of the wonders of America.

  • Art Pepper

    What other alphabets should we avoid? Are ideographs OK? The TSA really should post signs about this stuff.

  • rmrd

    Subconscious ethnic bias has consequences far more deadly than being taken off of an aircraft. When a Caribbean man was killed by mistake by 39 shots fired by NYPD officers, some opined that if the Haitian gentleman had merely turned to the shouting armed men and raised his arms in surrender, he would not have been harmed. That stance is obviously ridiculous. An innocent person is not going to assume that armed men heading towards him in the early hours of the day are actually police.

    A person wearing a t-shirt in an airport doesn’t know what words or images would trigger an adverse response. If the Iraqi man who became a US citizen wore an American flag on his t-shirt, would it have been perceived as a form of mockery and still result in a problem?

  • yoshiattack

    Lol. This reminds me of when my mom was detained for quite a while to be oversearched with a portable metal detector even when she informed the officials of what was causing the problem. I guess it was because she was south-east Asian…hmm. I smell money?

  • cfukara

    rmrd Says:
    ” .. If the Iraqi man who became a US citizen wore an American flag on his t-shirt, would it have been perceived as a form of mockery and still result in a problem? ..”

    Ouch!
    Maybe. Then, say, he would be shot dead – or perhaps taken to Guantanamo as a SUSPECTED terrorist – to be tortured together with the Iraqis he may have fingered when he worked undercover for the ‘coalition’ in Iraq … I smell movie rights, eh? ..I smell $$$?

  • Mr. Nice Guy

    Next time I fly – probably a cold day in Hades – I’ll wear a t-shirt that says, “F.ck the TSA!” and see where that gets me. Seriously – f.ck ‘em.

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