Look For the Briefcase

For John, BLUF:  I think there is an assumption out there that all European descendents are racist, an assumption that ignores history and the prejudice against immigrants from Ireland, or France, or Poland, or Italy or ....  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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White People on a Plane

Here is the sub-headline:

Bigotry in the Sky

From An Injustice!, by Ms Roz Warren, 26 August 2021.

Here is the lede plus one:

I’d just boarded my plane from Philadelphia to California. When you travel alone, sitting on a plane always is a lottery. Would the person sitting next to me be pleasant and friendly? An obnoxious drunk? A motormouth? A jerk who’d assault the first flight attendant who insisted they wear a mask?

This was going to be a six-hour flight and I was hoping for somebody pleasant and low-key. No demands and no drama.

I was in luck. When I got to row 20, I saw that the fellow in the middle seat was a friendly smiling man in his fifties. A woman who I assumed was his wife — they’d lowered the armrest between them — sat beside him in the window seat.

As I sat down and settled into my aisle seat, the man gave me a welcoming smile. “I’m so glad you’re sitting here,” he told me.

That seemed a little much. Was he being flirty? No, I decided. Not only was he at least a decade younger than me, but his wife was sitting right there. Maybe he was just a really friendly guy?

“Thank you,” I replied.

“I was scared it would be the guy with the turban,” he explained. “When I saw him in the boarding lounge, I was really hoping he wouldn’t sit near us.”

She nailed him.  A White racist.  There is not a shred of doubt in her mind.  There is no exploration of her interloctor's personal trauma.  No specuation that he might have lost an older Brother or Father on 9/11.

My first complaint is that the guy in the next seat isn't "White".  He is a Caucasian.

My second point is that as we approach the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States some are alert to the possibility of a repeat of that terrorist event.  Frankly, the vast majority of Muslims walking around in your City, and mine, are just like the rest of us.  They are just more Caucasians, or Blacks, or Asians, trying to have a good day, a good week, a good year.  There is a fringe in their Community who wish to change the world, by violence if needs be.  Is this not true?  And, there are fringes in other communities, but they tend to blend in and not be noticed, like real "White Suppressicists".♠ 

If one is not looking around and paying attention one is living in a fog.  One needs to know where the exits are, not just on the airliner.  One needs to note anyone who looks like they don't belong.  One should be suspicious of packages or briefcases that seem to be abandoned.♥  When I was at Staff College, in the United Kingdom, one of our sister Colleges had a bombing that killed one person.

We shouldn't be paranoid, which would ruin the beauty of life, but we need to be aware.  One the other hand, we shouldn't have our head in the sand, as does, it appears, our Author.  She apparently has not read many history books, or perhaps only those by Mr Zinn.  Lost in school is that an expansive Islam made it to tours in France and the Gates of Vienna, in Austria.

And, we shouldn't assume everyone with a slightly different view is a racist.  We are in this with them.  We should be willing to exchange views.  Perhaps everyone will learn something.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  See Professor Arie Perliger's American Zealots:  Inside Right-Wing Domestic Terrorism
♥  Remember, it was a briefcase that Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg left in the briefing room of the Wolf's Lair on 20 July 1944, in an attempt to kill Chancellor Adolph Hitler.