We could repeat all the same old profiling arguments here, or debate why people can’t tell the difference between writing in a foreign language and math and what that says about our education system.
Note to self… if I know any foreign-looking high school students, I should discourage them from taking (or working on in public) advanced math classes because there’s no telling who will report you for being ‘suspicious’ (and I’d be more than P O’d if I’d been delayed on that plane for two hours).
But really, what have we come to? At what point, as the U.S. tries to recruit top talent from around the world will they stop coming because they aren’t Aryan-enough looking, and aren’t interested in the kinds of experiences illustrated in this article?
I do almost all of my note taking on paper even with a tablet.
This doesn’t surprise me but it makes me sick. We’re in for much more of this now since bigots and xenophobes no longer even have to pretend that they’re not.
^It probably had greek letter symbols. It’s not just the passenger. The attendants and pilots didn’t recognzie it, either? Everyone mistook the diff eq for arabic writing? Wide spread ignorance is worrying,
Arabic is a right to left script. I get that infuriating woman not knowing, but the pilot? Anybody who proposes further education cuts after this should be given a sound thrashing. Maybe school teachers should deliver the beating.
Pretty sad that this woman couldn’t recognize math equations.
That said, many flyers are edgy. Maybe they lost someone during 9/11, maybe they just fear being a victim of another terrorist plane attack. Heck, some of the professionals are edgy. I was once on a plane, we hadn’t yet taken off, and suddenly a bunch of folks boarded and started questioning the man seated in front of me. He had a name that matched the “no fly list”. He was able to prove that he wasn’t “that person”…and we were finally allowed to take off.
The article said he was curt in replying to her innocuous questions. A little politeness might have stopped the whole situation.
But in a time when everyone is nervous and hypervigilant when flying, these things are going to happen from time to time.
Last time I flew I had to unwrap a Lalique bird I’'d been given as a gift. Out of the box Out of the bubblewrap. I guess it looked odd on the scanner. I also had a family Bible from 1800 in the same carryon, which got rubbed down for explosives residue. I was none too happy since this is no way to treat an antique book. But when I was testy with the TSA agent, I got a response that quickly indicated to me to ‘shut up’ and comply or I’d be in trouble.