As I was driving to work this morning, I was listening to WHUR 96.3 (local station in DC) and they were asking people to call in about this newly reported situation. Apparently, there were three Arab-Americans on a Northwest flight and the other passengers expressed that they did not feel comfortable flying with the Arab-Americans on board. The Northwest representatives requested that the Arab Americans remove themselves from the flight. The flight took off without them.
The callers, mostly were African American, responses ranged from utter outrage at Northwest Airlines and the passengers blatant discrimination to a total agreement with Northwest's actions.
I feel total and complete outrage. We are all justifiably scared; however, sanctioning this type of 'racial profiling' is truly only the beginning of a wider spread racial discrimination to come. I feel that we, of all people, should have more empathy. I also feel that we better recognize that if this type of treatment of Arab Americans is condoned, the door is slamming wide open for all other racial atrocities to take place.