Panic at EWR after racial profiling

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/amberjamieson/alaska-airlines-newark-chaos

by leemailll • 7 years ago

43 21 7 years ago

tus88• 7 years ago

I would love if the title said "Newark Airport" instead of EWR which I had no idea what it meant.

rayiner• 7 years ago

But once police arrived within a minute and started scanning the crowd, Xue said he felt compelled to come forward and identify himself. "I'm like, So, 90% chance I have something to do with this and it's escalated way too fast," said Xue.

This story makes no sense. Why the hell would he volunteer to the police he was involved? Who “racially profiles” Chinese people at an airport?

teej• 7 years ago

Who “racially profiles” Chinese people at an airport?

Alaska Airlines employees, apparently.

edanm• 7 years ago

I mean, I guess it is the "right" thing to do. Though probably not the wisest.

chrischen3• 7 years ago

An airline employee acts bizarre, told him she'd call the police. What would you do if suddenly the police came and shit hit the fan from the bizarre behavior?

He was "volunteering" in that he had information about who caused the incident, which was actually the lady.

ggm• 7 years ago

This story makes no sense. Why the hell would he volunteer to the police he was involved? Who “racially profiles” Chinese people at an airport?

The story makes perfect sense. he was directly involved, and realized if he didn't self identify, the consequences would probably be prolonged, and less pleasant for everyone.

He took one for the team in the wider public interest.

rudiv• 7 years ago

Perhaps he felt it was the right thing to do. Maybe it's hard to understand because his cultural context is so very different. Being that he's from Canada.

BigJono• 7 years ago

Seems fine to me. The lady told him she was calling the police on him so he notified them of that when they arrived. The only weird thing IMO is that he was '90% sure' he was the cause of the commotion. The overreaction seems ridiculous enough that if I were him I might have assumed there was another cause like an actual shooter or bomber there and indicated to the police as such, especially after they go "we've got him" and stop looking.

egdod• 7 years ago

Pretty strange. Why would she be racially profiling Asians as terrorist suspects? Have we had a rash of Chinese guys blowing up planes that I somehow missed?

kart23• 7 years ago

Yeah, this seems like a headline just made to get more clicks. It's just kinda weird honestly. Nothing about the questions she asked implies anything racial.

mikeash• 7 years ago

“...the woman has bipolar disorder and had missed her medication.”

gfodor2• 7 years ago

If the person involved is suffering from mental illness, trying to ascribe any kind of rational (or even an irrational, but directional, motive like racism) seems folly. Is there any evidence to show this persons actions were based upon racial profiling and not some form of temporary insanity? IANAP but it seems as likely as not to me that the employee bumping into the person on line was the triggering event.

derekbreden2• 7 years ago

Why would mental illness, temporary or any other temporality, be reason to eliminate any value in categorizing the specifics of the behavior as racist?

If not all racism, maybe some racism could be a symptom of mental illness? [1]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071634/

huntertwo2• 7 years ago

He noted that East Asians aren't usually profiled in shooting or terror situations, but said he feared that "maybe there is a shift in Trump's America and all this [Chinese] trade war situation."

chrischen3• 7 years ago

The only thing racial was that the employee assumed the two Chinese guys knew each other. She pre-judged that fact based on their race. As for thinking they were terrorists that probably had more to do with her psychological state...

zawerf• 7 years ago

I felt like racism against asians did get a little worse this year. A lot of it is probably due to china coming up a lot more in the news so I start noticing the stereotyping/generalizations surfacing in the comment threads. Usually we get all the good stereotypes (e.g., harvard needs affirmative action to keep us out). But more recently the highly upvoted news were about how you shouldn't trust someone chinese because they are here to spy on you or steal your intellectual property for china.

chrischen3• 7 years ago

This is as much racial profiling as it would be if the airline employee accused them of being bad at math because they were Asian.

Panic at EWR after racial profiling

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