The prescient journalist and satirist HL Mencken once wrote, “People would rather feel safe than be free.” After witnessing the unjustified removal of nearly 10 American Muslims from an AirTran flight due to “security” concerns, it seem some Americans would readily jettison their fellow citizens’ civil liberties in exchange for a temporary and false sense of safety and comfort. Atif Irfan, a Muslim American tax attorney, was removed from an airplane along with 8 family members and a friend after fellow paranoid passengers misunderstood their benign conversation regarding the safest place to sit on the plane.

An FBI agent entered shortly thereafter, escorted the family off the plane, and questioned Irfan regarding the incident. Even though the FBI cleared them of any suspicious activity, the airline refused to fly the American Muslim family. “The FBI agents actually cleared our names,” said Inayet Sahin, Irfan’s sister-in-law. “They went on our behalf and spoke to the airlines and said, ‘There is no suspicious activity here. They are clear. Please let them get on a flight so they can go on their vacation,’ and they still refused.”

For many Muslim, Middle Eastern, and Arab Americans, this episode highlights the increasing frustration and discrimination experienced when “FWB”: Flying While Brown. Just last year, six respected imams were unconstitutionally arrested and kicked off an U.S. Airways plane after a fellow passenger complained about their violent, horrifically suspicious activity of pre-flight prayers.

I tell my friends that anytime I’m depressed or lonely, I decide to go to the airport where instantly I’m lavished with meticulous attention and treated like a Hollywood celebrity. Rarely, have I and other ethnic undesirables been afforded such a loving reception. What’s not to love about the multiple TSA agents who “randomly” select you for special inspection? Or their curious, unbridled interest in asking you what mosque you frequent? Their desire to express their hospitality and love is so uncontainable that you’re treated to several physical pat downs covering every inch of your body. This includes the thin, inner sewed linings of my pants, which I was told could potentially conceal bombs. Although my adolescent sense of humor prompted an immature comment upon hearing this, I thankfully exercised restraint.

We are currently engaged in a “war on terror” and have certainly experienced terrorism and tragedy in the form of airline hijackings on 9-11. This, however, does not give a democratic and free country license to be overwhelmed by a paralyzing fear of its own Muslim and Middle Eastern citizens, many of whom are our own peers and neighbors. If we kill our own freedoms at home, then what exactly are we fighting for abroad?

Even though many TSA [Transportation Security Administration] regulations after 9-11 have ensured a strengthened defense program, prejudicial measures specifically targeting “brown” Americans not only placate and inflame our basest paranoid fears, they are also ineffective and inefficient. What was the ultimate result of interrogating Irfan’s family based on a fellow passenger’s unwarranted fear? The flight was delayed two hours.

Perhaps we’ve grown more afraid of water than Muslims, since water bottles are no longer allowed on airplanes. The result of such a brilliantly effective security measure? Federal inspectors placed a fake bomb in the same bag as a bottle of water, but when the TSA opened the bag, they took the water…and let the bomb on the plane. Inspectors were able to slip a bomb past the TSA 5 out of 7 times.

Ultimately, this sort of prejudicial treatment of Muslim and Middle Eastern American citizens must be confronted as unbridled and unchecked racism and fear mongering. The level of ignorance regarding Islam and Muslims is so pervasive that 13% of Americans believed Obama was Muslim simply due to this Arabic name, and thereafter immediately harbored suspicions about his loyalty and true intentions. The authors of Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think, based on the largest Gallup poll conducted of its kind, surveyed Americans in 2002, asking what they knew about the beliefs and opinions of Muslims around the world. Fifty-four percent said they “knew nothing or not much.” When asked the same question in 2007, after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and non-stop media coverage on Islam and the Middle East, 57 percent Americans said they “knew nothing or not much.”

Due to this ignorance and lack of authentic understanding of Muslims and Islam, many Americans incorrectly correlate their Muslim American neighbors with al Qaeda, the Taliban, potential ticking time bombs, terrorists, and anti American radicals. Colin Powell of all people, an architect of two major wars against Iraq, denounced this poisonous rhetoric when he said, "What if [Obama] is [a Muslim]? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer is: No, that's not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing he or she can be president?”

Yet, sadly, some American airplane passengers do believe something is wrong with being Muslim aboard a plane in America. If only the majority experienced the humiliation of being publicly inspected like a dangerous, wild mammal in front of hundreds of strangers, or forcibly removed from airplanes based simply on their last name or their physical features, they would empathize with the thousands of Muslim and Middle Eastern Americans who have routinely been afforded such “random” treatment.

Ultimately, such behavior is not only wrong but also fundamentally un-American, and we must take pause to ensure we never allow our collective fear and anger to cloud our sense of fairness and justice. Let us recall a shameful episode from American history: Executive Order 9066, which allowed the forcible relocation and internment of nearly 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese nationals during WW2. Innocent men, women and children – citizens of the United States – were removed to “War Relocation Centers,” mistrusted, maligned and viewed as potential security threats simply because we were fighting Japan at that time.

Although Muslims and Arabs are the Morlocks and Boo Radleys of the day, perhaps Obama’s new generation of hope can make the ultimate, beneficial change in finally seeing them as fellow Americans. Or, at the very least, maybe allow them to fly on airplanes like everyone else.

God, I could not stop laughing for hours and hours after reading this story on CNN. Muslims looking for safest place to sit on a plane!!! Ha ha ha ha hah ha ha h ah aha ha hah ahha h hahahah haa. *cough* *cough* *cough*

Holy. *out of breath*. Cow. Jesus. Too funny. Someone should have told them. "Safest place on the plane is furthest from your own self." Go figure. He he he heeh ehhehehehe heheehhe.

Oh God. Classic.

I heard Atif's interview on NPR and they have been quite generous about the whole incident, praising the FBI for apologizing and trying to intervene to get them back on the flight. His reasonableness in the interview and lack of a victim mentality goes very far in bolstering his caise.

Flying Imams: Take note!

I don't think they should sue the airline; they should sue their moronic fellow passenger for defamation, or at least sue them for compensation for thier missed airline tickets. I doubt they would win, but it sure would inconvenience the passenger who cried wolf...and then get quite messy as all the anti-Muslim groups would jump to the passenger's legal aid.

>>> ...praising the FBI for apologizing and trying to intervene to get them back on the flight.

Shows you the disproportionate capacity of the state to undermine an individuals rights as opposed to restoring it. You don't praise the FBI for rectifying a fault, when they violated your right/dignity in the first place. That's like praising an abuser for treating your wounds afterwards.

Good point about disproportionate power. However, his maturity in handling the situation can only help him, a maturity and cleverness quite lacking in most Muslims' responses to just about everything...

>>> Good point about disproportionate power. However, his maturity in handling the situation can only help him, a maturity and cleverness quite lacking in most Muslims' responses to just about everything...

While I think its important that we hold each other to a high standard of behaviour, but we also need to realise that Muslims are not all the same, and personal values are bound to DIFFER widely from culture to culture. We can have valid expectations from each other but we need to respect the different Muslim individuals and Muslim groups rights to express themselves in anyway they see fit.

I also think that the usual "muslim response" is actually just media spin on events that are heavily interpreted and poorly lead. Majority of the "Muslims responses to just about everything..." are relative to environmental conditions and that majority of the worlds people behave in similar ways in those conditions. Its unfair to Muslims to hold other Muslims to judgement of mob behaviour when we burn a few effegies, but when mobs run rampant through Greece they are considered political dissatisfaction or socio-economic tensions.

A protest in the US is called a demonstration but a protest in Pakistan will be called a riot etc. That type of heavy re-interpretation, the type that happened during Hurrican Katrina is an ongoing reality of western media bias.

>>we need to respect the different Muslim individuals and Muslim groups rights to express themselves in anyway they see fit.

No, I don't. If their response offends me, I shall not speak favorably for them, I shall not support them and I shall not open my checkbook for them. Principals matter, and we lose ours when we support the unprincipaled actions of others. Moral relativism will not apply here.

>>> If their response offends me, I shall not speak favorably for them, I shall not support them and I shall not open my checkbook for them. Principals matter, and we lose ours when we support the unprincipaled actions of others. Moral relativism will not apply here.

It should be obvious that respecting a right to an opinion is not the same as respecting the opinion. Not respecting the next persons opinion is not the same as treating that person poorly. I believe that it's one straight path, but that path is wide and broad and people walk it at their own pace.

P.S. Relativism by definition is not a bad idea, its just that in application it becomes very subjective. What goes a father does not necessarily go for his 12 year old son etc. That's not a bad notion at all. But its such an open statement that it can be abused by any amount of rationalisations. So I think you'll find the best test of the abuse is how your response changes towards others .. then we see how much "princiles matter".

The other dya while traveling, a TSA agent felt up my hijab. I didn't mind, since I knew that making a scene would just make it worse, but it did occur to me that no one else was getting felt up, even though most people had on lots of baggy winter clothes. No, it was the fact that my clothing was on my head that made her want to make sure I wasn't hiding something in it....though my 2-year old son watched it....someone who thinks a person would blow up a plane or worse with her KID tells you what she must assume about Muslims.

Targeting of bearded and hijabi people at airports has imho something to do with how stupid the bad guys are in American movies. For guys with their lives on the lines, they do the most stupid irrational things. No to mention, can never shoot straight. As a result, the average American (atleast the low-class variety that works in airport securities and military prisons) has this image of what a bad guy behaves like and transposes this to what a terrorist must look like.

Now this dumbed down movie thing has to be a uniquely American cultural phenomenon. I think it has to do somewhat with the lack of too many bad guys in America in real life. People there are relatively well-behaved, say for instance in comparison to failed states like Pakistan or Egipt or South Africa. So well-fed American stomachs create this fantasy bad guy character which they look for out in public in their day-to-day mundane boring lives. >> Enter the Muslims. << Ready-made to fit the role.

Very similar to say 'the hero' or 'the good guy' the average Pakistani or South African fantasizes about in their daily lives, being that most people they encounter day-to-day are corrupt and manipulative. >> Enter White-skinned People << Ready-made to fit the role.

I would definitely sue but the ones that deserve to be sued would be the almost endless supply of young Muslins who consider it a holy duty to destroy the lives of others by wearing bombs in public places frequented by disbelievers who don't share their particular view of Islam.

Like it or not, profiling does work (ask El Al) and there is no recorded plane hijacking by an elderly grandmother.

Young Arab men on the other hand.....