Yesterday, on a Delta Airlines flight from London, two men who spoke in Arabic were kicked off of the flight. Adam Selah, an American YouTube vlogger and rapper, claimed that he was talking on the phone with his mother and speaking to his friend in Arabic and the people around them started to cuss at them, repeating that they were uncomfortable. There are different accounts of the incident, but both have consequential outcomes. Selah posted a video of himself being escorted off of the plane, while simultaneously accusing the passengers around him of racial profiling. You can watch his video here to see how he was reacting to his ejection. However, multiple accounts from people that were also present on the airline during the incident have surfaced and tell a different perspective. On Twitter one person posted a photo of their ticket and a statement of what they believe happened – Selah was trying to get his friend to yell in Arabic (he yelled a total of four times) to see if they could disturb any passengers, and when someone told them to stop they told the passenger to ‘shut up’ and filmed the passenger’s reactions. This particular account is from a man who claims to have no racial prejudice because he has been the best man in two Arab weddings and he himself is Jamaican/British. Another account from Facebook stated that Saleh and his friend were staging the incident and balling their fists up in the air. He said that they were removed for being loud and disruptive.
It is difficult to analyze events like this where ethics are on the line. It is definitely true that racism continues to be very prevalent in America and specifically airlines, but it seems that in this case the two men may have been instigating unnecessary conflict. With a closer look I found that in October 2014 the YouTuber uploaded a video titled “Racial Profiling Experiment”, which showed the differences of a police officer’s response to two men fighting in western wear versus traditional Muslim wear, showing that yesterday’s event was not the first experiment on racism performed by Saleh. He also has reported to have lied about airline events in the past, saying that he had flown inside of a suitcase in the baggage housed on a Tigerair fight from Melbourne, which authorities have proven was a lie after viewing the Melbourne Airport security footage. If either account is accurate, something can be said about publicity and modern racial profiling.
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Since the incident there has been a Delta policy change and are providing “inclusion training” for the employees.
