Free we may be (and even that's debatable), but brave? That, we are not. Less than a week after the death of Bin Laden, or "public enemy #1", two imams were pulled off a plane because passengers were uncomfortable, since the men were wearing traditional Muslim dress. It gets better. These men were headed to a conference on prejudice against Muslims. It's one of those things you can't possibly make up.
I will say that, after 9/11 and the various attacks carried out around the world by Islamic extremists, I do support profiling to a certain extent. I don't think bearing an extra layer of scrutiny against men such as the ones on the airplane while going through security is unreasonable (although, they probably wouldn't be wearing Islamic garb if they were about to kill a lot of people, that'd be too obvious). And that's exactly what happened prior to the flight. These men went through security, then through "secondary security" (I guess that means when someone is pulled aside and has a wand run over them or they're frisked), and then were allowed to board. That should have been that.
But no, in the "home of the brave", there were people in the airplane who were pissing themselves when they saw these two guys in dress and wearing turbans. The plane was already taxiing down the runway when the pilot had to come back. They were then re-screened, were again found to be absolutely no threat, and the pilot refused to re-board them and took off.
I hope these guys take Southeast Airlines for a lot of money, they deserve every penny. To me, the bigger story is how we pound our chests with this macho, patriotic bravado (like we did last week) and then get goosebumps and shit ourselves when we are face-to-face with the purported "other", no matter how harmless that person may be. This was nothing but blind, irrational racial fear, and we should all be ashamed of the passengers and the pilot on this flight. What a bunch of pussies.
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