Tuesday, October 03, 2006

Flying while brown, part II

I used to call it, 'Travelling while Asian', but let's face it: it's the brown skin that counts.

Here's the latest, from Boing Boing:

A 32-year-old man speaking Tamil and some English about a sporting rivalry was questioned at Sea-Tac Airport and missed his flight Saturday because at least one person thought he was suspicious.

[....]

The man was speaking Tamil, a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore, on his cell phone at the departure gate and on the aircraft. An off-duty airline employee heard the conversation and informed the flight crew.

All those years I spent fending off attempts to teach me Tamil by my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, great-aunts and great-uncles and second cousins twice removed are now finally worth it ! I am safe !!

I wonder what will happen if I speak Hindi....

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5 comments:

  1. I was at the airport the other day speaking arabic on the phone, and I remembered your post when I saw someone staring at me. It was kind of strange but I there was nothing I could do because he already looked suspicious. I smiled at him and hoped he would thus feel silly. 

    Posted by Anonymous

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  2. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  3. The beauty of being a white man is that you go slaughter a whole classroom full of Amish girls and that STILL won't make you a terrorist.

    The only thing whites must be aware of is: don't stay on the beach too long, because THAT will make you a terrorist.

    -----------------------
    THE INDEPENDENT
    "To the applause of fellow passengers, the Jewish designer was escorted from a New York flight as a potential bomber. Because, he tells Sophie Goodchild, of his holiday tan"

    http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article1777847.ece


    Posted by Bernard Chazelle

    ReplyDelete
  4. No idea why my comment appears twice. I tried to fix it but seems to have make it worse. Damn computers... 

    Posted by Bernard Chazelle

    ReplyDelete
  5. Very interesting post if you are looking for credit score  and how to raise credit score information check out my website! 

    Posted by george

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