United States resident Raed Jarrar has received a major settlement of $240,000 from JetBlue and officials at the Transportation Security Authority for an outrageous action taken against him in August 2006 when he was forced to cover up a tee-shirt with Arabic script. Ironically, the shirt displayed the words (shown above) “we will not be silent.” However, other passengers felt uncomfortable simply because it was arabic writing and, instead of telling the passengers that they are dysfunctional morons, JetBlue forced Jarrar to wear a shirt over his tee-shirt to cover the writing.
Jarrar was told that wearing any shirt with Arabic lettering on a plane was like “wearing a T-shirt at a bank stating, I am a robber.”
In case you are hoping that in the course of three years, the intellectual lowest common denominator of our country has risen, think again. Recently, eight Muslims were forced off an AirTran flight because they were discussing which part of the plane is the safest and passengers became alarmed.
What is often missing in these stories is a statement that the airline and transportation officials responsible have been fired. The complete lack of judgment shown in this matter should shows that these officials (particularly the Transportation officials) need to find other gainful employment.
Such irrationality does not surprise me since at least 1/4 of the U.S. population still likes G.W. Bush and most people worldwide “believe” in an anthropomorphic god, angels, ghosts, life after death, and many other supernatural “things” flying the friendly skies with them and floating somewhere out there in the wild “JetBlue” yonder….
Really rafflaw!
Sally, I agree. The hijackers on 9/11 went out of their way to appear “clean cut, well dressed and normal” so they would not arouse suspicion.
I don’t think a terrorist would make themselves that obvious!
It is almost comical how stupid some people can be. The mere wearing of a T-shirt with arabic writing on it caused people to worry that they were boarding a plane with a terrorist. I would think that it would be more likely that they should worry about someone wearing a George W. button! I my only wish is that the award was even bigger in an attempt to shake some sense into Jetblue and to passengers.