Is this racial bias?

[NM11046]

Ok, so this isnt going to be perfect, but I want to step away from the violtile topic of race and children's saftey and drill down to the core issue.   Its not a perfect analogy I know but here goes.

So NUance, lets say you are an overweight, white, bald 56 year old man.   You own an orange, jacked up Mazda RX7 (a la Fast and Furious).  You are driving down the highway going 5 miles under the speed limit and get pulled over by a cop who claims it was because he was concerned that you didnt look like you owned the car.  You show him proof of insurance, liscense, registration etc.  No dice, only young drug dealers and street racers own these cars, it can't be yours, show me some pictures of you standing by this car the year you bought it as proof.  FB is fine.  The cop only wants to make sure that you are "safe" in this car, because you're an white, overweight, bald man.   While you are on the side of the road a red Mazda RX7 being driven by a white, 22 year old chiseled  male who is wearing RayBans and has great hair drives by gpoing 80 and the cop waves to him.  

Still think its a saftey issue that he is worried about?  Or is it that you don't fit the profile for what he, in his mind thinks should be driving the car?

 

[knapplc]

I haven't read the article or anything related to this. This could be racial profiling and bias and discrimination or it could be an airline employee trying to watch for child trafficking.  Like a lot of these sensational stories that come out, we probably need to wait for all sides to chime in before making a decision.

We know that airlines are focusing on child trafficking:

Flight Attendants Train to Spot Human Trafficking

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 2,000 human traffickers and identified 400 victims last year. Since 2009 Airline Ambassadors has been working to make sure that when a trafficker flies with a victim, the flight crew is trained to spot and report them.

Over two days, former victims related their experiences to the flight attendants. In-flight crews were taught to look for passengers who appear frightened, ashamed or nervous; people traveling with someone who doesn’t appear to be a parent or relative; and children or adults who appear bruised or battered.

They’re also taught to notice if someone insists on speaking for the alleged victim, doesn’t let them out of their sight or becomes defensive when questioned. Victims sometimes appear drugged.

Skies are the frontline in fight against human trafficking

Rivard, a former flight attendant, said her organization trains staff to be aware of young women or children who appear to be being controlled, show signs of mistreatment or who seem frightened, ashamed or nervous.

She said flight attendants regularly start conversations with women traveling alone, such one 18-year-old on a 2015 flight from Chicago, who said she was excited to see a boyfriend she had met on Facebook but who wasn’t coming to meet her at the airport.

When staff checked the seat reservation, Rivard said, they found it had been booked by a woman in a different part of the country with the a “nefarious looking” social media profile of “love me long, love me good”.

Following further investigation, the teenager was rescued by law enforcement officials three days later, she said.



 



Rivard also cited a recent flight from Rome to Chicago, when staff noted a 7-year-old Albanian girl traveling with a middle-aged American man - a situation that seemed suspicious.

The crew informed the flight deck, said Rivard, but the pilot had received no training on trafficking so refused to report anything.

So it looks like this is  a focus, but (according to the 2nd article) training is lagging in the industry.  So maybe this airline worker got minimal training, asked questions she thought were appropriate, but as it turns out it wasn't the best way to handle it. Or maybe she's a racially biased profiler.  Still not enough info to go on.

I may be put out by someone asking me to identify my child as mine, just like it's kind of a drag to have to go through security and a body wand check to get into a festival. But those checks keep me safe, and if I'm not being unduly harassed by the officer/security, it's an easy thing to put up with.

 

[BigRedBuster]

Ok, so this isnt going to be perfect, but I want to step away from the violtile topic of race and children's saftey and drill down to the core issue.   Its not a perfect analogy I know but here goes.

So NUance, lets say you are an overweight, white, bald 56 year old man.   You own an orange, jacked up Mazda RX7 (a la Fast and Furious).  You are driving down the highway going 5 miles under the speed limit and get pulled over by a cop who claims it was because he was concerned that you didnt look like you owned the car.  You show him proof of insurance, liscense, registration etc.  No dice, only young drug dealers and street racers own these cars, it can't be yours, show me some pictures of you standing by this car the year you bought it as proof.  FB is fine.  The cop only wants to make sure that you are "safe" in this car, because you're an white, overweight, bald man.   While you are on the side of the road a red Mazda RX7 being driven by a white, 22 year old chiseled  male who is wearing RayBans and has great hair drives by gpoing 80 and the cop waves to him.  

Still think its a saftey issue that he is worried about?  Or is it that you don't fit the profile for what he, in his mind thinks should be driving the car?

The kid was half black and the mom was white.  The mom was the one being suspected of a possible crime, not the partially black kid.  I fail to see how the partially black kid was harmed in any way from this.  So, is this discrimination against a white woman?

 

[NUance]

You seem to not really be reading people's posts, as this has been answered multiple times. It was either racial profiling, or she does this for every kid who has a last name from the parent. If it's the latter and this is policy, that's fine. If it's the latter and it's not policy, I'm sure Southwest will tell her it's not policy.

Yeah, I read your post: 

This shouldn't be some subjective thing where the person looks at the baby and if it looks different than the parent they ask them a bunch of extra questions. It should be all or nothing.

But I also read other posts: 

It sounds good to make up the narrative that anything that might prevent a child abduction should be supported and applauded but it is just that, a fabricated narrative explaining away questionable at best and abhorrent at worst behavior.

====================================================================  

My whole point in this thread is, why do people like Ms. Gottlieb immediately rush out to social media to cry bias when there may be a perfectly legitimate reason to make a brief inquiry as to whether a person is the parent of a particular child?  Why do people do this?  Does it somehow make them feel better about themselves to make much ado over over a relatively minor incident?  I mean, I realize the Facebook thing is a little bit hokey, but how long would it have taken to look on Facebook and be done with it?  Instead, she blew it up into a national race bias controversy.  Was that her intent?  I dunno.  I'm just trying to start a dialog here.      

 

[NUance]

Ok, so this isnt going to be perfect, but I want to step away from the violtile topic of race and children's saftey and drill down to the core issue.   Its not a perfect analogy I know but here goes.

So NUance, lets say you are an overweight, white, bald 56 year old man.   You own an orange, jacked up Mazda RX7 (a la Fast and Furious).  You are driving down the highway going 5 miles under the speed limit and get pulled over by a cop who claims it was because he was concerned that you didnt look like you owned the car.  You show him proof of insurance, liscense, registration etc.  No dice, only young drug dealers and street racers own these cars, it can't be yours, show me some pictures of you standing by this car the year you bought it as proof.  FB is fine.  The cop only wants to make sure that you are "safe" in this car, because you're an white, overweight, bald man.   While you are on the side of the road a red Mazda RX7 being driven by a white, 22 year old chiseled  male who is wearing RayBans and has great hair drives by gpoing 80 and the cop waves to him.  

Still think its a saftey issue that he is worried about?  Or is it that you don't fit the profile for what he, in his mind thinks should be driving the car?

Sure I'd be a little bit annoyed if that was the case.  But I wouldn't alert the media over it.  Or social media.  (I might complain on HB though.  lol)  I'd probably just call the cop an asshat under my breath as I drove away.   

And the comparison isn't quite the same inasmuch as the ticket agent was looking out for the infant child, a person who cannot advocate for themselves.  In your scenario, their is no potential victim (drug users maybe?), and there are alternative, unobtrusive measures to validate car ownership.  Like pulling up the state records of automobile ownership--something that happens nearly every time you get pulled over.  

btw,  I did  drive an RX7 out in L.A. for several years.  Charcoal gray, not orange, and not jacked up or anything.  It must have been quite popular.  People tried to steal it twice.  But neither one got past the kill switch I installed.  lol  

 

[RedDenver]

My whole point in this thread is, why do people like Ms. Gottlieb immediately rush out to social media to cry bias when there may be a perfectly legitimate reason to make a brief inquiry as to whether a person is the parent of a particular child?  Why do people do this?  Does it somehow make them feel better about themselves to make much ado over over a relatively minor incident?  I mean, I realize the Facebook thing is a little bit hokey, but how long would it have taken to look on Facebook and be done with it?  Instead, she blew it up into a national race bias controversy.  Was that her intent?  I dunno.  I'm just trying to start a dialog here.      

I think the reason this can be identified as a problem is that another child with a different last name wasn't asked to "prove" the child was theirs. If this is about child trafficking, then all children with differing names should get the same scrutiny, not just the ones that appear to be different races.

 

[ZRod]

Jesus, some of you are pretty hung up on the race thing. There's every reason for the employee to think critically and ask a few questions. Sure I might be a little put off, but I'd be glad that they cared enough to check. Names didn't match, nor did they look to be the same ethnicity, so check the birth certificate and an ID. They clearly went about it the wrong way though. SW needs to train their employees better if they really are concerned about child trafficking, and this issue was a pretty harmless way to highlight that for them. They need clear policies and procedures/guidelines for their employees to follow as @Comfortably Numb is alluding to and @NM11046 has pointed out.

This isn't a racial thing, it's an employee training thing.  They weren't properly trained, and didn't have a clear policy to fall back on. They also clearly are an idiot asking for Facebook, which is an extremely unofficial document hahah!

 

[NUance]

I think the reason this can be identified as a problem is that another child with a different last name wasn't asked to "prove" the child was theirs. If this is about child trafficking, then all children with differing names should get the same scrutiny, not just the ones that appear to be different races.

None of us know the answer to that since we've only heard one side of the story.  Like Knap said above, we might have to wait for all sides to chime in before being able to come to understand the situation.  Maybe the additional inquiry was based solely on race, or maybe because the child doesn't look much like the mother.  Or maybe the child didn't seem to recognize the mother or seemed nervous.  (I'm just spittballing here--we don't know all the facts.)  

 

[Mierin]

The kid was half black and the mom was white.  The mom was the one being suspected of a possible crime, not the partially black kid.  I fail to see how the partially black kid was harmed in any way from this.  So, is this discrimination against a white woman?

It might not have been discrimination at all, but why would it be surprising that a white parent of a biracial baby is discriminated against? It was illegal, what, 60 years ago? There are still going to be people out there who think it's wrong.

 

[RedDenver]

None of us know the answer to that since we've only heard one side of the story.  Like Knap said above, we might have to wait for all sides to chime in before being able to come to understand the situation.  Maybe the additional inquiry was based solely on race, or maybe because the child doesn't look much like the mother.  Or maybe the child didn't seem to recognize the mother or seemed nervous.  (I'm just spittballing here--we don't know all the facts.)  

I thought another passenger who had a kid with a different name had already confirmed that they didn't get an additional scrutiny, but maybe I misread that.

 

[Mierin]

I thought another passenger who had a kid with a different name had already confirmed that they didn't get an additional scrutiny, but maybe I misread that.

They told her it had never happened to them before. The experiment was probably screwed up since that person witnessed it, so if this woman got PO'd the employee wouldn't have done it to the next person regardless.

 

[Mierin]

Yeah, I read your post: 

But I also read other posts: 

====================================================================  

My whole point in this thread is, why do people like Ms. Gottlieb immediately rush out to social media to cry bias when there may be a perfectly legitimate reason to make a brief inquiry as to whether a person is the parent of a particular child?  Why do people do this?  Does it somehow make them feel better about themselves to make much ado over over a relatively minor incident?  I mean, I realize the Facebook thing is a little bit hokey, but how long would it have taken to look on Facebook and be done with it?  Instead, she blew it up into a national race bias controversy.  Was that her intent?  I dunno.  I'm just trying to start a dialog here.      

It's hard to have a dialogue when you accuse everyone who's posted of (paraphrasing) worrying more about political correctness than child safety.

Anyhow, maybe the woman wanted attention. Or maybe her explanation is true, that as a white woman witnessing it she felt the need to say something. Can't remember the full quote.

 

[Nebfanatic]

What if it was both training and bias? What if they are on the lookout for this and the attendent thought that just couldn't be right at the same time? Its the most likely scenario imo. Yall acting like racial bias is bad and we are accussing this attendant of somethimg horrible and she must be defended. Now racial bias isn't a good thing, but it is something that happens in almost everyones subconcious whether they like it or not. Bias was most likely in play here as well as keeping an eye out for a point of focus but I don't think this person should be hung out to dry over it but rather educated by their mistake. We all have bias to some degree, we just have to recognize when it influences us and learn from it.

 

[NM11046]

Yeah, I read your post: 

But I also read other posts: 

====================================================================  

My whole point in this thread is, why do people like Ms. Gottlieb immediately rush out to social media to cry bias when there may be a perfectly legitimate reason to make a brief inquiry as to whether a person is the parent of a particular child?  Why do people do this?  Does it somehow make them feel better about themselves to make much ado over over a relatively minor incident?  I mean, I realize the Facebook thing is a little bit hokey, but how long would it have taken to look on Facebook and be done with it?  Instead, she blew it up into a national race bias controversy.  Was that her intent?  I dunno.  I'm just trying to start a dialog here.      

I dont disagree that FB and social media have a lot of people trying to get attention for things that could simply be corrected and apologized for at the time.  Innocent mistakes, or unintentional actions that could be acknowledged and moved on from. It sounds like you are more bothered by her attempts to publicize than the actual incident? 

Im in lock step with you on this getting blown up publicly, perhaps more so than the incident deserves, but its one more example of how different people in the world get treated differently, and that may come from poor training or people skills in this situation, but it starts with (full circle here) how one is raised and inherent biases we all have.  I expect if the child was throwing a tantrum and acting like it didnt recognize mom and that was why it was investigated further we would have heard that from the rep or from SW very quickly.  Also I think right now we have seen so many examples of people coming forward on situations that felt wrong only to find out that they weren't alone, but that people hadn't come forward previously for a variety of reasons and these things needed light shined upon them.

 I appreciate the dialog for sure - it is an interesting angle to show that we perceive actions very differently.  Will be interesting to see what else comes out on this.

 

[NUance]

It's hard to have a dialogue when you accuse everyone who's posted of (paraphrasing) worrying more about political correctness than child safety.

Anyhow, maybe the woman wanted attention. Or maybe her explanation is true, that as a white woman witnessing it she felt the need to say something. Can't remember the full quote.

You accused me of not reading people's posts.  So I quoted a post I based my statement on about people worrying more about political correctness than child safety.  I'm not sure what more I can do than that.  And just for the sake of accuracy, I did not accuse *everyone* of this.  But it does seem like a handful of posters in this thread act that way.  Until it's pointed out to them.  Then they vehemently deny that they're less concerned with child safety than something that some minor annoyance at a ticket desk, and they resort to things like accusing others of not reading posts and making it hard to have a dialog.  But maybe that's just a posting style thing.  :shrug: