Southwest Airlines is in the news again for calling the cops on a white mother traveling with her biracial daughter. A flight attendant thought the little girl was being trafficked. I think the flight attendant should be reprimanded.
Southwest Airlines Calls Cops On Mom Over “Suspicious” (Read: Different Color) Child
Mary MacCarthy, 42, was traveling on Southwest Airlines to Denver with her daughter Moira, 10. A Southwest flight attendant thought the couple looked “suspicious” and reported them to the captain. When they got off the plane, police in Denver were waiting to interview MacCarthy and her daughter.
Of course the Southwest Airlines flight attendant had a litany of excuses ready for why she had to notify authorities, including:
- The two boarded “suspiciously late”
- What does that even mean?
- During the flight, mother and daughter didn’t speak to each other
- The girl had headphones on and was the flight attendant really watching them the entire flight? I find it hard to believe they “never” spoke – how would a flight attendant know that?
- The mother “did not allow the child to talk to flight crew”
- The mother dismisses that as an “outright lie,” again noting the girl was simply listening to an audiobook using headphones
She had headphones on! Of course she was not going to be responsive. And why should she board early? Certainly I’m not going to board early when I’m with my young children if I can help it. Implicitly or explicitly, the post-hoc excuses are made up to cover the underlying judgment being made by the flight attendant on the basis of their different skin colors.
Even after the October 22nd incident, MacCarthy was contacted on November 1st by police to follow up on the “suspicion of human trafficking.”
Southwest is “disheartened” by the incident, but defends its flight attendant:
“Our employees undergo robust training on human trafficking. Above all, Southwest Airlines prides itself on providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for the millions of customers who travel with us each year.”
There will reach a day when my precious little daughter grows into a beautiful young woman. And I intend to travel the world with her, just like I will with my son Augustine. And when I do, I am not looking forward to having to protest sexist and ageist prejudices of TSA officers or flight attendants. While my job will be easier because we are both white, a father taking solo trips with his young daughter will be sure to rile up the prejudices of some who can’t understand such an arrangement.
Human trafficking is a real problem. There are many problems in this society that a more draconian sweep of law enforcement could fix. But we must also understand what we sacrifice when that occurs. Subjecting children…and parents…to interrogation on the basis of prejudice, fear, and irrationality is not something I am willing to endure in a free society.
The retort is always the same: well, your minor inconvenience is nothing compared to saving a girl from human trafficking. Yes, indeed that is true. But that is a false tradeoff.
I do not want to live in a society in which I must justify myself on the basis of an unfounded suspicion. I will absolutely not give the flight attendant the benefit of the doubt in the case, because a little small talk could have easily solved this problem. All three of her reasons are flimsy and don’t pass the smell test. The captain also should have declined to make the call.
Furthermore, you really think law enforcement care about this issue beyond the additional funding it provides? A phone call 10 days later? If this was really an important issue, a follow-up would have taken place much more rapidly.
CONCLUSION
I’ve written about these stories from time to time and they really do make my blood boil. The whole “out of an abundance of caution” excuse is nothing but a canard to mask prejudice. This isn’t about feeling hurt or offended, but about the ridiculous notion that we can hassle people who don’t fit our notions of what a family should look like.
(H/T: View From The Wing // image: ZappaOMatic)
Wow!!! Southwest is really something to avoid.
Quick heads up; says “ traveling on Denver to Southwest Airlines!” I have zero desire to travel to Southwest Airlines 🙂
Thank you.
When is Southwest finally going to realize they were born white supremacist, of course they act this way, Southwest should acknowledge this by promoting all non-white’s to senior management positions immediately. And Mathew aren’t you ashamed for calling this person a “woman”? How do you know how they wish to be identified? And how do you know Moira identifies as a daughter? Mathew you need to take some training on this as you are being very non-inclusive.
C’mon man!
Seriously? This is a miles and points blog?
Not much, no. It’s more flight news and reviews more than anything else.
What is it the left says? “It’s better for 1000 guilty men to go free than to convict 1 innocent man.”
So now situations will be ignored to avoid offending someone. I feel sorry for the suspected victims of human trafficking that will now be ignored.
The right says it too, not just the left.
Idiotic straw man argument pretty divorced from reality
But this is coming from the party that has proclaimed CRT is taught in every single school these days…
The white mother is an oppressor but her daughter but her daughter of color is oppressed. They should have let the child go and only detained the mother.
Oh cut the crap, not everything is racisim.
so happy my wife and I fired WN and went with United. No time for WN and their BS
SWA and others should just stop bothering to watch for trafficking. Their reasons for suspicion can and will always be picked apart and the whole thing be tuned into a some nefarious intentions by the “accusers” (even with a white woman)..
Look on the bright side for the mother and daughter. A law suit is probably on the way that will more than offset any inconvenience.
I think it’s time to leave this blog. Michael seems to relish giving his opinion on things Not associated with miles and writing stories that show his utter bias (in nearly everything written. His blog seems to be used a majority of times where he can give his one sided opinions, enjoying the divisions he seems to continually perpetuate in the name of a “travel” blog!
Also, his “stories” are always written so fast they are full of grammatical errors as well, obviously never proofread just so he can get them out as fast as he can to make sure everyone knows “his” facts!
Really disappointing how this blog has deteriorated.
Oh, the irony of you calling “Michael” out for not proofreading before posting…
Uggh, that, “Michael,” lol
Welp.
Thank you Matthew. This needed to be said.
The woman and her daughter need a lawyer after that. Sadly the only way that airlines will stop making such crazed accusations is if there are financial disincentives to calling the cops on someone for being a parent. What type of law do you practice?
As James Carville said the other day, …”Some people need to go to a Woke Detox Center”.
Most are not interested in hearing people’s political / social justice opinions.
However it is your blog so you can preach and pontificate on whatever topic you want. If it strays too far from the topic of this blog, then one just has to delete it going forward and stop viewing it.
“Most are not interested in hearing people’s political / social justice opinions.”
Those same people probably said the same thing when women demanded the right to vote…and when Black people did the same (not to mention when they decided to end slavery)..and when gay people asked for the right to be married…and…and…
Yes Aaron, gay people marrying is right up there with abolishing slavery. /sarc
Never said it was up. But it is part of a list of things that marginalized people have been denied and had to fight for. Trying to equate the two in order to start a discussion of who suffered more is a distraction from the issue at hand.
Can white folx suffer any injustice at all according to the SJW-industrial complex?
Black folx didn’t end slavery in the US. White men did, as they comprised the political class. Where is modern slavery mostly likely to be found today? Africa. Slavery existed long before white folx ever set foot in the Americas. The very word “slave” comes from “slav.” Who were the enslavers of these Eastern Europeans? North African folx. It is possible that the volume of the Barbary slave trade at one time surpassed that of the Atlantic slave trade (which was transporting African folx sold into slavery by other Africans, in case you forgot about that). But those white men, amirite?
Great! But we’re not discussing Africa, we’re discussing the US. Please get some medication for your case of Whataboutis diversionitis.
Also, what happened in Africa and what is happening today doesn’t negate what has happened in the US and what is currently happening now.
But thanks for playing. 🙂
My point is not that white men didn’t do horrible things. My point is that the things you like so much about the US are largely the product of white men’s actions, including the abolishment of slavery. For better or worse, the US has been an overwhelmingly majority-white nation for its entire history. Also, the stain of slavery is not unique to the US, so the left’s attempt to smear cishet white men as irredeemably evil is utterly ignorant of history. Just what is it that you think is happening now in the US? Why is it that black and brown folx from all around the world still flock there when they are being hunted down in the streets with impunity by the racist police? It is clearly a horrible, white supremacist place intent on crushing anyone who isn’t white.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-myth-of-systemic-police-racism-11591119883
“My point is that the things you like so much about the US are largely the product of white men’s actions, including the abolishment of slavery.”
Which they allowed to exist in the first place…and the Jim Crow laws that came after slavery weren’t the product of white men?
“For better or worse, the US has been an overwhelmingly majority-white nation for its entire history.”
Which justifies neither slavery or racism.
“Also, the stain of slavery is not unique to the US”
Once again, and try to keep up: we are discussing the US here. Stop trying to divert the subject.
“Why is it that black and brown folx from all around the world still flock there when they are being hunted down in the streets with impunity by the racist police? It is clearly a horrible, white supremacist place intent on crushing anyone who isn’t white.”
Just because things are worse off where they are doesn’t excuse the way POC are treated in the US. Again, you keep trying to change the goal posts…
Why is it that you seem to believe that America is full of white supremacists? Is it the lies of voter suppression and police hunting down black men on the streets with impunity? How was it that Trump increased his support among various racial and sexual minorities from 2016 to 2020? Are they all white supremacists? How did Youngkin win in Virginia? Was it white supremacy as talking heads on CNN and MSNBC keep proclaiming?
“Why is it that you seem to believe that America is full of white supremacists?”
Because it has it’s fair share of them?
“Is it the lies of voter suppression and police hunting down black men on the streets with impunity?”
Neither are lies.
“”How was it that Trump increased his support among various racial and sexual minorities from 2016 to 2020?””
And yet still more voted against him.
“How did Youngkin win in Virginia?”
A campaign of non-sense about CRT that hit too many people with white fragility, plus even more incorrect information about kids having access to porn from their schools, etc, which they were somehow stupid enough to believe.
How does one become indoctrinated into the loony leftist worldview in which white supremacist bogeymen are keeping black, brown and LGBTQIAP2 folx down, even killing them en masse?
I think you need to learn a little about rates of change. And CRT is very much real. Of course monomaniacal folx like you latch onto it. And white fragility? Who in the world with a functioning brain takes what DiAngelo and Kendi have to say seriously? They are grifters of the first category. It’s hilarious to me that a white woman is getting rich on the backs of black folx and that you support it.
https://twitter.com/johnhmcwhorter/status/1399670923221946372
https://notthebee.com/article/ibram-x-kendi-deleted-this-tweet-about-college-admission-when-people-notes-it-undermines-his-whole-america-is-white-supremacist-worldview-
“How does one become indoctrinated into the loony leftist worldview in which white supremacist bogeymen are keeping black, brown and LGBTQIAP2 folx down, even killing them en masse?”
Not indoctrinated, but just aware of what is happening. Not bogeymen, but real people…like you.
“And white fragility?”
You are the epitome of it.
“Who in the world with a functioning brain takes what DiAngelo and Kendi have to say seriously? They are grifters of the first category. It’s hilarious to me that a white woman is getting rich on the backs of black folx and that you support it.””
Diversion diversion diversion! Change those goal posts!
What is it that you think is happening? Blacks committing violent crimes at rates much higher than whites? Blacks killing each other with impunity with the full awareness of (often black) Democratic leadership in our cities? Blacks being infantilized by progressives? It isn’t white supremacists killing young black men. It is other young black men.
You have no idea what race I am and yet you say I epitomize white fragility. The whole platform of anti-racism is a cult preying on weak-minded guilty liberals. Black folx don’t need the state to protect them from mean white folx. Progressives have a long history of hurting black folx wit hthe power of the state. Woodrow Wilson, our first progressive President, was a rabid racist. Redlining was instituted under FDR. LBJ destroyed black families with the War on Poverty. Biden helped lock up a generation of young black men (with support from the black community). Perhaps 1,000 people are killed by the police every year. About 98% of these people are armed. Of those unarmed folx who are killed (around 20), the majority are white. How’s the hunting, comrade? Look for racism in everything and surely you will find it. What an unfortunate (and grossly mistaken) way to live.
https://www.npr.org/2020/07/20/892943728/professor-criticizes-book-white-fragility-as-dehumanizing-to-black-people?t=1636717823278
“What is it that you think is happening? Blacks committing violent crimes at rates much higher than whites?”
Yes, and maybe look into the reasons why…
“Blacks killing each other with impunity with the full awareness of (often black) Democratic leadership in our cities?”
What nonsense.
“Blacks being infantilized by progressives? It isn’t white supremacists killing young black men. It is other young black men.”
If you cared about black people so much, the idea of them people targeted by white supremacists should bother just as much as black-on-black crime. If you cared.
“You have no idea what race I am and yet you say I epitomize white fragility.”
I think we all know what race you are.
“The whole platform of anti-racism is a cult preying on weak-minded guilty liberals.”
No, it is about people seeking justice and equality. Concepts which are foreign to you.
“Black folx don’t need the state to protect them from mean white folx.”
Apparently they do.
“Progressives have a long history of hurting black folx wit hthe power of the state.”
Not as much as actual racists have.
“Woodrow Wilson, our first progressive President, was a rabid racist. Redlining was instituted under FDR. LBJ destroyed black families with the War on Poverty. Biden helped lock up a generation of young black men (with support from the black community). Perhaps 1,000 people are killed by the police every year. About 98% of these people are armed. Of those unarmed folx who are killed (around 20), the majority are white. How’s the hunting, comrade? Look for racism in everything and surely you will find it. What an unfortunate (and grossly mistaken) way to live.”
You still need medication (and lots of it) for your super extreme case of Whataboutitis and Diverionitis.
I don’t think airlines and flight attendants should become detectives, however, I don’t blame them for thinking this is weird. Having kids who don’t look like you is weird. It violates the rules of nature. It violates the rules of God. If you support true diversity, you will find it shocking and weird when people abandon their own race of people that had common ancestry for thousands of years (at least) to become something else, something foreign.
Inbreeding is against nature, and yet here you are.
He’s a classic White Supremacist, there’s no shortage of them these days in the US…some of them even have held or are holding office…
Jackson Waterson does strike me as rather racist. That doesn’t mean everything he says is wrong. Progressives call anyone they don’t like “white supremacists” now because they’ve worn out any shock value the term “racist” had. It’s a complement to the euphemism treadmill. Four legs good, two legs better! Does UA-CCP think Clarence Thomas is a white supremacist?
This sounds stupid.
Isn’t trafficking often a man with a scared 15 year old girl with a different last name, not a 10 year old girl with headphones?
I am at a place where Matthew will be in a few years. I love taking my daughter on special dad/daughter trips to her dream places. At 13 years old she is happy with LA, or London, wherever. It’s an especially wonderful experience for us and time to share..a time we rarely get.
But every trip is met with the same thing. TSA. Though our ID’s are the same we inevitably get pulled aside and she gets asked questions. “What is your father’s name.” “Where do you live?” “Are you comfortable traveling with him?” “Where is your mother?”
It’s humiliating. Disturbing for her. For both of us, even though I am equipped to handle it better. She gets it, deals with it, understands. But still, this is greatly effecting our youth to live in a world where you are in doubt. Your very being is in question. It’s going to have repercussions on society in the future.
I understand it’s a problem. But this is not the answer. Empowering $20 an hour people who supposedly have “training” is not going to do a thing other than create more distrust and anxiety in our world. We have to draw the line at some point.
I applaud Matthew for taking the time to address this as a parent.
Is this sort of interrogation by the TSA really that common? Just one more reason to dismantle the security theater apparatus.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/affect-vs-effect-usage-difference
Southwest Airlines Captain announcing “Let’s Go Brandon” to a captive audience with nowhere to go to avoid him. Southwest Airlines Flight Attendant prejudicially reporting “child trafficking “. Worse yet, Southwest didn’t apologize to the Mother but rather defended the Flight Attendant. . I have ZERO DESIRE to ever step onboard a Southwest Airlines flight.
Human trafficking is a huge problem. I applaud the flight attendant for taking the time to report what she felt was suspicious. It’s much better to err on the side of caution. Can you imagine what would have happened if in fact this was a human trafficking and nothing was said? In this society today you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Anytime someone holds a child’s safety above possibly hurting someone’s delicate feelings then they are a star in my book. I worked in a professional position whereby we were required to report suspect problem situations.