That's RACIST... er, anti-religious... er, oh, *offensive*!

[draco664]

Link

Guy watches a (presumably) muslim woman wearing a hajib walk straight through security at London airport. He presents a hypothetical to the guard scanning him about what would happen if he wore a scarf over his face.

Cue predictable overreaction by 'security'.

"I again stated that I had not made a racist remark but purely an observation that we were in a maximum security situation being searched thoroughly while a woman with her face covered walked through,''

[SongsOfDragons]

From what I heard, this guy was the creator of Fireman Sam, a children's TV show here in the UK. (Don't know if it's in the US) so boom goes that programme.

I saw this on Nanny Knows Best too. All I can really say is does anyone really think they have any chance, let alone right, of going through their entire life without being offended once? Anyone who believes that probably lives on Mars...

And I don't even think the lady even heard him...

[SkullKing]

From what is in the article he did nothing wrong.

The guards overreacted.

[Gravekeeper]

Wow, what the Hell? What right did they have to detain him and try to force him to apologize? And apologize for what exactly?

A face scarf has nothing to do with race or religion, its purely cultural in nature. There is no demand for it in Islam. His observation included nothing about race or religion either.

So....what the hell?

[Greenday]

Note to self: Do not make any comments about race/religion/sex/politics/rugby/etc. while at the airports today and tomorrow.

[Andara Bledin]

Welcome to another episode of Security Theater.

Where safety isn't nearly as important as a dog and pony show that they care about safety.

^-.-^

[Rapscallion]

Been all over the radio here. The talking heads even rolled out a high-ranking muslim woman who said there was nothing offensive in what he said, though part of me wonders how much they smelled the outrage and decided to take a more generally acceptable approach.

What this reminds me of is Stephen Fry's observation (or the one credited to him) about how people being offended is just that - and that it's not grounds for authority over others.

Rapscallion

[Beckpatton]

Not racist, not offensive, but bloody stupid!

Why would anyone have to remove a piece of clothing that covers their face, (hijab, burqa etc) to pass through a METAL DETECTOR? They aren't checking ID there, just that you don't have any unauthorised objects with you.

From what I read, to me his comment implied that he believed the woman in the hijab was receiving special treatment, most likely from people being too politically correct and not wanting to offend her by asking her to remove her scarf. So really the people who should have been offended were the security personnel, as he is saying they aren't doing their job properly.

Fact is they didn't ask her to because they didn't have to!

In saying that, security totally overreacted and wasted a lot of peoples time!

[Seifer]

Why would anyone have to remove a piece of clothing that covers their face, (hijab, burqa etc) to pass through a METAL DETECTOR? They aren't checking ID there, just that you don't have any unauthorised objects with you.

It sounds more like the woman didn't have to show ID or anything to get through security (because that would require her to remove anything covering her face). I dunno about security over in the UK, but in the US you MUST show your ID when you enter security. Obviously, this is so security knows that the person who bought the ticket is the one who is actually getting on the plane.

Now, it's true that if she walks through the metal detector, it won't matter if she shows her face or not - if she is carrying anything unauthorized, security will know about it. However, it doesn't negate that fact that she might not be the one who actually bought the ticket and is supposed to be entering the plane. I think that's the point the man was trying to make.