Dayhoff Westminster Soundtrack: Washington Post: "Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight" By Catherine Rampell May 7, 2016

Thursday, May 26, 2016

Washington Post: "Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight" By Catherine Rampell May 7, 2016

Washington Post: "Ivy League economist ethnically profiled, interrogated for doing math on American Airlines flight" By Catherine Rampell May 7, 2016 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/

http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/2016/05/washington-post-ivy-league-economist.html

Guido Menzio, an economics professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

[I used to be a flight attendant. Dealing with passengers’ racism is part of the job.]

On Thursday evening, a 40-year-old man — with dark, curly hair, olive skin and an exotic foreign accent — boarded a plane. It was a regional jet making a short, uneventful hop from Philadelphia to nearby Syracuse.

[…]

Finally the pilot came by, and approached the real culprit behind the delay: that darkly-complected foreign man. He was now escorted off the plane, too, and taken to meet some sort of agent, though he wasn’t entirely sure of the agent’s affiliation, he would later say.

[…]

Menzio showed the authorities his calculations and was allowed to return to his seat, he told me by email. He said the pilot seemed embarrassed. Soon after, the flight finally took off, more than two hours after its scheduled departure time for what would be just a 41-minute trip in the air, according to flight-tracking data.

[…]

Menzio for his part says he was “treated respectfully throughout,” though he remains baffled and frustrated by a “broken system that does not collect information efficiently.” He is troubled by the ignorance of his fellow passenger, as well as “A security protocol that is too rigid–in the sense that once the whistle is blown everything stops without checks–and relies on the input of people who may be completely clueless.”

[…]

In this true parable of 2016 I see another worrisome lesson, albeit one also possibly relevant to Trump’s appeal: That in America today, the only thing more terrifying than foreigners is…math.

It is a lengthy well-written piece – Read much more here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/rampage/wp/2016/05/07/ivy-league-economist-interrogated-for-doing-math-on-american-airlines-flight/

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