Are there certain languages you shouldn’t speak on an airplane?

The Washington Post reported  a University of California at Berkely student was removed from an airplane for speaking Arabic to his father. The incident occurred the same week that a hijab-wearing woman was reportedly ordered off a Southwest flight bound for Seattle.

While KIRO Radio’s Tom Tangney looks at the cases as new concerns related to Islamophobia in the US, his co-host, John Curley, says it should also create questions about how sensitive to others’ fears you need to be on an airplane.

“As smart as this guy (who was removed from the plane) is; pretty stupid move on his part,” he said. “You sit down on a plane and it’s a crowded plane and so you speak in Arabic?”

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The 26-year-old in question was returning from a dinner and lecture event at the UN, according to the Post. While waiting on the runway the next day, the senior, who is double majoring in political science and Near Eastern studies, spoke on his cell phone in Arabic to an uncle, telling him about the question he’d asked U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. A woman in a different row overheard the conversation and told a flight attendant, who removed the Arabic-speaking passenger. He was ultimately handcuffed, missed his flight, was not allowed back on Southwest and was delayed by nine hours.

While both Tangney and Curley agree this was an overreaction, their routes to that conclusion are starkly different.

Curley points to Homeland Security consistently pushing that people should always “see something, say something.”

“But speaking in Arabic is not seeing something and saying something,” Tangney responded.

“But it was enough to make her feel uncomfortable and a little bit suspicious,” Curley said. “So she just went and said something, just like you’re supposed to do.”

Tangney said Islamophobia is increasing everybody’s paranoia, and that while the other passenger’s initial concerned reaction might be valid, Southwest mis-reacted once they found out the context of the story and that he had nothing of danger on his person.

Curley said people have been “brainwashed” to “see something, say something,” and that shouldn’t change for the sake of political correctness. Speaking in Arabic on a plane is a valid concern, he argues.

Tom Tangey: “You have to make some reasonable judgment. I get my gyros from people that speak Arabic, I’m not calling them in.”

John Curley: “Not many people are blowing up food carts, Tom.”

TT: “So if somebody was wearing a hijab you would have a problem with it?”

JC: “Apparently if you are suspicious you can see something and say something.”

TT: “You say something to people in authority and then you rely on people in authority to not make bone-headed moves.”

Curley said Southwest employees didn’t want to be responsible for putting the man back on the plane in case something bad happened afterward.

TT: “That’s ridiculous: you pat him down, you check his luggage. If everything is honkey dory, you can’t say you can’t be on a plane because you know Arabic.”

JC: “Well, I just wouldn’t be speaking Arabic if I were the guy on the plane.”

TT: “Why? He’s talking to somebody who speaks Arabic. His uncle might not speak English.

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