I presume everyone has already read "Terror in the Skies, Again?"

I read that thing with increasing horror. It was unbelievable. It was terrible. It made me despair for the world.

I could not comprehend how that woman could so blindly and in such detail declare her bigotry.

If you haven't seen it, it's the breathless tale of a woman's flight from Detroit to Los Angeles in which a group! of brown! men who spoke Arabic! were also on the plane. These men carried instrument cases, as well as the McDonald's Bag of Death; one wore orthopedic shoes; they had the temerity to make eye contact with each other (literally. The author expresses concern that "As boarding continued, we watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other.") They socialized. One read a small book he had tucked in his shirt. They went to the lavatory. Dear gog, the lavatory. The author was terrified. She grasped her husband's hand and prayed. Another couple were distraught and in tears. Flight attendants whispered reassurances to the good American white people that there were air marshals all around, and collected surreptitiously written description of the evil-doers. When they landed, dark-suited agents of the LAPD, the FBI, the FAM, and the TSA rushed to the plane.

I knew from the beginning of the story that the author survived her harrowing experience. As I read her escalating hysteria, the only thing that actually happened was that these Middle Eastern men existed. That was it. They didn't actually do anything, other than be foreign and dark and share her airplane.

And what is the point of her overwrought wail? Why, that we don't discriminate enough against swarthy fellows from elsewhere. They should have been harrassed more thoroughly. Jebus. They were a travelling band, not terrorists. They were innocent! This story is a perfect example of why racial profiling is wrong—it would have just motivated more abuse of harmless people at the whim of a bunch of timid, prejudiced neurotics.

The reaction by the right-wingers is mind-blowing. They all also see this as a horror story...but that the author was warranted in her fear of these aliens on her airplane. Hugh Hewitt thinks the plane should have immediately landed as soon as the white people squeaked. Ass. The blithering InstaPundit harumphs approvingly in several vapid posts. Blowhard, indeed. Michelle Malkin collects anecdotes that show that yes, brown people have actually been passengers on American planes. I feel so dirty now. And the crème de la crème, the pièce de résistance (I must splutter in French to maximize my opposition) is, of course, Minnesota's own squealin' Aunt Tillie, our shrill bard of trivia, the inimitable James Lileks, who uses this occasion to wax delusional about nukes flattening NY, missiles blasting LA, not being able to get his favorite cigars, and other such inconceivable nightmares of global import. All because some Syrian musicians dared to fly the same airline as a tender young specimen of blonde American womanhood, and inspired some high-flown, irrational, freaking unjustified fear.

When I read the article, what I wondered about is how it must feel to be a musician traveling to a performance, and to have everyone around you expressing fear and revulsion...because your skin is a slightly different color than theirs, and because your native language is different. I had hoped this country had put most of that prejudice behind it, but this piece was nothing but barking mad fear of the brown-skinned stranger, and so many voiced their support of this foolishness as a reasonable fear.

It seems the band is a group from Syria called Kulna Sawa.

Yeah. They look scary, don't they? The name means "all of us together"; how dare they express such an un-American sentiment.

(The best summary of this story I've seen so far is on World O' Crap. Would that more could see the obvious in this case.)

NOTE: my source for the Kulna Sawa connection, PowerLine, seems to have simply plucked a random Middle-Eastern band from its ass. Kulna Sawa was not on this flight, had no connection to this story, and is definitely not associated in any way with terrorism. Feel free to go listen to their music anyway.