Sometimes it’s necessary to drag an old Asian man from an airplane
A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do
Internets,
I might never leave St. Louis again, because people haven’t been buying enough copies of NaS Lost, but if I did I wouldn’t have a problem flying United. I’m not concerned in the least bit with an incident the other day in which they had to drag an old Asian man from one of their planes.
If the hispanic guy who runs United is reading this and wants to send me some free tickets, note that I can be contacted via the email address listed on my blog, or by simply replying to this email, if he receives Life in a Shanty Town via email.
If I’m flying on United and god forbid one of their sexy stewardesses needs to be in Kentucky the next day, to appear in small claims court or whatever, I don’t have a problem accepting $3,200 and a free hotel room for my inconvenience. It’s not like I have anywhere to be. My job applying adhesive labels to cardboard boxes pays significantly less than that per day.
Would I be allowed to access SpectraVision (if that’s still a thing) on the hotel room TV? Hypothetically, I mean.
David Dao, the guy who was dragged from a United flight the other day, claims he had to be in Kentucky because he had appointments scheduled on Monday, but I’m not sure if I’m buying that. In my vast experience dealing with doctors–I had five eye surgeries in about a two-year span, plus follow-up visits and what have you–they’ve never had a problem canceling an appointment at the last minute so they can go play golf or some shit. They know if they can’t see you that day they can just see you some other day. It’s not like you can very easily switch doctors or go without treatment.
Doctors, in a sense, are just as bad as the airlines. But let’s not get sidetracked here.
I’m not even sure if this guy Dao really was a doctor. According to an article I skimmed about his “troubled background,” he went to medical school in Vietnam. Since when have people who went to medical school in Vietnam been allowed to practice medicine in the US? People who were engineers in Africa are forced to drive cabs here in the states, which, granted, could be viewed as a form of engineering. My pediatrician, back in the ’80s, was Asian, but I just assumed he’d attended a reputable medical school, here in the US, because he spoke plain English.
In the ’00s, Dao was banned from practicing medicine for trading OxyContin for bufuing. Presumably, the guy he was giving the drugs to was the “recipient,” but who knows. He’s only been allowed to practice medicine again for the past couple of years, but only on a limited basis. But not limited to certain days of the week, I’m assuming. They probably don’t let him handle any prescription meds. Arguably, the insurance company should be required to disclose his “proclivities” before you can schedule a visit. (I bet he gives a lot of unnecessary rectal exams.)
If it wasn’t already clear from that time he got caught trading hillbilly heroin for butt sex, it should be clear from the way he ran back to his seat, alternately begging for someone to kill him and declaring that he needed to go home, this despite the fact that he was supposedly unconscious and now claims to have no recollection of the incident–this guy is just plain nuts!
I could almost see refusing to move from your seat after being told that you’ve been selected at random to be bumped from a flight, because it’s a known fact that you can receive consideration from corporations by being willfully obstinate in a place of business, disrupting a process and loudly cursing in front of people with small children. They’ll give you something for free just to get you out the door. But once 5–0 shows up, you don’t have a choice in the matter. As they say in jail, you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride.
Having said that, I’m at a loss for how this guy was selected at random to be removed from the flight. I mean, I get that the airlines have software that selects passengers at random if they can’t find any “volunteers,” but it would seem to me that if the software just so happened to pick the one Asian couple on the flight, they could just pretend it selected a white couple instead, so as not to appear racist.
Things the airline might have considered:
1) Never “randomly” bumping minorities from flights.
Certain minorities are more likely than others to throw a fit. Out of respect, I won’t say which ones. Anyway, it can be argued that, in a situation like that, white people deserve to be inconvenienced, morally, because of slavery (among other things).
2) Picking the passengers least likely to fight back.
People in wheelchairs should be first in line to be bumped from flights, because they can easily be rolled right off the plane. The lighter someone is, the easier they are to drag, if it comes to that. David Dao is 69, but he probably knows karate. The TSA is just lucky he was too lost mentally to fight back.
3) Tricking people into voluntarily getting off the plane.
This one seems like a no-brainer. Rather than telling them they’ve been kicked off the flight, tell them they’ve won something and they just need to go meet with the CEO of United Airlines in the terminal to receive their prize. Then, as soon as they step off the plane, take off without them. The Bang Bus has been pulling some variation on this since the early ‘00s–or so I’ve been told.
The airline might have also considered holding people at their word after they bitched and moaned about how unfairly Dao was being treated. If they really thought it was so bad to drag him from the plane, how come one of them didn’t stand up and volunteer to get off the plane in his place? How many of them, after they saw what happened to Dao, got off the plane and demanded their money back, so as not to further enrich United? None, right? So spare me!
Take it easy on yourself,
Bol
Originally published at tinyletter.com.
