The Bullies of the Air

I, like 1.6 million other people, follow Kevin Smith on twitter. He's one of the only people I actually take the time out to read nearly every tweet (which is a real feat when you consider that this is the guy that did a 24-hour tweetathon). So, when he was raving this morning/afternoon on twitter about a flight on Southwest airlines I had to do some googling to get the whole story. Thus, I found this story about last night.

In a nutshell, Kev Smith was kicked off of a flight headed to Oakland, California by the pilot who deemed him a "safety risk". A safety risk because (and here comes my favourite part) he's too big.

The internet is all a-buzz about the situation, mostly because Southwest airlines and Smith are in a twitter war, and everyone knows that you can't really get much more public than that these days. So, naturally, I have a take on this situation. A completely subjective take, but one that can't be seen as invalid for that. What's objectivity really proving, when there's clear targeting coming through in the situation itself?

As a student living far enough away from home that I have no choice but to fly back and forth, I know too well how airlines can try and mess with people. And I know how often they get away with it, because there's plenty of people who don't have any other option but to fly where they need to be. And I also know that those painted-on smiles can be hiding some pretty ferocious opinions about the people boarding a plane.

That really brings me to a main reason why I feel like I'm justified in finding this to be an outrage; I'm not a small individual. I've never had any need to buy a second seat, mind you, but it's very clearly there and it's very clearly an impending factor that someday I might be kicked off of a flight myself. The problem is that I can't start a twitter war, I can't make 1.6 million people pay attention to my situation. But Kevin Smith can, and it makes me very glad that he is.

They called the man a "safety risk"...to who? I can hardly even consider that he was a safety risk to himself, let alone any other passenger or worker on the plane. If he can buckle himself in, where is the risk? So here comes that question: was it just because he's a big man? Has discrimination against big people really been taken to the level where they'll kick someone off of a plane just for being what they deem "too big"?

Just over a month ago I was on a flight from St. John's to Ottawa. At a stop-over in Halifax a child, no older than 3 or 4, was sat next to me by itself. His mother was in the row across from him with an infant, and the father was somewhere towards the back of the plane. Had I been awake during the stop-over I would have certainly offered up my seat to the father. Unfortunately, I only woke up during take-off to find a wide-eyed kid staring me in the face. Over the next hour and a half the kid proceeded to throw toys, run rampant around the plane, and all-in-all make a terror of himself. But of course, no one said a word about that particular safety risk. The flight attendants looked at the parents with a simple" oh, kids will be kids" understanding and went about their work.

Honestly, can "safety risks" really be so subjective as to allow discrimination that doesn't even make any sense? I suppose getting enraged by this particular instance without having mentioned racial profiling seems fairly "typical", but why is it that Southwest is just allowed to be so blatantly ignorant without groups rising up?

Being big isn't a crime, and it isn't hurting anyone else. Grow up, Southwest. This isn't middle school, we don't get picked last anymore.

Going through the news for the week I came across this story about an appeal against the safe-injection site in Vancouver. I was aware it existed, and I was aware it was a provincial rather than federal decision. What I didn't know is that having one dissenting opinion was grounds enough for the feds to open a can of worms better left shut. Of course, the feds have really taken on a holier-than-thou view of themselves (prorougation, anyone?), but the stupidity in this one really takes the cake, in my humble opinion.

Being on the outside looking at the site, I suppose there can be one of two solid ways to see this:

1) It is unfair to the public for the government to give junkies a place which specifically enables them to do illegal drugs. Or:

2) At least they're being protected from HIV under the supervision of medical professionals.

There's obviously going to be objections to a government-sanctioned site for intravenous drug-users, but if there has ever been such a thing as a necessary evil, how can it be said that this is not it?

It seems sometimes that the fear of HIV has become almost too small. It's as if people have placed themselves in a 'not-at-risk' category, and thus in an 'I-don't-really-care' category. Looking at the HIV/AIDs situation in countries such as Africa is, of course, important; but why is it that the home-grown problem gets swept under the rug in the meantime?

There are provinces in Canada that don't even have their own HIV/AIDs doctor(s) (Newfoundland, being key), and the feds are looking at the other side of the country hoping to shut down an institution which attempts to prevent people from catching the virus?

It's simple enough to say 'But they're heroin addicts!' or something akin, but that makes no one less of a person. Why deny people simple safety from such a terrible disease?