Racism is in the air aboard Ryanair

Incidents of racial discrimination in public places are trending and it's unacceptable.

You’re sitting in a restaurant. You look across the room and see a black woman. Near to her table sits a man. He’s openly bellowing racial slurs to the waitstaff about how he doesn’t want to sit near someone of colour.

Staff are panicking. Diners look away and try their best to ignore the inconvenience. No one even suggests that the real problem here is racial discrimination. The man stays. The woman is removed.

You may be thinking discrimination is a thing of the past, right? Wrong. In May, the Chinese eatery, Hong Shing located in Downtown, Toronto caused an uproar, as the waitstaff were called out for racially profiling four black men.

Emile Wickham visited the establishment on his 28th birthday, where he and his friends were told by the server that they had to pre-pay for food due to the restaurant’s policy.

Wickham was given $10,000 in compensation from the restaurant, in a ruling ordered by The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal, on April 30th.

But one bad experience doesn’t prove anything?

After watching staged scenes of racist verbal attacks at a diner on ABC’s show “What would you do?”, it seems real life patrons almost always jump in to defend the victim. However, in reality not everyone speaks up.

In a similar episode, ABC show waitstaff discriminating against a Muslim family where in some circumstances the customers express empathy towards the attacker.

And so, if we are so horrified by racial discrimination when it happens in public places, why do we allow it to take place on board public planes?

This year, videos recorded on board planes and posted by observing passengers were all over social media, going viral. Tapes show racial abuse towards immigrants and people of colour. Below are just a few cases:

Incidents go as far as questioning a person's occupation due to skin colour. The New York Times published the article showing how this event took place on board a Delta flight.

There is a reoccurring theme that highlights the flight attendants’ lack of general awareness. No one knows what to do or how to act and it’s a cause for concern.

Racial discrimination is a crime and should be taken seriously. However, many on-board altercations result in little, if any punishment. At most, a statement of apology issued from the airline.

Early in October, on a Ryanair flight scheduled to depart from Barcelona to London, 77-year-old Delsie Gayle, a Windrush Generation migrant was racially attacked by a passenger.

Delsie was flying back to her home in the UK with her daughter. After having made special arrangements to board due to her arthritis condition, Delsie was forced to move seats.

It’s evident in the video that the passenger, 70-year-old David Mesher, was in the wrong. Yet the staff are concerned with his needs.

David yells, “an ugly black bastard” shouting “don’t talk to me in a foreign language, you stupid ugly cow” after Delsie responds in English with a Jamaican accent.

“I was very frightened”, says Delsie on ITV, when asked how she felt after the incident.

One week after the incident Ryanair eventually released a statement saying, “We’ve now reported this to the police in Essex. This is now a police matter. We can’t comment further.”

In an exclusive interview with ITV News, Delsie says that she is unsure of when she’ll recover, “because every time I remember I cry”.

Of course, removing someone from a plane isn’t as easy a restaurant. But if the tolerance towards racial discrimination is the same, then the consequences should be also.

George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes Place, notes: “Research indicates that discrimination itself is a health hazard and the panoply of racially tinged everyday experiences that people of colour confront can injure their cardiovascular, endocrine, immunological and metabolic systems”.

On a plane no one wants to endanger anyone by escalating the issue. But If the choice is ignoring abuse or sacrificing basic human rights then there’s no question about it.

Training flight attendants is a part of the solution. Even though many airlines hold a diversity policy within the work place policy, many do not offer support for how to combat racism on board.

When Air Canada was asked for their racial discrimination policies they said: “I’m afraid due to lack of resources we cannot participate in your interview”.

Similarly, West Jet provided a media referral which was followed by an automatic email to contact another department who did not respond.

British Airways took a clearer stance: “threatening, abusive insulting or disorderly” behaviour towards crew or other passengers could result in prosecution.

There must come a point when you can’t stand by. Racial discrimination is never ok for the sake of the flight. Those committing an offense should be held responsible. The videos speak for themselves.