By now we’re sure you’ve already heard of the dragging heard around the world—United Airlines, without precedent, forcibly removed a “pre-volunteered” passenger after it had overbooked one of its flights in Chicago.
To begin with, the situation is absolutely terrible. No traveler deserves to be treated that way, regardless of what he did before, what his ethnicity is, and how he reacted to the re-booking. (Who wouldn’t get mad at being having to wait for another flight, anyway?) After a couple of days of massive trolling from all over the internet, from people who looked like they were merely joking about the whole thing but in reality was a huge form of protest and negative PR, United finally made a real apology. Granted, it’s still one smattered with corporate speak, but it sounds a lot more contrite, making it miles better than the first apology they made, which seemed to put the blame on Dr. Dao.
What’s worse is that some media outlets are already digging deep into Dao’s background, and dredging up the doctor’s apparent criminal history. While that stuff can’t be denied, it’s far from the point of the issue at hand, and is making it look like he absolutely deserved his treatment at United’s hands. It’s pretty much the same thing they do for people like shooting victims of color:
In any case, we don’t know what the next chapter of this saga is yet, but we’ve already gotten a lot of satire gold from the internet—Twitter, to be specific. The creative citizens on social media keep proving that humor is a very powerful tool for dissent, and can definitely influence the way people, especially the evil institutions of our time, act and react. Granted, some issues are always going to need mass action on the ground to force real change, but in the digital age, minds are changed on the internet, and comedy is the best way to spark that fire.
Here are some of our favorite tweets about the United incident:
Other airlines couldn’t resist joining in on the fun:
But no matter how much fun you’re having, always remember that this isn’t the only issue in the world; it’s only just the noisiest right now.
Photo from AP