(like the woman who live streamed her boyfriend getting shot by police which my mom called her "an attention *****").
Not to derail the thread topic, but... SERIOUSLY?
Woooow. No offense against yer mom but dang that's harsh.
Now that you mention it, I seem to remember a rather off-beat attempt by some media outlets to sort of discredit that woman by trying to make her out to be a malcontent. I dunno, I just think our information-age gadgets when put to such use can indeed expose situations that otherwise would fly under the radar. There's definitely no reason why she shouldn't have facebook live'd it.
HA then there's that dude who killed a senior citizen because his gf dumped him and he put that on fb live and then killed himself when cornered by authorities. Crazy. It's like that movie where a killer executes people using slow torture methods broadcast live and viewers could "like" the guy to death. o.O
But back to the plane thing, I was... hesitant to signal Race as a motivator. See, the news stories didn't actually even get into HOW the 4 people were chosen to vacate. I don't even know if they were all economy class or some of them business class/first class (doubtful). But here's the thing, if you are a member of a minority, and get singled out for whatever reason, how quickly would you and others witnessing/hearing about it, assume it was based on race? I find that in situations like this, it's the lack of explanation that forces individuals to default to race as a motivator because, simply put, why else would you be treating me this way? kinda thing.
I hate to say it, I don't know how I'd react to being put off a flight. I dislike flying, but only do it rarely, and the few times I've done it, it's been mostly routine, with only minor delays involved. My worst experience was being seated next to a passenger who basically had a severe chest infection and was coughing the whole flight, and of course I came down with it and ended up with pneumonia for like a week. But it's been a long time since I've flown. Nowadays you pretty much should expect things to suck, at least in terms of delays, lines at the security checkpoints, etc. Being put off a flight, yeah, it can happen. I'd certainly demand a refund of my boarding pass, and an upgrade to first class on the next flight they put me on, and a hotel room if it's going to be longer than a day's wait. But going all protestor mode and refusing to comply with authority figures, nah.