It’s the height of the summer vacation season. A time when air travel–and airline arrogance–are at their annual height.
Consider the following real-life scenario:
- You’re vacationing in Denver and must return to San Francisco for an urgent-care medical appointment
- You’re disabled but nevertheless arrive at the airport on time.
- The airport–in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act–doesn’t have anyone assigned to help disabled passengers get onto departing planes.
- As a result, you arrive at the gate–just as the plane takes off.
- The airline informs you that if you want to board a plane, you’ll have to pay for another ticket.
- You can’t afford to buy another ticket–and your urgent-care appointment is tomorrow.
What do you do?
In this case, the stranded passenger–a friend of mine–called me: Bureaucracybuster.
First, I instinctively called the airline company. And that meant starting at the top–the president’s office.
I punched the name of the airline–and the words, “Board of Directors”–into Google. This gave me several websites to click on to obtain the information I needed.
I started dialing–and quickly hung up: I had just remembered the day was a Sunday. Nobody but cleaning crews would be occupying the airline’s executive offices that day.
I had to start all over.
Next, I decided to call Denver Airport and find an official who would help Rachel onto another flight–without charging her for it.
I didn’t know where to start, so I decided that starting anywhere was just fine. As I was routed from one person to another, I would develop a sense of who I needed to reach.
Some of those I reached seemed genuinely concerned with Rachel’s plight. Others gave me the “that’s-life-in-the-big-city” attitude.
One of the latter felt I wasn’t deferential enough in my tone. He threatened to notify the chief of airport security.
“Go ahead,” I said. “I once worked for the United States Attorney’s Office. I’ll be glad to talk with him.”
He backed off–just as I had assumed he would.
Usually the best way to deal with threats is to directly confront the person making them.
(A friend of mine, Richard St. Germain, spent part of his 11 years with the U.S. Marshals Service protecting Mafia witnesses.
Witness being protected by deputy U.S. marshals
(Many of them didn’t like the places where they were to be relocated under new identities. “I’m going to complain to the Attorney General,” some of them would threaten.
(St. Germain would reach for his office phone, plant it before the witness, and say, “Call him. I’ll give you his number.” The witness always backed off.)
Eventually I reached the Chief of Airport Operations.
I outlined what had happened. He didn’t seem very sympathetic. So I decided to transfer the problem from Rachel to the airport.
Without raising my voice, I said: “It isn’t her fault that your airport was in non-compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act and she missed her flight because there wasn’t anyone to assist her.”
Suddenly his tone changed–and I could tell I had definitely reached him.
No doubt visions of federal investigations, private lawsuits and truly bad publicity for his airport flashed across his mind. And all this had been achieved without my making an overt threat of any kind.
He said he would see to it that she got onto another flight without having to buy a second ticket.
I called Rachel to give her the good news. But a few minutes later she called me back, almost in tears.
The airline official at the departure gate was giving her a bad time: “If we have to choose between you and another passenger who has a ticket for this flight, he’ll go, not you.”
She laid out a series of other scenarios under which Rachel would remain stranded in Denver.
So once again I called the Chief of Airport Operations: “I just got a call from Rachel. She’s being hassled by an official at the gate. Can you please send someone over there and put a stop to this nonsense?”
A few minutes later, I got another call from Rachel–this one totally upbeat. She said that a man who identified himself only as an airport official–but wearing an expensive suit–had visited her at the gate.
When the ticket-taking airline official had protested, he had cut her off. The official had then walked Rachel and her baggage onto an otherwise fully-loaded 777 jet bound for San Francisco.
Soon she was en route to San Francisco for her urgent-care medical appointment the next day.
So if you’re having troubles with an airline:
- Start by calling the highest-ranking airline official you can reach.
- You may be able to find this out by punching the name of the airline in Google
- If the official isn’t available or sympathetic, call the airport.
- Be persistent–but businesslike.
- Don’t let yourself be bullied.
- If you can cite a legal violation by the airline and/or airport, don’t hesitate to do so.
- But don’t make overt threats: the official will get the message
- Don’t hesitate to play for sympathy: “This is a woman has an urgent-care doctor’s appointment….”
Then cross your fingers and hope for the best.
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BLACK THUGS MATTER
In Bureaucracy, History, Law Enforcement, Social commentary on August 4, 2015 at 3:06 pmBlacks make up 13% of the American population, according to the 2010 census of the United States.
But they committed 52% of homicides between 1980 and 2008, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Only 45% of whites were offenders in such cases.
Blacks were disproportionately likely to commit homicide and to be the victims. In 2008 blacks were seven times more likely than whites to commit homicide. And they were six times more likely than whites to be homicide victims.
According to the FBI, blacks were responsible for 38% of murders, compared to 31.1% for whites, in 2013.
From 2011 to 2013, 38.5% of people arrested for murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault were black.
Click here: FactCheck: do black Americans commit more crime?
In 1971, Robert Daley, a reporter for the New York Times, became a deputy police commissioner for the New York Police Department (NYPD).
In that capacity, he saw the NYPD from the highest levels to the lowest–from the ornate, awe-inspiring office of Police Commissioner Patrick Murphy to the gritty, sometimes blood-soaked streets of New York.
He spent one year on the job before resigning–later admitting that when he agreed to take the job, he got more than he bargained for.
It proved to be a tumultuous year in the NYPD’s history: Among those challenges Daley and his fellow NYPD members faced were the murders of several police officers, committed by members of the militant Black Liberation Army.
Two of those murdered officers were Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini. Jones was black, Piagentini white; both were partners. Both were shot in the back without a chance to defend themselves.
Writing about these murders in a bestselling 1973 book–Target Blue: An Inside’s View of the N.Y.P.D.–Daley noted:
“But the fact remained,” wrote Daley, “that approximately 65% of the city’s arrested murderers, muggers, armed robbers, proved to be black men; about 15% were of Hispanic origin; and about 20% were white [my italics].”
The overall racial breakdown of the city was approximately:
Stated another way: Blacks, who made up 20% of the city’s population, were responsible for 65% of the city’s major crimes.
Or, as Daley himself put it: “So the dangerous precincts, any cop would tell you, were the black precincts.”
That was 42 years ago.
Now, consider the following statistics released by the NYPD for “Crime and Enforcement Activity in New York City” in 2012. Its introduction states:
“This report presents statistics on race/ethnicity compiled from the New York City Police Department’s records management system.”
Then come the guts of the report:
Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter Victims:
Murder and Non-Negligent Manslaughter Arrestees:
Rape Victims:
Rape Arrestees:
Other Felony Sex Crimes Victims:
Known Other Felony Sex Crime Arrestees:
Robbery Victims:
Robbery Arrestees:
Felonious Assault Victims:
Felonious Assault Arrestees:
Grand Larceny Victims:
Grand Larceny Arrestees:
Shooting Victims:
Shooting Arrestees:
Drug Felony Arrest Population:
The Drug Misdemeanor Arrest Population
The Felony Stolen Property Arrest Population:
The Misdemeanor Stolen Property Arrest Population:
Violent Crime Suspects:
Reported Crime Complaint Juvenile Victims:
Juvenile Crime Complaint Arrestees:
Appendix B of the report offers a breakdown of New York City’s racial makeup:
Total Numbers % the City’s Population
Thus, while Blacks make up 22.8% of New York City’s population, they comprise
Police, like most people, learn from their experiences. And if the majority of their experiences with blacks continue to be with the perpetrators of crime, they will continue to associate blacks as a whole with criminals.
This is admittedly unfair to those blacks who are not involved in any way with crime. But it will continue until crime rates among blacks start falling dramatically.
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