Arab American YouTubers Respond to Delta Incident, Insist it Wasn't Fake
BY: Nisreen Eadeh/Staff Writer
Arab American YouTube stars Adam Saleh and Slim Albaher have released two videos to quell the accusations that they were kicked off a Delta flight as a prank. The two sat down to discuss the events before, during, and after the incident, wherein Slim was asked to stop speaking Arabic by a passenger on a Delta flight. The two were kicked off for making others feel uncomfortable, but since it was Saleh’s video that went viral, his prankster past was used to discredit the discrimination claims.
The conversation was channeled through the hashtag #BoycottDelta, which Adam and Slim urged their followers to use. However, the ensuing discussion was not so straight forward, with many claiming that this was a “boy who cried wolf” incident, claiming Adam intentionally tried to get kicked off the flight, as he’s done in YouTube prank videos in the past.
In their videos, the two men insist that their discrimination was real. On Wednesday, when the story first broke, Delta released a statement about wanting to combat discrimination on their flights. Later, Delta changed their statement saying that the two were removed because they “sought to disrupt the cabin with provocative behavior.” Extended footage from the incident offers greater explanation as to what happened, where the Delta pilot accuses the men of being to angry to get back on the flight. The footage also shows the many fellow passengers who were shock that Adam and Slim were getting kicked off and offered their support.
Slim used his video to explain that it was a woman a few rows in front of them that asked him to stop speaking Arabic because it made her uncomfortable. Slim says he was in shock and Adam spoke up for him. They also addressed the claims that since they have pulled pranks in the past, it means that this real incident of discrimination doesn’t “count.” The duo insist that their past should have nothing to do with how to address the Delta event today. “You can see in the video, this is as real as it gets,” Saleh said in the follow-up video.
Arab America followed the story as it unfolded on Wednesday morning. Our office was led to an Instagram video of the incident posted by Complex, as well as a news article from CNBC. On Wednesday, we posted details of what we knew so far: two Arab American men were forcibly removed from a flight for speaking Arabic and took a video of it happening.
Since then, Arab America has been closely looking at the comments, tweets, posts, and hashtags that have surfaced as a result of this story. Many offered support for the two men, while others fought back, insisting that they got what they deserved because they’re pranksters.
Asserting that this discrimination incident was fake is another way of crying wolf. Indeed, there are people who take advantage of the attention that comes from discrimination stories to spread a lie, but like every community and institution in the world, there are a few bad apples who do not represent the whole. Claiming that everything is fake causes readers to stop trusting any news article about discrimination. Therefore, the community stops taking discrimination seriously in general. Regardless of the past pranks pulled by Adam or Slim, speaking Arabic on an airplane is not a crime and should not be treated as such.
Arab America was founded in order to bring diverse Arab Americans together onto one platform to give Arab Americans a voice and empower the community to speak up when they face bigotry. It took the Arab American community decades to speak up against the hate speech and crimes they were victim to as immigrants and “different” from others. That work cannot be undone.
As a small community, Arab Americans must stand together in order to combat incidents like the Delta flight. What we should not tolerate are people insisting that we drop our language and our identity in order to make others feel more comfortable. If there is a lesson to be taken from the Delta incident, it is to unapologetically embrace your heritage because the problems other people have with Arabs are their own – not yours.
