Just imagine if a stereotype of a minority was said by a passenger to explain some strange episode like the one in the story below. The Internet outrage would be instantaneous with everyone claiming racism. When it comes to negatively stereotyping US military servicemembers few seem to care:
A fight aboard an All Nippon Airways (ANA) flight from Narita, Japan to Los Angeles went viral this week after an agitated passenger began throwing punches at another man shortly before takeoff. At the time, it was believed the man was intoxicated. Now, the passenger on the receiving end of the altercation is speaking out. According to Ryan Humphreys, the aggressor may have been suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Humphreys, an ex-Marine, told TMZ by video Wednesday that man, shown in video clips wearing a red patterned shirt, was talking loudly to other passengers before standing up and becoming agitated. Humphreys said he was watching the man before the altercation occurred, but maintained that he hadn’t done anything to initiate the incident.
“I didn’t say anything to the guy and he was like, ‘What are you looking at? I will kill you,’” Humphreys told TMZ. Humphreys said he asked the man if he was okay, to which the man responded by asking him if Humphreys was in Vegas. “It had something to do with Vegas, I don’t know,” Humphreys said.
Humphreys said the man then began assaulting a couple on the plane, allegedly attempting to choke a man and smothering his partner, a woman, in the process.
“He’s either active military or a veteran. When his shirt got ripped up I could [see] all his ink,” he said. “I would guess [he either had] PTSD or maybe off his meds. He didn’t strike me as being drunk.” [Yahoo News]
You can read more at the link, but there could be multiple reasons to explain what happened but to just claim the guy is a veteran and must have PTSD just further promotes a poor stereotype about veterans that is not true. Even more troubling is that the PTSD claim is being thrown around in the media now despite the airline saying this guy was drunk.
Here is a veteran’s response to Senator John Walsh’s claim that PTSD is to blame for him committing plagiarism:
What really upsets me is Walsh’s use of post-traumatic stress disorder to defend academic dishonesty. It has the potential to further distort society’s understanding of mental trauma and create space for veterans to misuse their diagnoses in any number of situations, academic or otherwise. [New York Times]
