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Politics Of Respectability And A Dragged Passenger

The politics of respectability were complicated this week when a 69 year-old Asian-American doctor was forcibly dragged off a United Airlines flight.
Demonstrators protest United Airlines at O'Hare International Airport on April 11, 2017 in Chicago, Illinois. The protest was in response to airport police officers physically removing passenger Dr. David Dao from his seat and dragging him off the airplane, after he was requested to give up his seat for United Airline crew members on a flight from Chicago to Louisville, Kentucky Sunday night.

The politics of respectability, that elusive set of guidelines that dictate how racialized Americans ought to conduct themselves in public, were complicated this week when a 69-year-old Asian-American doctor was forcibly dragged off a United Airlines flight.

The video of Dr. David Dao's body being hauled off the plane provoked international outrage, especially from Asian-Americans, but some argued that race had nothing to do with the incident — that the same level of outrage would have

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