December 08, 2018
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Talib Kweli has had a harrowing experience on an American Airlines flight this week, and he’s taken to Instagram to share the entire encounter.
In a series of videos posted on Wednesday (January 18), the Brooklyn native explained how a flight attendant not realizing his bag was able to fit under the seat in front of him ended with him being threatened to be arrested.
“Yesterday afternoon @americanair threatened to have me arrested for no reason at all,” Talib captioned his post. “After clearing my bag with the gate agent, flight attendant Sky Seaglass tells me my bag is too big and I must check it. I asked why, so he got annoyed and called his supervisor. The supervisor tells me it’s her decision whether I fly or not. That’s an important detail.”
While he didn’t have video of his interaction with Seaglass, the clips begin with the supervisor and a very calm Talib explaining why his bag should be fine.
“The supervisor sees that the attendant Seaglass was wrong about my bag and walks me to my seat and says l’m good to fly,” he continued. “Moments later the supervisor comes back and tells me that if I do not obey the flight attendant while in the air, I will go to jail. The whole time, Seaglass, who I’m not talking to at all, is telling people he feels ‘unsafe.'”
“Moments later the supervisor comes back and tells me I must leave the plane. I tell her I feel like that’s a violation of my human rights and my rights as a customer. She then tells me I must stop recording, even though earlier she said I could record, and was made to sit and wait as everyone exits the plane. I tried to go live 3 times but @instagram kept cutting my audio.”
Video of this part of the incident appears to show the supervisor not really having a decent explanation as to why Talib should disembark from the plane.
“They then send 3 police officers in. Police expressed surprise that @americanair crew threatened me with arrest and said only the police can make that call. Cops then say ‘we got called out for nothing’ and ‘you didn’t do anything wrong.’ It’s right there on video.”
The final post in the carousel was a photo of his luggage.
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