You Decide: Was NAACP’S Barber Really Removed From Flight ‘For Being Black’?

William Barber, President of the North Carolina NAACP, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday in Alexandria, Virginia against American Airlines, who Barber claims removed him from a flight in April “because he is black.”

Supposedly, according to Barber’s claims, he boarded a flight from Washington, D.C. to return to Raleigh from a speaking engagement when, he says, he was removed from the plane because of his race.

The suit claims Barber was ‘harassed’ by another passenger over his need to take up multiple seats on the plane. Barber claims this is because of a bone-fusion arthritic disability.

Other reasons are probably more accurate, but we’ll move on…

Regardless, Barber admitted in April that he got into a verbal altercation with this passenger because the passenger made ‘disparaging’ remarks about him and his ‘physical disability.’

The passenger involved in the incident spoke to ABC11 back in the spring. Most stories on Barber’s lawsuit from the mainstream media are not providing this context, which is key:

“He calls the stewardess back over and says ‘These guys behind me are talking way too loud, and could you please tell him to keep it down,'” the passenger recalled. “He could have turned around and said it nicely to me, instead of calling the stewardess up and making a little, small scene about it. That kind of aggravated me a little bit.”

…

“In hindsight, I could have handled the situation a whole lot better,” the passenger explained. “So I proceeded to talk a little bit louder, and said something about him – words like ‘I can’t stand those types of people who would call someone over and say something to the stewardess,’ rather than turning around and saying something to me.”

…

“I felt a little bit disrespected, and so after I said ‘I don’t like those kinds of people,’ he must have taken it out of context, in the wrong context. And that’s when he stood up and turned around, and started arguing with me and saying. ‘I haven’t been able to walk in 14 years. I paid for both of these seats,'” the passenger said. “I said, ‘That’s great. I’m happy that you’re able to be up and moving around again. That’s awesome.’ I was pretty much over the confrontation, I didn’t want anything to do with it.”

Clearly, there are two sides to every story, but the account provided by the passenger, coupled with Barber’s tendency to cry ‘racism’ any time something inconveniences him, can lead one to believe, rather clearly, that Barber lost his cool over something petty, forcing the airline to remove him.

Not because he’s black, but because he was obviously being disruptive, as American Airlines claims.

But we just provide the facts. The rest is up to you to decide.