Can we all just agree that it’s not ok to assume that Black people’s kids aren’t their own just because they’re mixed? And if you’re ever in doubt, you should be pretty damn sure something’s not right before you get the police involved. That’s exactly what happened to David Ryan Harris. The singer-songwriter was accused of trafficking his children while traveling from Atlanta to Los Angeles and forced to explain himself to law enforcement when the plane landed.
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The musician, who has played with well-known artists like John Mayer and Dave Matthews, said the flight attendant attempted to ask one of his kids their name during the flight and became concerned when they didn’t respond. Harris explained that his seven-year-old son is just “pretty shy” and was not in fear for his life – especially because he was traveling with his dad and brother.
“Apparently, a flight attendant had called ahead with some sort of concern that perhaps my mixed children weren’t my children, because they were unresponsive during an interaction with her,” Harris said in a September 23 Instagram video.
When the plane finally landed in LA, Harris and his children were met by four police officers and an American Airlines employee who let them go when they were sure nothing was wrong – without an apology.
Rather than make a scene in the airport, Harris said he called AA’s customer service line to tell them about his experience. But he was told that they don’t take complaints over the phone and directed him to fill out a form online.
“I wanted to go through the roof, but I didn’t want my kids to see me handle the situation with anything other than grace, class, and me not losing my mind,” he continued in his video post.
The justifiably upset dad wanted to give the airline a chance to rectify things without resorting to an angry social media post. But after more than a week without so much as a couple of free drink tickets, the airline left him with no choice but to make his frustrations public.
“I don’t care what you say, if this had been a white dad/mom with 2 little black kids, they would probably been offered an upgrade, not an interrogation,” he wrote in the caption of his post.
On September 25, Harris got back on Instagram to let followers know that he had finally been contacted by someone at American Airlines. The person explained that the flight attendant was responding to a trigger they are trained to look out for in human trafficking victims, leaving Harris to determine that it was the fact that his son looked at him when the question was asked. But as he pointed out in his video update, a quick check of the manifest would have shown that flight attendant that Harris and his children have the same last name and saved a lot of time and trouble.
At the end of the call, the employee offered Harris an apology and 10,000 frequent flyer miles. But judging by this September 26 post, Harris won’t be flying American Airlines any time soon.
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