The Huffington Post is reporting that the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP recently held a protest outside of the US Airways ticket counter at the city's international airport in support of Deshon Marman.
You may recall that the 20-year-old, who plays football at the University of New Mexico, was ejected from a flight last month after airline employees determined his pants were too saggy. He was later arrested for refusing to comply with a request from crew members to leave the plane, which was parked at the gate.
Charges against Marman were later dropped, but the NAACP is calling foul.
"This is another instance in which an African-American young man has been victimized by the new Jim Crow," Dr. Amos Brown, the president of the NAACP's San Francisco chapter, told the HuffingtonPost. "[US Airways] said his arrest was not about dress but about his refusal to follow orders to leave the plane. The question is: Why was he asked to leave the plane in the first place?"
There are more important things to defend than saggy pants, though the chapter feels it was a racially motivated attack. Granted, the NAACP has to be ever vigilant against veiled and unveiled racist attacks. And the NAACP is not alone in seeing this as a cause worth championing. ColorofChange.org is floating a petition that demands a public apology from the airline.
In other news: Lamar Odom Vehicle Crash Victim Dies.