After a United Airlines flight from Cancun to Los Angeles, a passenger hurled racist insults at an Indian American family while enroute to the terminal from a bus gate. Wedding photographer Pervez Taufiq documented the confrontation with his family and the woman being called “Karen” and “LAX Karen” in some quarters.
According to Taufiq, the conflict began during the flight when the woman seated next to his 11-year-old son displayed irritation while he checked on the child. On arrival, things escalated. The woman interrogated the boy, asking if he was Indian and where he was from, before threatening to speak to his parents. On the shuttle bus, she snapped at the children to “shut up.”
The man caught the altercation on video. She says
Your family is from India, you have no respect, you have no rules, you think you can push everyone. You guys are f’ing crazy.
She also insulted Taufiq about… Indian food? She said she’d record his “f’ing tandoori ass” and she flashed her middle fingers and accused him of being “racist” for her out for her behavior. Need I mention that he and his family are U.S. citizens and born in the United States? Photographer Taufiq grew up in Boston. She says, though, that they’re “not American, not originally.”
United employees intervened. A bystander confirmed she was the instigator, and she was removed from the shuttle bus.
Taufiq claimed the woman appeared intoxicated both during and after the flight. Reportedly she has been banned from flying United. Katie Couric commented on his Instagram post:
Some people haven’t gotten the memo that the broadly anti-immigration incoming President’s Vice President married into an Indian family or that Indian-Americans currently or in the recent past have served as CEOs of Microsoft; Google; Chanel; Abobe; Pepsi; IBM; Arista Networks; and Novartis. Granted Starbucks didn’t turn out as well and IBM is a mess. But clearly the U.S. is benefiting from Indian outmigration.
It blows my mind that @JDVance's relatives look just like mine. 🙂
This is the greatness of America. pic.twitter.com/w4Xk1vFiEc
— Vivek Wadhwa (@wadhwa) November 30, 2024
Taufiq called it surreal and unexpected that he found his family at the center of this incident.
Another example of why more people need to be on the no-fly list.
BTW I wouldn’t call IBM “a mess”. I’ve done very well with their stock and the current CEO (an Indian American) has done a great job of focusing the company and growing stock value. He had to clean up the mess Ginny Rometty (a white woman) left him.
I’ve worked closely with Indians and Indian Americans throughout my 40 year IT career and found them to be very bright, dedicated and a benefit to companies that employed them. Also, Vance can value marrying into an Indian family and still not be in favor of open borders or illegal immigration. Republicans are not “anti-immigrant” we are anti ILLEGAL immigrant – huge difference.
Those Indian Americans may be Muslim. An Indian American woman once said, which I overheard, “never marry a Muslim from India…they cannot be trusted “.
I have been helped by Indians, but also exploited and ripped off by Indians.
I have been to India on business 3 times. It’s a terrible country that’s filthy.
Well I enjoyed the rich culture and history of India. You have to take the place as it is. Frustrating but just doing things in its own way. But naming Indians who did well is like the old listing of (insert minority) who are “credits to their race”. Why can’t we see each other as just…people?
Indians are very rude and pushy people. More and more people are seeing their entitled nonsense in public.
So sad .
Not sure what the SAVE shareholders are looking for. The company was trading at near-BK levels for awhile; what did they think would happen in a Ch 11 reorg?
We’re getting an Air India flight to DFW now.. I don’t see this as a positive. But I do see big sales for airport wheelchairs. Indians always want wheelchair help to the plane and they miraculously have no need for it when getting off.
@ Gary — How much you wanna bet that Taufiq voted for Orange Satan?
Every comment and the original post seem to be anti immigrant (anti Indian in this context).
Sign of the times, I guess?
AndyS you tipped your racist hand. Come clean so Agent Orange can nominate you as Assistant to the Border Czar.
There are over 200 million Muslims in India. And many of the South Asian Muslim Americans are Indian Americans — not Pakistani-Americans and not Bangladeshi-Americans. This family is Indian-American, much like the great Indian-American comics Aziz Ansari and Hasan Minaj.
I find it pitiful and ridiculous when some European-Americans try to tell or view Asian-Americans or any other American of apparent non-European ancestry as something other than really American. Those of only Native American origin may have something to say about who is really native to America.