I live in a remote rural area, where most people don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of them-flip flops in public would be an improvement over the bare feet or mud-and-cow/goat s*** caked boots seen in the general store...
When my husband was in the military and traveled, civilian flight crews were very polite, quiet and circumspect in determining the seriousness of an incident like the one described-they even managed to keep things calm if there was a threat of a hijacking or other crime-I guess maybe the airlines just instruct them to go into panic mode immediately now...
If I lived in a city now, my first thought about that see something, say something admonition would be the same as yours-why would I want to look like a racist?
We seem to learn nothing, do we? 9/11, the guy who checked in the charming Mohammed Atta thought he was a creep as did the next door neighbors of the San Bernardino murderers! But this woman, perhaps as silly as other freepers say, chose to speak up and for her pains, the Washington Post embarrassed her choice of clothing, her hair color and her lack of education. As a woman of middle years, who buys most of her clothes at Food Emporium, why should I speak up? So that Page 6 of the New York Post can humiliate me? No way!