Man Kicked Off Flight For Wearing Sweatshirt With Guns On It While Being Black

Showing too much cleavage gets you kicked off a Spirit flight. So does your 3 year old spitting up if flying legacy Virgin America. And taking a photo while pregnant on American. Or wearing yoga pants on United. I wish bare feet got you kicked off.

Now we can add one thing to the banned list, it seems: wearing a sweatshirt with guns on it while black.

Frontier kicked off a professional skateboarder “wearing a T-shirt that offended another passenger.” Frontier of course says they did it because the man was “being disruptive” but they aren’t any more specific than that, it’s a catch-all, excuse all and in this case his disruptive behavior seems to be:

  • wearing a sweatshirt with two guns
  • and the words “Big Black Biscuit” on it
  • that led another passenger to complain

“Big Black Biscuit” is songwriterand skateboarder Stoney Pebbles. Skateboarder Justin Mallory, who was wearing the sweatshirt, has retained legal counsel to seek damages for being removed from a flight in Atlanta on March 2.

According to the airline,

Justin Mallory was removed from his flight on March 2, 2018, for being disruptive and not complying with crew member instructions. He became argumentative prior to boarding when asked to check a skateboard. It is Frontier’s policy that skateboards are not permitted in the cabin. After eventually checking the item, the passenger boarded the aircraft and continued to exhibit disruptive behavior. Frontier Airlines takes the safety and security of our flights, and all our customers, seriously and it was determined that the passenger should not fly. We refunded the passenger’s ticket to allow him to make other travel arrangements.


Copyright: zhukovsky / 123RF Stock Photo

Last year Frontier removed a blind man from a flight because he’d be a liability in an emergency.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Until recently, the NRA got discounts for flying. Yet a black man gets kicked off for wearing a sweatshirt with guns on it. Racism is dead, long live racism.

  2. “Mallory insisted he was discriminated against because his shirt displays two guns in a logo.”

    I don’t see where race is ever mentioned except for your commentary. Race bait much, Gary?

  3. Hi Gary, thank you for posting this story. As a black traveler, I face and observe various forms of bias (usually agents looking doubtful that I have a first class ticket) so I appreciate it when bloggers bring these cases to the attention of a general audience. As to the previous comments… race does not need to be mentioned or referenced for an action to be fully or partially racially motivated. There is plenty of sociological research showing that black men are more likely than white men to be perceived as “threatening”.

  4. +1 on Kenny’s race bait comment. There is enough divisiveness in the U.S. without speculative non-news finger wagging like this.

  5. I agree with Kenny and Attila – this article is racebaiting…and as always I love how people comment and villify others with so limited info…did you interview any people at the scene or speak to any witnesses…you have so little info to act as judge and jury…this is constant in our social media where everyone is a pundit and convicts on so little info..

  6. Here’s a novel idea …

    Maybe he actually was being disruptive. Or maybe not. Seems the jury is still out on this one.

    Of course, that doesn’t stop Gary from calling it. Either he has additional facts that we so far haven’t been made aware of, or we need to change his title to “foremost clickslut.”

  7. Does Frontier have a pattern for this, or are they being stereotyped?
    They bent the rules with the skateboard, it sounds like a pattern will be difficult to prove.

  8. This is how it works: the airlines hire these retards to work at gates and onboard. They are low paid workers with the intellectual capacity to match. But the problem is they have far too much power for their lot in life. They have nothing in their sad, pathetic, low paid lives and the only avenue they have to vent the anger they have is to throw their mostly substantial weight around. Lets get rid of them, they are pests, rodents, a nuisance who serve no purpose. Oh but safety Robbo, what about safety, they are there for our safety? Most of them couldn’t save them selves let alone us. The boys get them selves in a tizz and the girls are so out of condition. Driverless cars. Easy. So in 2018 why do we need these imbeciles, they contribute bugger all

  9. Gary, I enjoy the content you provide about travel. However, you seem to be buying into the idea that creating sensationalized headlines to get more reads is ok. It makes you no different than the magazines at grocery store checkout lanes. You’re better than that. BTW, no one should ever be discriminated against because of their skin color.

  10. I ASSUME IT IS FAR MORE POLITICALLY EXPLOSIVE THAT TO POINT OUT THAT ANY GLORIFACATION OF GUNS IN THIS CLIMATE AFTER SCHOOLCHILDREN ARE SLUGHTERED IN THEIR CLASSROOM AND THERE ARE NATION-WIDE PROTESTS SUPPORTING GUN CONTROL. TYOU THINK THAT SHIRT MIGHT HAVE BEEN A TAD DISTURBING TO MANY REGARLESS OF HIS COLOR?

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