PROFILED ON PLANE

Musician David Ryan Harris Accuses American Airlines of Racial Profiling

An American Airlines flight attendant sounded the alarm believing that the musician, who is Black, was possibly trafficking children on a plane from Atlanta to L.A.

A musician who has played guitar for John Mayer and The Dave Matthews Band says he was profiled during a trip to L.A. last week when an American Airlines flight attendant accused him of trafficking children who are, in fact, his own kids. In a heated series of Instagram posts, David Ryan Harris, a Black man, says that police and an airline employee confronted him and his biracial children after deplaning because an attendant was concerned that his kids were not his because they did not respond to a question she asked early in the morning. “I wanted to go through the roof, but I did not want my kids to see me handle the situation with anything other than grace and class,” Harris said, adding that he was not given an apology. “American Airlines, fix your shit.” (Mayer showed support on Harris’ posts.) The debacle comes after a white parent sued Southwest for suspecting she kidnapped her Black daughter in 2021.