Hasta La Gadget!

After a passenger was dragged off a United Airlines flight, the controversy became the No. 1 trending topic on Weibo, a Chinese social media platform. 

Users sounded off on Sunday’s airline incident, during which Chicago airport security officers violently dragged David Dao, a doctor of Asian descent, off of a flight headed to Louisville. 

Though fellow passengers have been quoted as saying he is both Vietnamese and Chinese, Dao’s reported account of feeling racially profiled is inciting outrage among Asians everywhere. 

Passenger Tyler Bridges was quoted by The Washington Post as saying, “He said, more or less, ‘I’m being selected because I’m Chinese.’” 

The quote, along with the graphic video of the incident, struck a chord with Chinese people, on social media. And many felt the treatment that Dao received was unjust.

On Weibo, people shared petitions protesting United Airlines’ treatment of Dao. 

Some users even cut up their United membership cards and posted them to illustrate their anger. Others stated that they felt the incident was racially-charged.

Social media users also compared the incident to the recent Airbnb controversy involving Dyne Suh, a 25-year-old law student, whose reservation was canceled by a host because of Suh’s ethnicity.

“Many Chinese people have felt that they’ve been discriminated against but didn’t have the courage to speak out.”

Comedian Joe Wong, whose Weibo post went viral, explained that he agrees with what Dao was quoted as saying, applauding the passenger for speaking out. He noted that Chinese people have often received unjust treatment in the past, however the issues have rarely attracted attention. 

“Many Chinese people have felt that they’ve been discriminated against but didn’t have the courage to speak out,” Wong wrote, according to a The Huffington Post translation. “That’s why Western mainstream media and the public don’t take discrimination against Chinese people seriously.” 

Another user explained that racism towards Asians is nothing new, pointing to several examples including Chris Rock’s jokes at the Oscars ceremony last year along with the Jimmy Kimmel skit during which a child suggested “killing everyone in China.” The user urged people to be more vocal about racism they experience. 

“Remember, there’s no single race that’s inferior to others. Don’t look down on yourself and don’t remain silent against the discrimination.” 

The backlash from Chinese social media comes as controversy surrounding the flight continues to unfold. Since the video went viral, United CEO Oscar Munoz responded in an email obtained by ABC news that he was “upset” by the incident but ultimately blamed the confrontation on the passenger. Munoz also described the doctor as “disruptive and belligerent” in a letter to company employees, leading to further criticism of the company. 

The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has opened an investigation into the incident, reviewing whether United complied with the oversales rule. 

“While it is legal for airlines to involuntarily bump passengers from an oversold flight when there are not enough volunteers, it is the airline’s responsibility to determine its own fair boarding priorities,” a statement from a DOT spokesperson read. 

John Zhou contributed to this report. 

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Secretary of State Rex Tillerson landed in Russia on Tuesday as dark clouds from a garbage fire hovered over Moscow’s Vnukovo airport. It was a visible contrast to the brighter days Tillerson has enjoyed through his longstanding business ties to Russia, but as tensions rise over Syria, this week’s visit will likely feel very different.

Tillerson’s trip marks the Trump administration’s most direct diplomatic effort in Russia, and it puts the secretary of state in a difficult position of attempting to ease the strain between the White House and the Kremlin while also pressuring Putin to pull back on his support for Assad.

Tillerson, who as the CEO of Exxon Mobil had friendly ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates, is likely no longer such a welcome figure in Moscow. Since last week’s poison gas attack that killed scores of civilians in Syria, Tillerson has harshly criticized the Kremlin for supporting President Bashar Assad. His rhetoric escalated after the U.S. missile strike against Syria’s Shayrat Air Base in retaliation for the massacre, saying that Russia’s failure to keep Assad in check is what led to his use of chemical weapons. 

Russia appears to be livid over the U.S. strike and is sticking to its initial claim that it was rebel fighters and not Assad that possessed the chemical weapons. In the days since the U.S. strike, the Kremlin has suspended a key agreement with Washington to coordinate air operations over Syria, deployed a warship to the Syrian coast and said the United States violated international law. Russia announced Monday that Putin would not meet with Tillerson during the trip.

The current climate in Moscow is far from what Tillerson is accustomed to. He met with Putin numerous times during his tenure at Exxon Mobil, including in 2011, when he flew to a Sochi resort to sign a deal with majority Russian government-owned gas company Rosneft. Tillerson’s standing in Russia led the Kremlin to award him an Order of Friendship in 2013, and for years he was the director of a Bahamas-based U.S.-Russian subsidiary of Exxon Mobil.

Russian media initially assumed that Tillerson would be a pro-Russia voice in Washington, observers say, but pundits have turned away from their praise in the months since Trump’s inauguration. Russia’s state-run news outlets have recently subjected Tillerson, as well as Trump, to some of the same scorn that faced previous administrations.

Along with the hostile atmosphere for negotiations, Tillerson’s goal of persuading Russia to give up support for Assad or pressure him into negotiations is inherently difficult. The Kremlin has significant strategic interests in Syria, including its sole naval base on the Mediterranean at the port of Tartus and a means of limiting U.S. power. It has also stood by Assad even after a far deadlier sarin gas attack in 2013, as well as innumerable reports of atrocities and a near daily onslaught of barrel bombings.

“[The Russians] have always known that the guy is a barbarian and he’s been using these means forever,” said Faysal Itani, a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Atlantic Council think tank.

“They don’t want him there because they like him; they want him there because they think the alternative is a threat to their interests and because they see the U.S. as a strategic adversary,” Itani said.

There is little to suggest that the Kremlin is willing to change its calculus on supporting Assad, and Russia has effectively doubled down on its support since the strike on Shayrat.

“I don’t think Rex Tillerson or even President Trump going to Russia and telling them off is going to do the job. We’ve been doing exactly that since they entered Syria in 2015,” Itani said. 

Tillerson’s statement Tuesday that the “reign of the Assad family is coming to an end” echoed a 2012 statement made by his predecessor, John Kerry, who said that “the regime’s days are numbered.” It’s not clear if anything has changed in the United States’ Syria policy that gives Tillerson reason to believe Assad is now close to losing power while on the ground the Syrian opposition is at one of its weakest points since the conflict began.

There has been mixed messaging from the White House on how far the U.S. is willing to pursue military options for Syria, but no official has directly said the White House plans a large-scale intervention. Tillerson stated over the weekend that, beyond a punitive strike to deter chemical use, there was no change to the U.S. military’s posture on Syria.

It’s uncertain what measures, either conciliatory or punitive, the U.S. is willing to take to pressure Russia into giving up support for Assad and losing the regional influence that it currently has as a result of its ally. The lack of a carrot or stick large enough to shift Russian actions could mean that Tillerson’s visit does little to change the current state of deadlock over Syria’s civil war.

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Tovolo makes some of our favorite ice-making gear, but for $8 they can also get you back all that time you spend wiping down your microwave.

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Edelkrone has taken the wraps off its new SliderPLUS X and Motion Control system for mid-weight cameras, giving photographers and videographers a relatively simple way to get cinematic, smooth motion shots. According to the company, this is the smallest and ‘most portable’ 4-axis motion control system available, and it works in conjunction with a convenient mobile app. Through that app, … Continue reading

The American Civil Liberties Union is sending a powerful, multilingual message to President Donald Trump about civil rights by posting the First Amendment in English, Spanish and Arabic on billboards across the country.

The goal of its “We the People” campaign is to send a message to Trump that Americans’ rights ― particularly those of immigrants, Latinx and Muslims ― are protected by the Constitution.

“Trump came to power on a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, and it was particularly bad when it came to Muslims,” ACLU communications staffer Stacy Sullivan told The Huffington Post. “We thought this would be a good time to remind the public ― and Trump ― that the First Amendment applies to Muslims and Latinos, and everyone else in this country, too.”

The First Amendment protects people’s right to practice their religion without facing discrimination. It also protects free speech, a free press and the right to protest.

The signs simply write out the language of the First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The first signs went up last week in Times Square in New York, as well as at 30 bus stops in Washington, D.C. Another billboard went up in Los Angeles on Tuesday. The group is aiming to put up more signs in other cities and in other languages in the coming months, Sullivan said.  

The ACLU chose to post the signs in Spanish and Arabic specifically because American and immigrant communities that speak those languages ― particularly the Muslim and Latinx communities ― are not only numerous in the U.S. but also are “most under threat,” said Sullivan.

The Trump administration has targeted Muslims with two executive orders barring travel from Muslim-majority countries ― which have both been blocked by the courts ― and Latinos with deportations and plans to build a wall on the Mexican border.

“It’s a way for us to state our solidarity with those communities under threat,” Sullivan told HuffPost, “and to say what [Trump is] doing is really un-American.”

While the signs are a pointed response to Trump’s anti-immigrant policies, they are also a commentary on the president’s attacks on the other First Amendment freedoms: of the press, speech and protest.

Trump has called the media the “enemy of the American people” and attacked reputable media outlets, including The New York Times and CNN, by labeling them “fake news.”

Trump has also criticized people who exercise their right to free speech and protest by suggesting that anyone who burns an American flag as a form of protest should lose citizenship.

“From his attempted Muslim ban to his calls for media suppression to his remarks endorsing the use of violence against those who protest against him, President Trump has shown disdain for the rights and freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment,” ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in a news release. “We thought it was a good time to remind people of these rights.”

The “We the People” campaign, developed by ad agency Emergence Creative for the ACLU, is simply about sending a message to Trump that people’s rights need to be upheld and to all people in America that their rights are protected by law.

“This campaign is intended to remind people that the Constitution is for all of us. It doesn’t matter who you are or what language you speak,” Romero said in the release. “‘We the People’ means everyone.”

For HuffPost’s #LoveTakesAction series, we’re telling stories of how people are standing up to hate and supporting those most threatened. Know a story from your community? Send news tips to lovetips@huffingtonpost.com.

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