If the person involved is suffering from mental illness, trying to ascribe any kind of rational (or even an irrational, but directional, motive like racism) seems folly. Is there any evidence to show this persons actions were based upon racial profiling and not some form of temporary insanity? IANAP but it seems as likely as not to me that the employee bumping into the person on line was the triggering event.

Why would mental illness, temporary or any other temporality, be reason to eliminate any value in categorizing the specifics of the behavior as racist?

If not all racism, maybe some racism could be a symptom of mental illness? [1]

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1071634/

I never claimed it eliminated any value, but to answer your question more directly, it reduces the value for the same reason it reduces the value of any action taken by an clinically insane person in terms of moral weight vs one who is sane: the insane person is presumed to have lost the ability to reason and act rationally due to factors outside of their free will.

Of course, more to the point, is the fact that based on the article the extent of the evidence that this was racial profiling is that the victim speculated it was such, and the two victims were of similar ethnic origin. That, combined with the fact that it sounds like there is evidence supporting the idea the person may have been having a mental episode, should call into question the journalistic integrity of the author who in the title claims as fact that racism was the cause of the employee's behavior.

At the very least, it seems like there is some chance that this person had some kind of lapse in sanity, and this article now labels that person as being a racist -- if that person's name were included in the article, they'd likely now be the target of an internet mob and persona non grata. Insofar as the allegations about their mental illness are true and have been identified as the cause (unknown) I commend Alaska Airlines for protecting the person's identity.

I believe I mistook the use of the word folly in a context that was not relevant.

I would not feel qualified to say for whom it might be of value, but my thinking was perhaps for the individual having their behavior being categorized, or a clinician assisting them. Not super relevant here.

We're talking about the journalist, and perhaps ourselves, and in that light folly makes a lot more sense than it did in how I had initially misinterpreted.

I felt like racism against asians did get a little worse this year. A lot of it is probably due to china coming up a lot more in the news so I start noticing the stereotyping/generalizations surfacing in the comment threads. Usually we get all the good stereotypes (e.g., harvard needs affirmative action to keep us out). But more recently the highly upvoted news were about how you shouldn't trust someone chinese because they are here to spy on you or steal your intellectual property for china.

“...the woman has bipolar disorder and had missed her medication.”

> He noted that East Asians aren't usually profiled in shooting or terror situations, but said he feared that "maybe there is a shift in Trump's America and all this [Chinese] trade war situation."

The only thing racial was that the employee assumed the two Chinese guys knew each other. She pre-judged that fact based on their race. As for thinking they were terrorists that probably had more to do with her psychological state...

> "How much are they paying you?" he said she asked him, not clarifying who "they" were. "Did they give you a visa? Did they give your family a visa? Do you make a lot of money? Do you work on Wall Street? Are you on an American visa?"

She probably wasn't asking him that because of his Canadian citizenship.

Perhaps she thought they were some sort of Chinese government terrorists. Seems like a plausible enough jump for a mentally unwell person to make given the rest of the things she said to them. Can’t know her motivations either way though.

Yeah, this seems like a headline just made to get more clicks. It's just kinda weird honestly. Nothing about the questions she asked implies anything racial.