As the tense situation unfolded at Detroit Metropolitan Airport, onlookers wondered exactly how to handle themselves, none of them having been near such a newsworthy incident before.

According to the Detroit Free Press, Detroiter Sarina Conrad strained behind a barrier as she said, “What happens if we run over there — will we get tackled?”

Horrible though the alleged Christmas Day terrorist attack might have been, it failed. Northwest Airlines Flight 253 landed safely at Detroit Metro, shortly after passengers managed to overpower a man haplessly attempting to set off an explosive on board. Given that nothing awful actually happened, it’s understandable that Conrad’s biggest concern at the moment was getting close to the action to see firsthand what was happening.

Airport employee Karen Goretski was also on the scene, and, as the Free Press reported, her concern was for the man at the center of the spectacle: “‘He was so close,’ Goretski said. ‘He is very handsome, very handsome. He's very, very cute.’”

Wait a minute, what the ... ? Surely that’s no way to talk about a man who just attempted to blow up an airplane?

Livonia native Dan Crosby’s reaction was even more odd. The Free Press reported him saying, “This is awesome. I love doing this stuff.”

Excuse me? Have these people lost their minds? A mad man nearly blows up an airplane and all they can think about is how exciting the situation is?

Oh wait. Scratch all that. I got confused. All of those quotes are actually from a Free Press story from last February, when Detroit Metro Airport played host to the only other significant thing that has happened there in recent memory. George Clooney’s latest film, “Up in the Air,” was filmed at the airport in February, and it opened nationwide on Wednesday, Dec. 23 — just two days before the drama aboard Flight 253.

Attempting to find any similarities between the two incidents would be a stretch, even for purely rhetorical purposes, and that’s not my intention. I only relate the two incidents at all because they each afford the opportunity to study how the Detroit area and its people reacted when the elusive national spotlight turned to them for a purpose other than rebuke. Both events were our chance to show the country that we are just like them, and that the problems this area has are not so forbiddingly unique after all.

Whether by unleashing the fanatics to gawk and scream at an international star like Clooney or by telling the world about the dozens of Detroit area passengers on the flight who helped overpower the terrorist on board, Detroit is, to borrow from the tagline for “Up in the Air,” “a city ready to make a connection.”

No press is bad press, the old showbiz saying goes, but that’s an outright lie in the case of Detroit, which seems to get nothing but bad press. The city is never in the spotlight except for national concern and consternation over its crumbling infrastructure, struggling auto companies, spiraling crime and unemployment and, lately, its God-awful football team. To the average American, Detroit is not simply another large city struggling under modern pressures but rather a whole different animal — a disaster unlike any other, that no one could hope to understand.

Long gone are the days when Detroit was heralded as “the arsenal of democracy” and the birthplace of the American middle class. Today, the nation scoffs at the Kwame Kilpatrick scandal and the corruption and incompetence within the City Council, citing Detroit as Exhibit A in the story of urban decline.

What the nation forgets however is that Detroit once also led the way to the top, and its recent decline is no more of an anomaly; rather, it’s an indication of what is to come for every major American city if we continue as a country to ignore the basic needs of our people. The story of Detroit’s downfall is quite simple. While the problem had racial roots, the crime and desolation we find in the city today stem from one main source: poverty. No matter how free our nation may claim to be, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt often said, “Necessitous men are not free men.”

But to understand Detroit’s problems as no different from what may soon follow nationally, people from other parts of the country need to see Detroit and its people in situations they can identify with. And for allowing that forbiddingly difficult task to be accomplished, I thank George Clooney and those who stalked him, as well as those brave metro-Detroiters who really were aboard Flight 253 and gave the usual, meaningless everyman interviews to the national media in the aftermath of the attempted attack.

Hey America: We’re just like the rest of you.

Imran Syed can be reached at galad@umich.edu.