For me, and for so many thousands of other people, the arrival of the holidays means countless hours spent in an airport. As if being packed into a flying steel cage with roughly 120 strangers and 0.005 inches between your knees and the chair in front of you isn’t bad enough, the whole experience is prefaced by something even more uncomfortable -- security lines and the TSA.
Making it through security without incident was a rarity for me for years. Around the time I hit sixteen or seventeen years old was the same time that I started being "randomly selected" for extra security screenings.
I would have believed my selection was truly random if it didn’t happen 95% of the time I flew. It didn’t matter if I was flying alone or with a group, if I had minimal luggage or the maximum amount allowed on the plane, or if I breezed through the metal detector without incident. I was always stopped, given a stern look, and beckoned to the side by one rubber-gloved hand.
One moment that particularly stands out occurred right after I had graduated from high school. I had gone on an EF Tour of Italy and Spain with classmates and two chaperones, and we were in the Barcelona airport waiting to return home.
One by one, we shuffled through the security line, plunking baggage on the belt and strolling through the metal detector. I ran through a mental checklist that had already become routine -- was I wearing a headband? Jewelry? Was there any metal in my shoes that might cause the detector to go off? Was my hair pulled back to prevent them patting down the puffy curls, certain I was hiding something dangerous? Satisfied that I’d minimized any risk of creating extra suspicion, I placed my bag on the belt and walked through the metal detector, holding my breath.
Nothing happened. I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking that maybe this time I was safe, until I saw an agent beckoning me over. “Miss, could you step over here, please?”
My heart sunk. I did as told, wondering what on earth I had done to cause suspicion this time. It was clear that I was with the rest of the group that had just been waved through -- we had been chatting amongst ourselves and all had matching backpacks. But I was the only one pulled aside. Funnily enough, I was also the only one with dark skin.
The agent directed me to an area that had been cordoned off from the rest of security. The rest of my group had made it through without incident and was now waiting beyond the barrier, surprised to see me singled out.
Before I was allowed to rejoin my classmates, security determined I needed a random pat down in addition to the metal detector -- which of course found nothing -- and swabbed my hands for drug residue, only letting me go when their test came back negative for any substances. Even though I knew I had done nothing wrong, my cheeks were still burning with embarrassment and anger by the time I was released.
Whether I was abroad or at home in the United States, I was nearly always treated with an extra degree of suspicion. My extra “random” security screenings only stopped when I signed up for TSA PreCheck. Apparently, in order to be treated like any other traveler, I had to undergo a background check and have fingerprints on file to make absolutely sure that the dark girl wasn't going to cause trouble.
I’ve been turning this over in my mind more lately both because of holiday travel and the bias incidents that have been recently reported -- the reporter who was inappropriately touched during a search, the passengers allegedly kicked off of a Delta airlines flight for speaking Arabic, the many stories of brown- and black-skinned people like me who are so frequently randomly selected.
I understand the necessity of airport security, but we must ask ourselves just who exactly is being kept safe by adding racial profiling to the routine.
Brown skin is not a threat. Black skin is not a threat. We shouldn’t have to go the extra mile just to be treated with common courtesy and respect.
