{"id":3914,"date":"2016-02-05T16:46:09","date_gmt":"2016-02-05T23:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/?p=3914"},"modified":"2016-02-05T16:46:09","modified_gmt":"2016-02-05T23:46:09","slug":"searched-at-the-airport-but-this-is-not-about-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/2016\/02\/05\/searched-at-the-airport-but-this-is-not-about-me\/","title":{"rendered":"Searched at the Airport But This Is Not About Me"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Charles<\/a>I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. I hadn\u2019t. But something beeped.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhich are your belongings?\u201d I was asked. \u201cI need to bring you over here. Please bring them with you. You were a random selection, that\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n

I followed the young, blue-shirted woman to a station behind the airport security line where she patted me down\u00a0— not quite thoroughly, it turned out.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease put your hands out in front of you.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 As I obliged, she ran a damp pad over each palm \u2013 up and back, up and back and then ran the pad through a machine that beeped again, producing a bright red bar on the monitor.<\/p>\n

\u201cOh\u201d she said. \u201cI have to get someone to pat you down. I\u2019m not allowed to do it.\u201d She shouted something to someone and\u00a0began walking, indicating that I should follow her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the privacy booth on this side or the other?\u201d she called to a colleague; then followed her directions and led me there. We walked into a smoked glass booth just beyond the X-ray belt. As I entered, she pointed to a table in the corner. \u201cJust put your bag over there. I have your phone and your Fitbit. You need to wait; she\u2019ll be here in a minute.”<\/p>\n

Not much beyond that time, in walked a large, gruff young woman with a soup-bowl hair cut. With no greeting or acknowledgment that I might have a name, she began:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am going to pat you down. Is there any part of your body that is injured \u2013 where it might be painful?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo\u201d I responded unsteadily. \u00a0I was scared. Mortified really. Near tears, too, which sucked.<\/p>\n

She began a detailed exposition \u2013 sounding more than a little like the author of a bad porn novel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will move my hands up and down your legs, inside and out. Up, down.” She demonstrated, her arms extended, running up, then down as she spoke.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will feel your arms and down the sides of your body. Then your breasts and under.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the buttocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the groin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d I said, struggling to speak.<\/p>\n

\u201cFace your *unintelligible*\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cFace your articles\u201d \u2013 she meant the table where my stuff lay \u2013 over in the corner of the booth.<\/p>\n

\u201cPut your arms out at your sides.\u201d<\/p>\n

And she began — telling me each time she was about to move to a new area. Groin last. Of course. \u00a0As impersonal as it could be, but still pretty dreadful.<\/p>\n

Afterward, the young woman who\u2019d first pulled me over turned to me and, as I was gathering my coat and backpack, pointed at the corner of the table\u00a0\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t forget, I put your phone and your Fitbit over there.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it was done. They both just walked away. Like nothing had happened.<\/p>\n

And I guess nothing had \u2013 really, but I was devastated and humiliated and angry as hell and not for me alone.<\/p>\n

Through the whole thing, I kept thinking about all the arrest narratives I\u2019d heard or read on-line, particularly since Ferguson,\u00a0often recounted by Facebook friends\u00a0— almost all African-American.\u00a0\u00a0 Of TV producer Charles Belk<\/a>, photographed sitting on the curb in Beverly Hills with his hands cuffed behind his back. \u00a0Of Elora Nicole\u2019s son<\/a>. \u00a0Of Eric Holder stopped in his own neighborhood when he was a US Attorney.<\/p>\n

This only happened to me once. For so many people of color, especially male, this is just another part of what happens to them. More than a few times to many of them. \u00a0Their experiences are often combined with real fear. That fear echoes daily in their hearts and in the hearts\u00a0of those who love them.<\/p>\n

I had felt so alone, and so violated. I had had to fight to keep tears of humiliation and shame at bay. \u00a0 Though it\u00a0happened over a week ago,\u00a0I put off writing\u00a0about it\u00a0because I was so freaked out. Even now, as I write, my heart is pounding and I again feel that lump rising in my throat. I\u2019ll never go through security again without fear.<\/p>\n

And it only happened to me once.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. I hadn\u2019t. But something beeped. \u201cWhich are your belongings?\u201d I was asked. \u201cI need to bring you over here. Please bring them with you. You were a random selection, that\u2019s all.\u201d I followed the young, blue-shirted woman to a station behind the airport security line where she patted me down\u00a0— … Continue reading Searched at the Airport But This Is Not About Me<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6,27,7,9,78],"tags":[3706,1929,3705,3707,3708,2777,3709,3710],"class_list":["post-3914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture","category-current-affairs","category-life","category-politics","category-travel","tag-blacklivesmatter","tag-airport-security","tag-arrest","tag-eric-holder","tag-erlora-nicole","tag-ferguson","tag-pat-down","tag-x-ray"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4gBq8-118","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3914"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3919,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3914\/revisions\/3919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cynthiasamuels.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}