When I tell the border police this is my home and I’m visiting my mum they usually need a lot of convincing, and also talk to me really slowly as if I’m an idiot, though they are fully aware that I’m a British citizen. To be honest, I don’t really get it: I booked the flights a long time in advance and I do the trip regularly, I don’t understand why I have to be regularly humiliated in this way every time I go home." Belal, 27
"Flying back from Belfast to Manchester after visiting my then girlfriend in Northern Ireland – I was selected “randomly” as I left the flight for further questioning (I was the only non-white passenger). I was questioned as to why I was travelling to Northern Ireland and asked whether I was employed. I was allowed to leave with a timid apology after declaring that I was in fact the parliamentary researcher to the shadow secretary of state for business innovation and skills, and that I could call John Denham MP to confirm if they’d like.
Initially I was a little embarrassed, as I was taken aside when I got off the plane while all the other passengers walked past me – so it was all in full view and, being the only ethnic minority on the flight, I could only imagine what other passengers were thinking.
I’ve known a few other ethnic minority people who’ve had similar. One of my friends was profiled and she works for the Department of Education, and my other friend was stopped in New York when trying to attend New York Fashion Week with his job with Victoria Beckham. It was particularly telling when I was an adolescent because my father is quite obviously Indian, whereas my mother is of Irish/Parsi descent and therefore very fair, and there was a difference in how they were treated by security until they realised they were together." Uzair, 26
"I’m mixed-race (African-British) born and raised in Britain, with a British passport and without any criminal record or anything that might legitimately flag me up for extra security concerns. But despite this, I tend to get extra pat downs every time I go through security. I’ve also been called to one side when about to board flights, and when at the check-in desks and passport desks as well.
The worst case of this was flying Manchester to London and then on to New York, where I got an extra search at each security checkpoint. I was also pulled to one side each time we boarded a flight (after they’d checked my documents and seen my name), and then on arriving at New York, the passport checkpoint carted me off to sit in an extra security section along with people who regularly travel to Cuba and Colombia.
After a couple of hours waiting around there, they searched my suitcase and found some sheet music (I play music as a hobby). We then had a very strange conversation where the security agent was seriously asking me if the sheet music was some form of code. They also asked me a bunch of questions about how long I planned to stay in the US, what work I do, whether I knew anyone there. It was pretty nerve-wracking, particularly as I really started to feel like they might not let me enter the country because the wait to be processed took so long.
When I’m travelling with white people with Anglo-Saxon-sounding names, they never get the extra security checks but I do. I half expect it now because that’s the world we live in. I don’t think the people carrying out the checks are genuinely racist on the whole (maybe some are), but most are just following orders as best they know how.
The problem is when the orders aren’t clear or the staff are under pressure to perform and do not want to miss someone they go overboard trying to do their job partly because cognitive bias and stereotypes are inherent to how we function. We’d all probably benefit from their getting training or support to overcome that.
I automatically budget in extra time to go through security because I expect to get some form of extra hassle every time I fly. It’s telling that I’m pleasantly surprised on the rare occasions when I don’t get extra attention." Katie, 32 (The Guardian)
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photographs by Garry Winogrand
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