Effects from experiences with TSA.

Last edited Wed Nov 13, 2013, 10:54 AM - Edit history (1)

I don't fly often, which makes it hard to overlook that each time I do fly I seem to have an experience above the "normal" with TSA. It is so frequent that I get profiled for an additional search that I got downright offended when I learned that a friend, who was white and flies quite often, never was pulled out of a line for extra searches.

I'm relaying my most recent experience to see if other Latinos or Latinas are also experiencing the same things that I am:

I had to fly down to Miami to see my father who is now in that last degenerative stage of life. I'm volunteering that information because I know that I was already carrying a lot of stress with me before I reached the check point at the airport. I am sure it was a factor.

At the check point I decided to opt-out instead of go through the nuke scanner. I arrived two hours early so I had plenty of time. The security guard (a Latina) was polite as we waited for a female attendant to appear, but after ten minutes she volunteered to do the search instead. To make a long story short, I flunked the first test. Thank God I didn't check in any bags because they probably would have had to hunt them down to check them out too.

While I waited for a female superintendent to appear for the second test I felt myself getting nervous and hot, but it was mostly from embarrassment because I knew there was nothing inappropriate they were going to find. My brother-in-law later told me that if I came in contact with fertilizer it would set the machines off. I had spread fertilizer in the garden the day before, so it could have been the cause, or the other possibility was a miscalibrated machine.

Anyway, they walked me to the private room and did the second check and I passed. The superintendent (also a Latina) was very nice through the whole process. I thank God for that small mercy. But there is no doubt that I was under stress.

I felt the full-blown panic attack after I sat in my seat on the plane. I was stuck next to the window and I was blocked from the exit by two men. What set off the attack was the feeling of being corralled and trapped. I convinced myself that the guy sitting in the aisle seat was an Air Marshall. I had already identified one other Air Marshall at the front of the plane. They usually sit in the first row. He was wearing a GT hat and shirt, but when I asked him what year he graduated he was unable to remember the year, which I thought was odd. He was standing and chatting with the flight attendant as we all walked in so the question didn't seem so intrusive at the time.

The second Air Marshall, (or the one I suspected was a Marshall) had the same easy manner with the flight attendant, even to the point of patting her as she walked by. What demoralized me was thinking that I was under some spotlight because of all this profiling crap that has been going on since 911. It just got to me, and suddenly I felt claustrophobic. Fortunately, I was able to shake it off by running to the bathroom to change into something cooler. On my way back to my seat, the suspect Air Marshall was watching me intently. He had stepped in the aisle to block passengers from moving to the back of the plane, presumably to give me the opportunity to get back in my seat. That was the trip to Miami.

On the flight back home I got another panic attack on my way to the airport. Again I opted out at the checkpoint, and this time the experience went smoothly. But I got profiled again just as I was about to board the plane. I was the only one in my group that was asked to come up and open up my bags for them to examine before boarding.

I mean, who doesn't get disturbed when they're constantly being picked on?

Fortunately, the flight home was easier to take because I paid eight dollars more for an aisle seat. But I'm afraid this thing isn't going to get better. I think someone needs to look into this TSA profiling practices because it is having an effect.

What is everybody else's experience with this thing, twelve years after 911?