watching the detectives

This article reminded me of an experience that I had when entering the United States this past weekend.

I was waiting in the "US Passports" line at immigrations. It seemed to me that, in the line where I was, the man sent anyone with an accent straight to another office. I saw as family after family were questioned beyond necessity about their travels, when they left the country, where they were, what they did, who they saw, all of those kinds of things. Not all of them were fluent in English, and when it got to a question where the comprehension did not work, the man escorted them to the office where they were to be further investigated. No other line worked this way. Efficiency? No, just plain racism. In fact, a man assisting a handicapped passenger, a man working for JFK International Airport that is, consistently rolled his eyes with me every time this would happen. This same man once commented to me that the man at the desk has all of this information on his screen, there is no need to verify it all with every person. These are American citizens, we all sat on a very long flight, and this man was being racist. How do I know? Well, I got up to the line, he didn't look at my face, and said "Have a nice day." ...of course this only happened after I greeted him in English.

I was discussing this incident as well as the incident I was a part of at the West Bank checkpoint with a friend of mine, shoutout Ari, and he encouraged me to take action when I see these situations. There exist in the establishment departments where I can complain that people are abusing their power, that people are incorporating racism into the system when they are not supposed to. It is my New Year's Resolution to take action and speak up when I see these injustices, even when it is inconvenient for me, because the next step is for me to challenge the system to see how well it works in correcting itself.

Happy New Year!

--Abraham