Boundaries and borders

Boundary, or border? Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

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I was recently pulled aside at an airport security checkpoint. I guess I have been lucky because this is not a usual experience for me. I’m in my 50s and have gone this many years without experiencing this specific kind of disregard.

Don’t get me wrong – I am a believer in airport security. As someone with a huge fear of flying, I definitely support all measures to ensure the safety and security of passengers.

But this was something different. I’ve lived with racial discrimination my entire life. I know it in my bones. When you grow up in the midst of something, it becomes part of what you know as “home”, sometimes in the bad way — like an uncle you don’t like and try to avoid. You know its presence in the waters where you regularly swim, you recognize its scent and the subtle changes in the environment when it enters. It’s like recognizing a song after hearing just one or two notes.

When I share my experience with White folks, I get stories about similar experiences they’ve gone through. How they, also, were pulled aside. How they, too, had to remove their shoes once. How it’s really just a random thing and I shouldn’t take it too personally. This could be a well-meaning way to make me feel less horrible about what I went through, or it could be a way to manage their own guilt or feelings of shame around privilege that they usually don’t have to name.

But every Black and Brown person I’ve told nods in acknowledgement, their bodies shaping into expressions of knowing, recognition, compassion, solidarity.

The border patrol officer stopped me in my tracks as I was going through the x-ray machine and told me to remove my shoes. Her hand went up in a “halt” sign: Zapatos. This has happened before, so no big deal, right? But…the passenger in front of me had gone through in his sneakers and socks and the passenger behind me would go through in sneakers and socks. Both were white and male, but maybe that had nothing to do with it.

I removed my sandals without question or protest. It did occur to me that this was odd since you could see my entire foot in my sandals. These were open-toe sandals with a footbed and two straps.

I walked through the x-ray machine and expected to be allowed through now that they’d seen everything. Instead, I saw a couple of silent glances between the officer who’d pulled me aside and her colleague. Her colleague gave me an apologetic look, while the officer deliberately and methodically continued to screen everything on my person.

So, there I was, a 50-something woman, gray-haired and barefoot, directed to the side. No one else was stopped. I was there alone, watching as other passengers proceeded efficiently through security. The dude behind me walked right through the x-ray machine, wearing his socks and sneakers, grabbed his bags and was on his way to his gate.

The officer directed me to hold my hands out so she could run one of those strips over them. This is something I’ve experienced before, so I held my hands out. In the past, security officers have passed those strips over my palms and the backs of my hands quickly, as a matter of procedure or process. It was clear they were expecting to find nothing unusual, and if something unusual came up, then it would be…unusual. But this time the officer said, “Hands out. I am checking for explosives.”

Until that moment, I never knew those strips were used for checking for explosives.

She then said, “We’re going to check your bags.”

I nodded, and that was when I realized this was different from all other times I’d gone through airport security.

The guy at the inspection station looked at the images of the contents of my bag on screen, and waved me on with a small shake of his head. Even he didn’t seem to understand why I was being screened so carefully…so thoroughly.

I know people are far more profiled than I am – some of my own family members, in fact. And I know I’ve been lucky that it hasn’t happened to me in such an obvious way before. And still, when I tell the story to folks who haven’t lived my experience, it’s dismissed as if I could be mistaken. As if this could’ve happened to anyone, randomly.

And maybe that is true. Maybe I was randomly selected to be screened for explosives. Maybe I will never know for sure what that security officer’s intentions were. She may have thought she was diligently doing her job, making sure her country was safe from outsiders. That may have been her version of being a protector. Or maybe she knew exactly what she was doing. Maybe that gun at her hip gave her an electric surge that directed a 50-something Brown woman to remove her sandals and stand to the side, barefoot, for fifteen minutes while others passed without a glance.

Those of us who have grown up with our survival tied to being able to identify subtle and not-so-subtle cues around race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, or whatever other oppression, know when a situation or person is dangerous. We don’t have to wait for it to be verified. Usually, our bodies know it before our brains, and we go into hyper-aware mode. While I was standing to the side, it was like time slowed and my senses became superhuman. I could pick out tiny sounds and see things far more sharply than I normally do. That was my body, the primitive part of my brain, ensuring survival.

What I know for sure is that things like this are amorphous. They are in our systems, our attitudes, the water we drink, the air we breathe. It’s hard to tell the exact point when a billowy cotton cloud turns into a grey rain mass because they are made of the same elements, and it is a gradual and often imperceptible shift to a drastically different state of being.

Martha Beck has said (and she may have gotten it from Gavin DeBecker) that if you change the direction of an airplane just one tiny compass degree, it will end up in Greenland instead of Italy. She may have used different countries, but the point is that if you adjust the nose of an airplane just one teeny-tiny fraction of a degree, it is going to end up in a location dramatically different from where it would have gone.

It takes a lot of self-reflection to know when you are abusing your power and privilege. And most people don’t take the time needed to examine their beliefs and behaviors. Our brains give us all kinds of excuses to hold on to power, to act out of fear, to see others as less human than we see ourselves and our loved ones.

Creating safety doesn’t mean trampling on others’ humanity. It means using common sense, critical thinking, maturity, self-knowledge and self-reflection. Border “control” should perhaps be more like setting and enforcing boundaries – which is not the same as aggression. In fact, the two are complete opposites. You create boundaries against aggression.

This kind of discernment and emotional intelligence are desperately needed in all of our institutions. What gives me hope is that young people are seeking information about this type of discernment, elsewhere – social media, each other, podcasts, etc. Some are being radicalized, yes, but so many others are trying to find the real information and knowledge that they need to be fully human—so they can treat others as fully human.

I had meant to write about the cathedrals, basilicas, and goddess sites I visited in Spain and the Canary Islands – more of the things I love to explore and examine — but this experience demanded to be shared and aired in public.

New moons are about shedding new light after completely inky, peaceful, beautiful darkness. They are about seeing things anew, fresh beginnings, different perspectives.

This new moon, I hope you are able to see something that’s always been there, in a new and surprising light. I hope it sparks something in you that takes you to a dramatically different location that is far better than anything you could have come up with.

See you soon.