Laura Adiele wasn’t expecting any trouble when she put her hair up, packed her bags, and headed for Sea-Tac Airport to catch a flight to Texas.
She was quite surprised when she was pulled out of the line after having gone through the Advance Imaging system and told she needed a pat-down.
“When I first heard her say, ‘We’re going to have to pat you down,’ I thought she was talking about my body. I was turning around and putting my arms out and she said, ‘no, we’re going to have to examine your hair,’ and I said, ‘no, we’re not going to do that today and you’re going to have to get security or your supervisor,’” said Adiele.
Adiele claims she looked around, saw plenty of other women with “big hair, ponytails” who weren’t being searched, and it made her mad.
She felt it was discrimination, that she as a black woman with an afro tucked up into a curly bun, was being selected for hand-screening when women of other races weren’t.
This is some BULLSHIT right here.
According to the video interview, they even threatened to call the fucking cops on her.
Fuck the TSA.
the last time i flew, my (chest-length) hair was tied up and styled in a Tsang Tu style topknot (ancient korean martial arts warrior-do) and you better believe they asked me to let them investigate it at the security gate.
then again, with the right name and/or face, you could be simply smiling and all kinds of bells will go off blaring in the wand-wavers’ minds. of course it’s racial. hell, the entire TSA process and modern security-state comes down Trubble With the Other.
Alleged, racial TSA demand to search woman's hair: