Let me get this straight before you read this story without any context, I'm a young Iranian-British man with well-groomed facial hair, a foreign name that contains Zs and Is and I'm not afraid to tell you I condition my hair. My white mates joke that I'm a terrorist, but I can take the jokes knowing full well that they all have a problem with eating avocado because it's 'too spicy' and their efforts at growing beards are rivalled with pre-pubescent boys almost half their age. 'Movember' is all over and yet, even in January, it looks like they're stuck on November 2. According to a homeless man sat on the ground next to an ATM machine in Manchester, I am what he considers to be what is turning this country into, a country full of 'fucking Pakis' and I need to 'fuck off home', but he looked like he was almost in tears about it so I couldn't help but feel sorry for his ignorant soul.
Cut to the point...
I was travelling to Los Angeles from Manchester on my own and I endured a very thorough and saddening experience going from airport to airport. Fortunately, I have a passport and although I don't want to delve too deep into how I acquired said passport, I can assure you it's legit and definitely not fake. Airport security checks are understandably extremely important, but what I went through was overkill and a bit of a piss-take. I understand I've made it sound like I had my anal cavity searched, but that didn't happen; it might as well have happened, but I'm fortunate to sit here, comfortable having not been sodomised. Now, I like to call myself olive-skinned and exotic, but to many airlines and passengers, I'm absolutely neither of those and I'm definitely considered a threat. This was made extremely clear in my recent efforts to travel to the United States of America from the United Kingdom by the lengthy amounts of security I had to go through.
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The trip to LA was very last minute and I had my ESTA approved the day before I was set to fly. My trip would begin in Manchester on Friday, stop off at London Heathrow and then continue on to LAX and then return to Manchester on Sunday. As I was probably going to be flying more than I would actually be in LA, I only travelled with hand luggage. The day had arrived and I had completely fucked it. I missed my flight by five minutes, but I puppy-eyed the lady at the check-in desk and she swiftly put me on the next flight out, only an hour later. Absolute nightmare, but it didn't cost me a penny, surprisingly.
First security check and I thought it was just a one-off touchy-feely security guard and by the sounds of how he asked me to take my shoes off, I think he just really wanted to get a close look at my shoes. They pulled me to the side and swabbed the inside of my hand luggage as well. Fortunately my socks hadn't decided to commit mass genocide and learn how to make a bomb in the space of 12 hours since I packed them so I was on my way in no time. I think the security wasn't too strenuous as it was only a one-hour flight from Manchester to London.
We landed at London Heathrow in no time and I headed to catch my connecting flight to LA. I arrived at the gate where hoards of Americans surrounded a tiny opening in what had to be the worst queue of 2016. I asked the lady at the front what time we'd be boarding as I needed to go to the toilet before the long flight. She told me 15 minutes, which was enough time to swipe some London girls on Tinder and reconsider my life choices, but, before we parted, she looked me up and down and said, 'oh, I'm going to need you to go to security before you board'. Fuck's sake. 15 minutes had passed; I had no new matches and made no progress on my life choices, so, all in all, not a very constructive toilet break. I turn up to the gate, trying to bypass the security guard and just before I make a break away, I'm met with a, 'oh yeah, you. Please can you step to the side and talk to the security guard'. I walk over and he halts me like a traffic warden and begins to question me. 'Where are you going? Where are you coming from? What are you doing in America? Why are you foreign thinking you'd get on a plane with no questions asked?' Alright, he didn't ask the last question, but he might as well have. I nervously answered his questions without accidently blurting out I wasn't a terrorist and I had no intention to destroy myself in the name of whichever God and he put a sticker on my passport, almost brandishing me as a potential hazard. I was moved onto the next stage of security where I was placed in a cordoned off area greeted by angry looking men and women with rubber gloves on. I thought this was the end of my innocence. I was going to go home and wouldn't have been able to look at my mother in the same way. They commanded I took my shoes and socks off, again, and for my bag to placed on the table and opened up. I don't know if this particular guard wanted advice on picking his next trainers or if he genuinely believed I was carrying a large enough bomb to take down a Boeing-777 in between my toes. At this point, everything in my bag looked suspicious, my laptop case is in the style of a big parcel, I packed more iPhone cables than I should have so it looked like some sort of electronic system withheld in my bag and I had my unnecessarily large portable battery sticking out alight with blue LEDs.
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I thought it was all over and I was getting sent home, but the security guard came back with more swabs. He started swabbing my neckline and I feel like he could have just asked me what aftershave I was wearing if he really wanted to know. He took it to test and then returned to swab my ankles for some reason, as if I was somehow smuggling shit loads of cocaine across the border by wrapping it around my ankles that he couldn't tell without a swab. He asked me to place my shoes on the table so he could swab them and I began to panic, trying to think back to whether I dropkicked a kilo of Ketamine with those shoes or if it was a different shoe. He came back with the test results and gave me the all clear. Finally, just for good measure, he gave me a pat down to make sure I was still there and, yep, affirmative, I was still stood there in front of him like an absolute twat watching other passengers board the plane.
I boarded the plane and took my seat and, just before cabin checks, I was greeted by yet another security officer asking me, of all people, whether or not I had a boarding pass and passport in front of the entire plane. Weird, for a second I almost thought I wasn't meant to be on a plane to the other side of the world and I didn't actually have a boarding pass and passport - what was I even doing in the airport again? I show her the goods and she fucks off.
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After a 10-hour plane journey that consisted of an endless cycle of watching awful movies, playing solitaire and looking at my flight path on the head rest tablet, I tried to get as belted as possible on the free wine to try and fall asleep. I arrived in LA and my next task was to get through the US border. It was make or break at this moment in time, I needed to be as cool and suave as possible to get into the country and, as it stood, all odds were against me. Everyone that worked at LAX seemed to be extremely defensive and very uptight, so I kept quiet and waited till it was my turn. The officer at the border control desk I approached was, in all honesty, a nice guy, but as soon as I started scrambling for my ESTA so I could prove to him that I was granted authorisation to be in the country he started to get suspicious and asked me, 'Why are you showing me that?' I laughed it off and he asked me the same questions as the previous security guard at Heathrow so I gave him the same blunt answers in the hope he wouldn't pry into what I was doing in 'Donald Trump Land'.
Fast forward to the end of my trip and being back in LAX returning to London then Manchester, I'd have been forgiven for thinking it was all over. I was fed up of being asked where in 'En-ger-land' I was from and felt sickened at the thought of any more supersized portions of food.
I checked in for my flight and asked the man at the desk for a free upgrade to business class (bit cheeky) and I'd never seen a more pissed off bloke before. It's like I shat in his cereal. We were back to security checks and, once again, after putting my bag through the X-ray machine, I'm asked to remove my shoes. I don't know if it's a requirement to have a foot fetish when you apply to become a security guard, but taking my shoes and socks off and getting my feet and ankles examined became quite a common theme. I passed with flying colours and was onto the home straight.
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While waiting at the gate I saw Steven Gerrard and I felt like it was a sign for another slip up. The Scouse Gods delivered and just as I was about to walk down the tunnel to the aeroplane, I was met with the fat hand of the law.
Not this bloke! A much fatter, more ridiculous version. Credit: PA
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A police officer that looked like a 'Guess Who' character with the worst moustache I'd ever seen in my life had to have his say. He pulled me to the side for a few questions. 'How long have you been in America?' he says. 'Since Friday' I respond, which seemed to really offend him because for some reason Friday wasn't a sufficient enough answer when it was a Sunday, so he did his best at sarcasm and rudely asked which Friday I meant as if it made a difference.
I patronisingly explained the Friday that happened to fall two days before the current day. He wasn't impressed. He was also in very bad shape and it led me to consider how true the stereotype of 'doughnut eating police officers' was. He continued his string of 'Mastermind' style questions with the current topic being 'War In The Middle East' with 'Have you ever been to Syria?' I paused, I scoffed, and I couldn't really believe it. Was this really necessary? Why was it just me and one other Indian guy being stopped by these police officers while every other white guy and girl were allowed to board the plane freely? 'No' I sternly said as he read my passport details. 'Have you ever been in the military?' - these questions just got better and better. I wasn't sure why this was necessary because, as far as I was aware, I was only going to Manchester, not to war. 'Nahhh' I said, while sighing and looking at the other guy being detained.
He continued to ask me more useless questions that probably wouldn't stop any terrorist being a terrorist, like where I worked and what I was doing in LA. I answered his stupid questions and boarded the plane back to sunny Manchester.
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This was the experience of a brown guy flying from UK to USA and if you're fortunate and proud enough to be of a similar descent as myself and are making a similar journey, then you can look forward to the feeling of anxiety while going through security checks and you might as well wear slip-on shoes for convenience and well as being a terrorist until you can finally prove otherwise. And, to make it worse, the wine on the trip home tasted like acidic ass and I had to endure endless cups of water and trips to the toilet to get rid of the imminent hangover it gave me.
Main image credit: Film4 Productions
Featured Image Credit:Topics: Airport