(photo by Kerry - me and my friend Jay, who has never tried to abuse me)
Well, they got their jollies feeling me up again, those big tough Security Guards – this time at the Chicago airport. This time their excuse was my “loose fitting clothing.” Hippie type folks wearing flowing skirts and braids are amongst the most suspicious --- perhaps they believe the peace symbol aura is a secret code for hidden explosives, like they think the words “social justice” are code for a secret nazi agenda.
It was 3:30 in the morning, some goofball in the line-up through security was behind me nattering away to a guy going to a convention in Las Vegas about the benefits of Blackberries vs. touch screens. I had carefully packed all my little bottles into a plastic bottle, as directed, was carrying my little suitcase that had been broken on the journey to Chicago, my backpack with computer and camera, had removed my shoes and was attempting to be as friendly and coherent as possible after a weekend of very little sleep including none the night before. A man yelled at me, as I was carefully loading all my stuff into the plastic bins to send it all through the x-ray machine, to remove my scarf and sweater. As punishment for daring to forget these items, and for wearing such loose fitting clothing, and perhaps for not moving quickly enough, I was abruptly herded into a three sided glass room where a woman informed me that she was going to have to pat me down. I told her I really don’t like it when strangers touch my body, and offered to remove my skirt – not a big deal because I was wearing my yoga tights underneath. I’d rather appear as if going to yoga class than have some stranger’s hands upon me.
She took this entirely the wrong way, and called her supervisor who informed me, in his particularly bitter and don’t-you-know-it’s-Monday-morning-and-I-hate-my-job manner, that I was going to have to let this woman “do her job.” I said I don’t like getting felt up by strangers, and don’t they have another option like Vancouver? He didn’t let me finish my description of the new radio wave body scan machinery they’re offering as an option to molestation by a stranger, he insisted that it’s not “getting felt up,” told me I must cooperate and let this woman DO HER JOB or I wouldn’t be allowed on the plane. He reminded me of one of those military drill sergeants, making up for his lack of manhood by being a stupid bully.
I know that I don’t have any rights in the US, as if anybody does anymore, and that it’s likely my file is flagged because of all my work with Cuba and perhaps the Street Newz and I decided to just grin and bear it and get it over with. I stood with my legs slightly spread, my bare feet in the marked area, and the woman proceeded to pat me down. Unlike last year’s groping, I wasn’t subjected to her rough hands touching my genitals or my breasts. Thankfully. Still, the entire episode, after sharing such a wonderful weekend with friends and functioning on very little sleep, rendered me shaking and sobbing. I can only imagine what it must be like for people attempting to heal from sexual abuse, to have to go through that. There’s gotta be a better way.
And the irony is, once they’ve done their militaristic fear and intimidation tactic and allowed people to pass, we find ourselves in a mall. We can buy duty free, we can buy food & bev (Burger King, Burritos, Margharitas), or coffee (well, Starbuck’s, with what seems an exclusive corporate grip on the travel market), gifts of all descriptions, we can buy vast quantities of juice and water and take all that onto the airplane. I just don’t get it …. WTF is the point of all that pre-screening, with the limited number of little plastic bottles containing only minimal amounts of liquids, when moments later we’re encouraged to be good capitalist consumers and do whatever it is they’re afraid of people doing with copious amounts of water and coca cola and tequila?!!
I walked past the lineup for Macdonald’s early morning crap, and found a little tea and coffee and muffin place with a friendly woman who gladly filled my mug with hot water. And then I boarded the plane, a very full plane, sorry to be leaving my buddies, amazed that the weekend was over already, but happy to be putting the perhaps more traumatic experience than it oughta be behind me.
The flight to Phoenix was pleasant enough, except for the little kid next to me who let loose with a series of silent farts (and you know the air just doesn’t circulate on those machines) but thankfully I had my little aromatherapy spray bottle and I survived it. Then I had a couple of hours to wait in the Phoenix airport (not wanting to leave and have to go through that security bullshit again), plus a two hour time readjustment. I did my best to function somewhat coherently (Pheonix has free Wifi, Chicago doesn’t) in the airport waiting for my flight home to Vancouver.
And then it happened. I found myself at the Starbuck’s waiting to get my lovely double paned glass tea mug filled with more hot water for another cup of tea - the staff being very helpful with this. I replaced its lid and returned my mug full of hot tea into the outer sleeve of my backpack, as I’d done several times throughout the weekend, and bent over to reach for my sweater on the floor. The mug slipped out of its pocket and crashed to the floor, smashing into a million pieces. I was looking at a very jagged jar edge breaking the mug in two, and lots of shards. Very dangerous, really …. I quickly apologized to those around me lest they should think I was plotting some overthrow of the evil coffee joint, or plotting to slit the throats of the pilots in line for their morning java (that would just be silly).
There was nary a security guard to be found. No response to the smashing glass (though the woman in the line up ahead of me turned around and stared blankly at me with no apparent sympathy for my situation, merely consternation for disturbing her quiet morning) …. I expressed my dissatisfaction with an “oh crap,” and she proceeded to the unfair trade coffee counter. One of the friendly clerks left the busy counter to see if she could help. I was kneeling on the floor picking up the shards of glass.
Still no security guards anywhere in sight.
I used a damp cloth the Starbuck’s employee provided to pick up the smaller broken bits, and after several minutes told her I’d done my best but she might want to call someone to vacuum the remainder up before someone hurts themselves on it.
I walked to the other end of the airport shopping mall and reluctantly purchased a plastic bottle of some kind of corporate liquid substance, no doubt heavily genetically engineered, and wondered about the logic of this insistence that we all have our liquids in little tiny containers, secured in a plastic bag, when we are screened by those security goons ….. and once we’re cleared into the airport, there are any number of liquids available for purchase, glass mugs and bottles in the bar, and not a security person anywhere to be found.
I’m not writing this to encourage the presence of still more “security” guards at the airport, rather to show the abusive and power hungry and ineffective nature of the system that has been established post 9/11 (whose origins continue to be contentious). And it’s not been established for your safety or for mine, so much as to get us all accustomed to the police state, accepting of a loss of personal privacy and the persistent violation of our rights as individuals. The shoe bomber and the underpants bomber were both useful for justifying a front line security force that offers the illusion of safety and protection. But in reality wasn’t it just regular people who intervened and diffused those particular situations? I can see the validity of putting bags through an x-ray machine, especially in a land where people think it’s a good idea to own their own personal stockpile of weapons, but is it really necessary to bark orders at half-asleep middle aged women, and then subject them to the humiliating and degrading experience of being patted down every time they try to go anywhere?
I certainly wouldn’t have invested the time and energy and dollars I did, going to Chicago for the weekend, for just anyone …. but Jay’s pretty special and I had a ton of fun celebrating his 50th birthday with his family and friends and what the heck - the world might end tomorrow and I’m glad I did it. But, what I feel right now is, I seriously do not care if I never set foot in that country again. Those border experiences are just too much. It’s not really a good way to establish diplomatic relations among nations, or people, or to help tourists and travelers feel welcome within any community.
As I always am when I return, I was so very happy to touch the Canadian soil and be among my brothers and sisters – different and diverse as we all are. With enormous understanding to the First Nations whose land this is ….. at least we’re not the USA (with all due respect to my US friends, of course). I don’t know how others are treated upon entry, but I was greeted by friendly, relaxed, professional and respectful immigration officers and I thought about this concept of keeping some record of who is entering and leaving, and how we ought to treat them. In a perfect world, I suppose, we could all just come and go as we please. But given this world we live in, I’m not opposed to a small bit of record keeping, just so we know who’s where in the event that something unforeseen should happen. Of course it’s unjust that those with cash can more easily gain entry while those without cannot .... but ultimately I'm very tired and just really happy to return to a place where we don’t have to celebrate the passage of something they’re calling Health Care Reform which is in fact an opportunity to sell more insurance (though hopefully it's a start). I’m here, in a place where we fight to keep and improve a system that was not founded on profit (thanks Tommy Douglas!). Where we fight to maintain the last of earth’s last temperate rainforests. Where we acknowledge, with great respect, that this is STOLEN NATIVE LAND, and behave as appropriately as we can considering we’re all uninvited guests.
The PCL bus was just about to leave as I ran out of the airport, after clearing customs, and the friendly Canadian driver kindly waited while I bought a ticket, raced to the bathroom, and boarded the bus to catch the 3 pm ferry and be home in time for dinner and the last half of Gorilla Radio. I was willing to take the public transit – skytrain, bus, ferry, and another bus from the airport, and it would have saved me a small chunk of cash, but after my rather goofy day of travel, and a weekend with little sleep, I was just delighted to get on that three o'clock boat and get home.
I really love this place, and I feel truly blessed to live as I do. We all oughta have the opportunity to venture out and away from our comfort zone now and then, though. It puts an entirely new spin on everything.
photos from Jay's party and Chicago - click here and here.
