Traveling While Muslim: The Case of the Exploding Chocolate – POLITICO Magazine
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As a person of the African Diaspora I know how people in authority in this country can and do use the power of their position to intimidate and harass minorities. It’s not right but it happens all to often.
I’m a U.S. Citizen, an attorney. I understand American culture, the English language, and the law—and CBP still tried to intimidate me with lies and threats. Relatively speaking, I’m a lucky man. I share my story of profiling not for sympathy, but for two crucial reasons. First, people have rights and should know their rights. Second, people of color have a habit of not sharing our stories publicly. This isn’t my opinion; it’s fact: Hate crimes and discrimination incidents are severely underreported—making reform more difficult. If we want to ever be safe in this country, people of color and minorities in general must share our stories. But let’s revisit the deep irony of the CBP detaining and repeatedly harassing me on suspected terrorism claims.
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I know from experience that if I tell CBP up front that I’m a civil rights lawyer, they’ll let me go in a flash. As a general rule, I don’t—because it’s not fair. I shouldn’t have to be a lawyer to get equal treatment under the law. I travel internationally six to eight times per year, and it doesn’t surprise me to get stopped at least half of those times. Every time I mention I’m a lawyer, they release me immediately. Funny how that works—they know they’re illegally profiling me because of my name, skin color or religion. As all this flashed through my mind I looked directly at the supervising CBP officer and said, “I’m a civil rights lawyer with expertise on racial and religious discrimination and profiling.” Womp, womp.
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