Well ladies we have done it again. Recently there have been a lot of complaining from black natural women who have been targeted by airport TSA because of our hair.
What will happen, and I know this first hand, is they will pull you to the side and ask if they can examine your hair. With gloves, (hopefully) they will go through your fro or in my case it was a bun, checking for Lord knows what.
Well the announcement was just made that the TSA will now STOP this practice:
According to Thinprogress.org:
After reaching an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), officials at the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) have agreed to stop racially profiling black women with natural hair and subjecting them to extra security screenings.
The agency will also provide conduct trainings for TSA employees emphasizing “race neutrality” and specifically focusing on how to approach black women’s hair during security pat-downs, according to an announcement from the ACLU.
Novella Coleman, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Northern California who has personally experienced this type of profiling, is celebrating the recent agreement. “The humiliating experience of countless black women who are routinely targeted for hair pat-downs because their hair is ‘different’ is not only wrong, but also a great misuse of TSA agents’ time and resources,” she said in a statement.
This is why we rock because we know there is power in numbers and since there is no clear reason why black women with natural hair was targeted we can only conclude that it was based on some unwarranted racial bias.
Allegations of the TSA’s racial bias against black women who wear natural hair stretch back for years. In 2011, a hairdresser in Dallas said she was “humiliated” after TSA officials demanded to search her afro. In 2012, singer Solange Knowles complained after the TSA searched her afro, tweeting in protest that “My hair is not a storage drawer.”
My bun was squeezed and prodded to the point of me just re doing it, it was pretty humiliating because nobody else got their hair searched; not one soul.
Comment below and let us know if your hair was searched by airport security.
I use to work for TSA and you would be surprised at the things some people do…..
lol a storage draw lmao like we can hide a oooozi in our hair smh
they act like our hair can carry the weight of 50 pounds smh
Really we trying to keep our style looking good for them long flights you think we got time to be sticking shit in out natural hair. We trying to make sure The oil stays on our hair. We worried about what the weather is going to do when we go. Get the people you really suppose to be looking for. Leave us and out naturally hair alone.
People don’t surprise me, their inventiveness is another matter. I’m surprised the TSA can find our natural hairstyle a possible threat to national security that way. Amazing!
Really. I can’t with America
Two women have been caught smuggling drugs in their hair. One had dreads the other had weave. I definitely don’t think that a few bad apples should spoil the bunch though.
It does happen. Some woman had cocaine added into her dreads and got caught. There have been countless women smuggling drugs in their weaves and hair for years.
After walking through the X-Ray detector, which seems to show every bone in your body, I would think hidden hair objects would show. Still, I was asked for allowance of a hair search. Get more advanced machines, perhaps?
It’s frustrating. If TSA must search my hair, and they have for two of four flights, I just wish it could be with fresh gloves….and not the gloves just used to pat down some one else. One pair of gloves to pat down clothing on other people – I understand. However, my hair is not clothing, it is skin! A “used” pair of gloves on my skin is unsanitary and totally not hygienic!
It’s frustrating. If TSA must search my hair, and they have for two of four flights, I just wish it could be with fresh gloves….and not the gloves just used to pat down some one else. One pair of gloves to pat down clothing on other people – I understand. However, my hair is not clothing, it is skin! A “used” pair of gloves on my skin is unsanitary and totally not hygienic!