London | Heathrow
Passport. Check. Boarding pass. Check. Clothes. Check. Underwear. Check. Toothbrush check. This was great, a checklist of a true travelling nomad. Sandals. Check. Books. Check. As the list grew, so did the space between travelling nomad and westernised capitalist junkie.
Battery pack. Check. Wifi emitting pocket device. Check. Ultrasonic dog deterrent. Check. iPhone to MicroSD converter check. Self inflatable neck support. Check.
While I had a backpack, it would be unfair to say i was a backpacker. In fact all I had done was substitute (at great cost) all of my earthly gadgets to smaller ones and packed them neatly into a suitcase which somewhat resembled a backpack.
Airports still felt like something from a fairy tale to me. Your loved ones gather on one side of the gate. You have a magic piece of paper and a purple notepad. Your prized possessions get swallowed into black hole and meet you on the other end. You sit in a machine which you couldn't begin to explain how it works. Close your eyes and wake up on the other side of the world.
For those who have not met me. Let me describe to you what I look like. 5 foot 10, 11 on a good day. Thin - athletic in the right light. Thick black eyebrows. A large nose with large nostrils (i can, with ease, fit my entire thumb into one nostril). Strong face bones, including those above my eyebrows. Designer stubble, but more Reebok than Versace. Black hair, short on the sides, but longer on the top, casually parted to the side with a hand and not a comb. I was carrying a backpack loaded with electronic appliances, another with more mysterious GoPro attachments, and sealed clear bags with various powder in them (for the curious, tea masala). When I was chosen to be randomly searched I was overcome with a sense of relief. I was glad to be the chosen one and high praise for profiling.
I am puzzled by the outrage on this topic. Given that we, evolved apes, have a finite and quite frankly narrow focus of attention, surely more of it should be placed on me and not the elderly white couple in front or short Chinese lady behind me. If the letter 's' had frequently and historically been the cause of mass mortality on flights, then when scanning the above paragraphs for likely danger, more attentional energy should be displaced on the word 'Versace' than 'glad'. The context matters too. If you are patrolling an American school for shooting, perhaps keeping a watchful eye on skinny, white loner males with short hair is more effective than tall black young men. But equally, if you are looking out for who is more likely to be involved in a gun related crime in North West London, the reverse would probably apply. I can sense some of my left-inclined pals get itchy fingers here, but rest assured we all do this. We all generalise and profile, and until science is able to out perform our brains in this field, its probably the best tool that we have. The next time some one says, watch out there have been a few more robberies in the area, and you become more aware of men than women, you have profiled a group of people. And you would be wise to, at any given moment, we are attention poor. If you don't believe me, watch this video: