PSA:Fascism writ small

[photo: Ice on the Hudson a few years ago. BC the algo didn’t like my pic of border security and also bc it’s too cold to go out and take a new pic of the ice floes]

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I’ve been considering whether to publicly share what happened to me at the airport a few days ago, when I came home from a month away. My first impulse was to keep it to the feel good trip pix I posted on IG, and move on. It was a few minutes of my life and a nuisance with no consequences for me as an individual. But fascism, while working in stunning, large ways, also works by scaring the little guy into submission, complicity, silence. I think it’s important to document this, too, as long as we still can.

While on leave from the dystopia, I watched with the rest of the world as the criminals-in-power murdered two citizens in cold blood; destroyed the lives of countless immigrant neighbors whose names are less well-known than Good and Pretti; and continued to fund a genocide overseas that seems to have slipped beneath the fold of our mainstream press. Just to pick three.

My favorite comedian, Gianmarco Soresi, has a skit about going through airport security as a white, progressive guy. He starts by talking about Hassan Piker getting detained at the airport. “I’m flying home tomorrow,” he goes on, “And I’m honestly so scared… they’re not gonna know who the f*ck I am.”
    
Fair enough. As an old white lady, I take it for granted that I’m going to be out the airport doors without a hassle. (How do you spell privilege?) Nevertheless, better safe than sorry. So, in the Madrid airport on my way home, I logged out of my socials where I often post about politics, and took them off my phone, deleted my Signal app, which I use for most of my political communication, and made a perfunctory inventory of my WhatsApp and text messages, removing a few. Before I went through passport control at JFK, I turned my phone off.
    
When it was my turn and they asked me to stand in front of the camera they now use routinely, I politely asked if I could opt out of facial recognition, knowing this is still my legal right. It’s not like I don’t think they’ve got all of our photos in a file somewhere, taken by one of those drones that fly over every protest, that they don’t know the organizations I belong to, haven’t linked my file to my parents’ ancient HUAC file. But the fewer opportunities I give them, the better. Plus it’s a tiny push back.
    
“Yes, but you have to go to a different line,” I was told.
    
I admit that I looked to see how long the other line was. I just wanted to get home. There was no one on that line, so I moved over and slid my passport to the man behind the glass and his colleague standing next to him. He flipped through it, paused on something, showed it to his colleague and said something I couldn’t hear. She replied and I couldn’t hear that, either. He closed my passport and slid it back to me.
    
“Was there an issue with my passport?” I asked.
    
“He didn’t ask anything about your passport,” his colleague said sharply.
    
I put my passport in my pants pocket, grabbed my carry-on, the only luggage I ever travel with, and started wheeling it quickly through baggage claim, not stopping. I aimed myself at the exit, scanning for signs to the Air Train. I was about to go out the doors when I heard a man’s voice.
    
“Excuse me, ma’am.” I took a side glance. Uniform. U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” My body took another step toward the exit, as if I could just ignore the guy.
    
“Ma’am.” I stopped. “What flight are you coming from?”
    
“Madrid.”
    
“I need to check your bag.”
    
I handed it over and he took it to a scanning machine near the exit. (Did we always have those in JFK?) He put it through. “Is your passport in your pocket?” he asked.
    
“Yeah,” I said. I could feel my breath going short.
    
He opened my passport and looked through it. Closed it and handed it back.
    
“Am I free to go?” I asked. He nodded. “Was this a random check?” I asked.
    
“Yes.”
    
I got home in record time, with seamless connections to the Air Train, the E train, the B train. It was so good to be back in my home town, and to step into my nest after a whole month. Great to travel, great to be home. In the current sea of dysfunction, I’m one lucky lady.
    
Was it a random check? Maybe. Which means that border protection is now stopping random folks racing for the Air Train.
    
Had the folks at passport control called ahead and told the agent to make the silver-haired leftie who opted out of standard operating procedure just a little uncomfortable? To give her a little slap on the wrist?
    
​I looked through my passport and wondered which stamps may have given the authorities pause. Next time I’ll opt out again, but with more anxiety. This little stuff is also the way fascism works.