All / only feelings, no substance at all.
I have always felt treated like a suspect around US / Canadian / Swiss borders. Have been ordered to take of shoes etc.
There is literally nothing in the whole piece except feelings.
I have always felt treated like a suspect around US / Canadian / Swiss borders. Have been ordered to take of shoes etc.
There is literally nothing in the whole piece except feelings.
You are right, the article is about feelings (although not only that). You are wrong in that it lacks substance.
Feeling dehumanized is a feeling. Saying that an article that describes the procedures that made the author feel dehumanized (but not you, by your words) is insubstantial shows a remarkable lack of empathy.
Which, by the way, was the substance and point of the article.
It seems like she was preparing for an ordeal, didn't get one, and still had an article to write.
I worry about border crossings too. We need articles to highlight the problems as they happen. This article didn't have any problems to highlight, so it concentrated on how the author felt in anticipation of the problems.
That was the whole point of the article. The author describes the internal struggle of having to hide one's authentic identity because they could be mistaken for being a "muslim terrorist".
Humans are emotional creatures and social science is very much not-so-scientific at times, considering the complexity of the topic. Sometimes all we can do is talk about our feelings.
If you just want to talk about your feels with no justification whatsoever, there's plenty of platforms out there for fiction writing.
How does your argument stand in the Trump era, when a candidate can lie outright but appeal to feelings well enough to be elected president? When republicans can get on TV and say "we're about feelings, not facts"?
The reality of the world does not reflect your personal opinion of what the world should be like.
I don't think they are not worth discussing, but the title of the piece is pretty sensational.
I just commented there are no facts, nothing was real. She felt the way she did. Sure. But travel has been this way 15+ years now.
edit:typos
If you really want facts, consider what would happen if the journalist had tried to get them from a lizard-brain CBP officer as she's being asked weird intrusive questions and who could, on a whim, detain her at the airport with no rights to communicate with anyone-- for no one actually knows how long.
The story was an insightful thought piece that might help others understand the situation better or perhaps provide a bit of illumination on why some people may be terrified of travel in the current environment.
This fear is much worse now. Watching what you say, the language you speak, books you read, what may be on your computers/phone, your demeanor, etc. Because of that fear she tried to remove anything that may signal she is a Muslim to the CBP. That makes the title not sensational. [But it didn't work as they still asked her if she was a Muslim.]
Secondly, no, the travel has not been the same even in the post-9/11 world. The change is that they are now talking about demanding passwords to social networks, and search your entire history of communication.
The change is that now you really are presumed criminal and have to prove otherwise with how you look, speak, and what information you have or looked at.
The change is that now you really do have to go through your emails and censor them.
If that's not substance to you, we don't have anything to discuss, so let's stop here.
I value your comments, however, because they supplement the article and do further author's point.
This is a nontrivial point; OP's opinions are affected by gender. Upon learning that the author is a woman, the OP stated that it "explains a lot" (as of the time of writing this, we're still waiting to know what exactly).
The point is, this behavior towards people coming into the country affects even those who are not searched. They live in fear. That's not "nothing".
If you start kicking red-haired people in the street, and only 5% of red-haired people get kicked due to their red hair, the experience of the rest doesn't amount to "nothing".
That this didn't stick out in the narrative, and might be considered normal to someone else, is exactly his point.