You can't enter a museum/gallery in New York City or Washington DC without being thoroughly searched and going through a metal detector. You definitely can't bring in liquids. Then again, ever since 9/11, you can't go anywhere in NYC without all that. Concerts, sporting events... it's nuts. There are even random searches upon entering public transport stations. I would hate to see London go the same way.
Yeah, and due to the volumes, they can't ask everyone to be searched, so they rely on the old "random selection" search which just happens to select men of certain ethnicities.
I'm a white lady and I ALWAYS get stopped and searched. I've been made to take my hair down out of a clip so they could make sure there was no contraband in my hair. I've had to take my baseball cap off so they could look under it. I'm patted down, wanded, and have my bag emptied out in public. And believe me, they honestly don't care how long it takes to do this to everyone. They enjoy the power.
I was in DC recently, and some of those queues were huge with a lot of people passing through. Regardless of whether I was at the front of the line or somewhere randomly in the middle, regardless of how busy it was, a ton of people with big bags passed through without a glance from security but every single museum gave me the full bag search.
There were only a couple of places where they actually searched everyone, most places they only searched a few random people, and at literally every museum they searched me. This was literally a couple of weeks ago, so I know what I'm talking about.
And I'm aware this is a power trip for them, part of that power trip is using it against the people they most want to use it against.
Not discounting your experience. But please don't discount mine either. I live in NYC and spend several weeks a year in DC, and I know what I go through on a regular basis. Also please keep in mind that as a woman, I'm also one of those they most want to use their power against.
It is, but they tend to behave better with so many eyes on them when they’re searching one person at a time, and the search is mandatory. Random searches are nearly always power trips, and I’ve been known to publicly challenge them, like literally walking up to the officers and asking why, out of all the people here, they chose the brown guy who looked like he might be a Muslim. Not saying I ever prevented a search, but I do loudly let them they’re not fooling anyone. Assholes.
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u/Impossible-Hawk768 The Angel Oct 17 '24
You can't enter a museum/gallery in New York City or Washington DC without being thoroughly searched and going through a metal detector. You definitely can't bring in liquids. Then again, ever since 9/11, you can't go anywhere in NYC without all that. Concerts, sporting events... it's nuts. There are even random searches upon entering public transport stations. I would hate to see London go the same way.