If you hear the words SP at the Airport, be Scared! Be Very Scared! – says SP Roberto

Advancing economies continue to surprise me with the speed at which they do things. Fast cars, fast lives, fast food… fast, quick and short. Short-cuts. Phrases like “ ‘Sup?” or “yea” or just plain abbreviations. Most of these abbreviations don’t make sense to me. So I completely empathized with my co-fellow, Roberto Guerrero, told us a story involving the SP abbreviation, you can imagine our astonishment. Care to lend an ear? Here goes –

So Roberto and his wife, Andrea, walk into the La Guardia airport on their way to some destination on their program. Well dressed as he always is, Roberto gets looked up and down and pulled from his long line of people and he comments, “I was just so excited because I thought I was being treated so well because of my great sense of dress.” However, people who travel frequently should have all kinds of alarms going off in their heads by this time.

Of course, an SP is a Special Passenger who is plucked out of a long line of ordinary people and thrown into a complete and utterly humiliating experience.

The SP is based on a formula of random selection, whereby an individual is pulled out of line to be searched, poked, prodded and completely helpless and to the security process at the hands of the airport security. “They yell out ‘WE HAVE TWO SPs” and someone comes and guides you into an area where they essentially tell you to undress, go through your clothes, bags and spray and test everything at random.”

Isn’t it enough to take off our shoes, whip out our laptops, take off our coats and belts and other colorful accessories to put through the Xray machines, to be exposed to such a threat of being openly humiliated? I mean, there should be some difference in the way people traveling on a commercial airliner and the way an epidemic would be treated, shouldn’t there?

I automatically hold out my passport during all the scrutiny and checks that I pass through and then remain ready to be pulled out of line when the guard inevitably scream “NO ALARM, FEMALE ASSISTANCE REQUIRED!” as I pass through a silent screening machine. I can hide my passport but I can’t hide the color of my skin or shape of my face and go through the treatment every time.

There really has to be a better way to travel in the West. Seriously. The 3-ounce liquid rule and the number of times you have to undress, take off your shoes and empty your bags, only to forget to take out the loose change from your pocket and then be pulled out of the line once again.

I love the freedom to travel but treating people like this, just doesn’t seem like a great plan. It just doesn’t.