If only Ali, Jr. had come home a few hours earlier…It was too late for all of the late-night comics ~ and by Monday night there’ll be too many more stories to cover…
THEN:
I (white) was at our local “Cheers” style bar this evening w/ my best friend (black) shooting darts and waiting for a pool table to open up; when someone else brought up this story and the place erupted.
90% said “Fire/Screw/Bleep the TSA guy”
…but another 10% said who cares?
After some punches were thrown and the cops were called, we just left.
But the question is indeed about whether someone is responsible for their name. When they ask a black Muslim where they got their name from, they are asking if the person was born into a Muslim family or converted to Islam. And the subtext to that is “Were you a gangbanger who found Allah in prison?”
I have done a vast amount of travel, though not recently. Also suffered pointless delaying questions that had no possible point while transiting customs. It was always perfectly clear something could be done about it, and this was that the wise traveler had ten US dollars folded in his passport when entering failed states, where, as also in this case, the boarder staff were really badly paid.
Been to more than one state where Islam was the official religion, and often the customs agent not only refused to take the money, but read me a gentle homily on how “his” countrymen had too much self respect for this to work. No such hesitation in any of the Christian states though. Good luck to them all.
Have you been to Egypt? Senegal? Iraq? Morocco? My experience is different than yours, apparently. I go to Egypt a lot, and the demand for bribes has been overt and continuous. I don’t see it as something that is any more or less likely in an Islamic country than in a non Islamic one with a similar economy.
“Baksheesh,” the smiling guard supervising the line will say to you, as he holds out his hand in a welcoming gesture. If you are moved to give him $10, he will be moved to let you into the line.
“Baksheesh,” the smiling customs inspector will say, as he commands you to open your luggage. There is a $10 fee for the inspection."
Nit-pick, but Muhammad Ali changed his name while he was dabbling with the Nation of Islam, which is only superficially Muslim*. He later converted to a real Muslim faith.
as in OMGWTF no way not really, unless there’s a part of the Quran that covers Mother Wheel flying saucers and evil white mutants.
Twenty years ago for me. So much has changed in the world. probably apples/oranges too much now to be real relevant.
However.
I always dress to blend in, I am of mixed races anyway, so have none of the “western tourist” triggers that seem to catch out other people. This doesn’t work behind customs of course, but even there I treat the whole thing so casually and look less then affluent, if they say wait I wait patiently unless I can not, which is where BEFOREHAND I put the ten bucks in my passport, but if I just waited without looking worried, they waved me on.
Except the places which obviously I came across, where everyone is given an “airport charge” but that isn’t any different to the same thing which is done in London and Sydney, except for the final recipients of the “tax”. By missing the western triggers, I was talking about the outside the official system kinda “freelance” baksheesh where westerners get picked out for attention.
I study short local phrases for needs, look reserved and taciturn, nod, or shake my head, and got very few requests for baksheesh. Or any other kind of problem. shrug ymmv
I have never been particularly anxious about paying off the various officials to get them to do their jobs. We have a place on our company expense reports to document those payments, which are usually in merchandise. In my job, time is very important, so if it takes a few cartons of cigarettes to keep everything moving, so be it.
This is not a rogue agent problem. This is training and culture and directives from the “top” that enable these sad situations. Take a swipe at the uniforms at the rubber-meets-the-road level and it just creates sympathy for the perpetrator, who is just doing their “duty”.
HAH…I was smart, I named my son Cassius! Get him by every time LOL. We pronounce it Cashus, and smart asses pronounce it Cass e us…yeah, um we black romans let us in 'Merica
