I did not find a good picture or explanation first google around but there are Sikh martial artists (also not quite the right word) that keep a huge load of weapons in their turbans. Usually when one comes across references it includes descriptions like “these few are the last of their kind” and the turbans are enormous.
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Point taken, but an oversized turban is not tightly coiled hair.
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Most definitely not. The concept you would need a machine to detect issues differentiating them from regular Sikhs in turbans or tightly coiled hair is ridiculous.
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Yeah as a very VERY white woman with curly hair, I have never been subjected to a full search after the pornoscanner. Once I set it off because I forgot to remove my Fitbit and they just laughed.
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White male, and I have set off that bloody thing a few times. Now I’m wondering if it has to do with the foot and a half of braid I’ve got going on. Don’t recall any special attention paid to my hair in the subsequent pad-downs though.
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That’s not quite correct; there is no model with which the image is compared. The scanners work by bouncing either x-rays or millimeter waves off your body. The radiation easily penetrates your clothing and hair, but does not penetrate your skin, and the reflected radiation is analyzed to form an image of the outline of your body, against which items of a greater density than skin (be they metal or plastic) can easily be seen.
Here is an image from the Rapiscan (lol) backscatter x-ray systems that were deployed at airports (and were removed in 2013, for the vendor’s failure to implement a better privacy system).
The image cuts off at the edge of the skin. As you can see, the hair of the model is not shown. Any dense items that were located in clothing that extends beyond the edge of the skin, or in hair that extends beyond the edge of the skin, would not be imaged against the skin.
The millimeter wave systems produce a different sort of image - it kind of looks like an Oscar statue - but similarly does not show any image beyond the edge of the body or show the person’s hair.
In theory, these images may be simplified in the viewing booth, into drawings of a person’s outline. In practice, leaving bored people alone with computers leads to them figuring out how to turn off that feature.
Here is an explanation of how these systems can be beaten:
I’m sure you can see how the method this fellow describes - carrying an object of greater density along with his body, but not directly on his body - would apply to items carried away from the body in hair as well as items carried away from the body in clothing.
Not to say that any of this is good.
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They stopped using these machines a long time ago.
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I operate one of these machines at a large airport and yes, the machine does respond differently to braids (and also to people with hair gel and to crewcuts!) I have never seen anyone be subjected to a full-body pat-down as a result- that sounds SO ridiculous! Instead, they are shown the image scan and we look at their hari. Sometimes we ask them to lift it or part it; this is to men AND women. It’s never more than 1-=15 seconds, it’s done respectfully, and I have NEVER witnessed anyone, regardless of race of gender, that walked away upset.
I can’t help wonder how valid these stories are or maybe that things are dramatically different in other parts of the country. I work in one of the busiest terminals in America and my fellow officers are multicultural and multinational. We treat the passengers, for the most part, with dignity and respect.
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I’ve definitely been flagged because of my hair pins/ braid. I have long hair and often wear it in a braid to fly because that way I don’t have to wash my hair on the first day in the hotel after a long flight. That being said, I’m white and my hair is fine textured so they usually just glance at me and wave me through because there’s obviously no real way to fit anything in my thin stringy blonde braid. It’s hard enough for me to hide bobby pins in it. That kind of flexibility though is just like an open invitation for assholes, I’m sure people who for whatever reason appear more “threatening” to the agents are subject to increasingly anxious inspection without anyone ever wondering why some people with a braid look more “scary” to them without doing or saying anything. It may also be accumulation. Almost nobody in my life has ever been even a little suspicious about my hair, but from what I understand from others is that people being suspicious, controlling, and generally weird about your hair is just par for the course for people of color here. So for them it may just be the crowing glory of bullshit to have their hair inspected like a terrorist’s gym-bag. And honestly, I can see that.
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So, wait, are you saying that being a bald dude is a privilege? Wow, that’s a first! (On the bald part. Well aware of the privilege associated with being male.)
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Fun fact, Sardars are allowed to carry their kirpans on domestic flights in India.
Fat people, too. Because it’s not like they don’t already deal with humiliation every time they try to fly.
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Under 6cm and it can be done in Canada too.
Canada, the only place more Punjabi than Punjab।
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Well, people with turbans, Sikhs, always carry two symbols of their religious faith, a Kirpan, which is a dagger, and a chakkar, a steel bracelet which is derived from an edged throwing ring. There’s also the khandar, a double-edged sword. Sikhs are, after all, a martial people, reflected in the symbol of their religion, the Khanda.
They also never cut their hair, which might also cause issue with border controls and their stupid scanners.
Sikhs are not people to mess with, which is why we Brits were only too glad to have them fighting on our side during WW2
On our previous to last trip back east, we noticed something interesting… and then something disturbing… while queuing up for Starbucks drinks in the airport’s concession area. The queue was serpentine, so at one point we could look directly back at people near the end of the queue: a middle-aged black woman fashionably dressed to the nines for travel and sporting a completely shaved head (interesting; her response to previous incidents with scanners?). and two white guys immediately behind her, obviously together and focusing on the black woman, quietly snickering and openly gesturing derisively, and as if no one else could see them. Wonderful way to stand in line, watching the action, wanting to punch a couple of yahoos in their fucking faces
