I am probably overthinking but here goes nothing-
We were 4 brown people, coming from a conference in Helsinki. We had priority boarding passes with priority security checking. We were wondering around the security area thinking where to go, as in hel airport the priority line is in a completely different direction from the regular line, unlike other airports i have been to where 2/3 lines are separate in the regular zone. There, an airport employee comes and looks at us and directs us to the regular security area, no questions asked, not looking at the boarding pass. After entering the area we found it is not priority line. Then we had to go back to the priority line again, passing the employee, who stared at us like we were doing sth stupid or wrong.
Me and others with me are thinking we have been racially profiled to 'not able to have' the priority things. Also we are pretty young, that might also be the cause. However, am I overthinking or were we really subjected to racism?
It's hard to tell, in hindsight, at a remove, whether this was big R racism or simply thoughtless behavior. At some point, there is a grey area between the two, where some like to live because of plausible deniability, but where others may not want to stay too long, because perceived intentions could get blurry and simple stupidity can trigger a sensitivity.
This could have been clarified with a simple, explicit, "Where is the priority line?" If the employee intentionally misdirected your group after understanding the question, that would be malfeasance regardless of the motivation. Without that clarity, who can say?
Ultimately, you were the eyewitness, and I don't know that anyone on the internet can provide insight on that employee's thought process any better than someone who was actually there.
Sadly, the fact that you are thinking about it and posting and some of us are reading and replying costs exponentially more energy than that employee expended in their interaction with you. Perhaps the best way to disempower the potential of the slight is to not feed it any more energy.
This happens to, specifically, Black business and first class passengers in the U.S. all the time. So, it’s very, very possible you were profiled and dude decided you didn’t belong.
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