Last year, I was steps from completing what is, for most Americans, a mundane part of air travel—walking down the jet bridge from the airport gate to the plane—when the police stopped me.

They didn’t have any reason to stop me (a fact they have admitted). It’s just part of Flying While Black.

Shortly after I entered the jet bridge, two police officers stepped in front of me, blocking my path. They started rapid-fire questioning: Was I carrying any illegal drugs? Cocaine? Meth? Pills? Why was I traveling? Could they see my ID?

I didn’t see any other Black people boarding at that time.

The officers were part of a local Clayton County Police drug interdiction task force, whose job it is to lurk at the end of jet bridges and accost unsuspecting passengers. Police call these passenger encounters “consensual.” That’s based on the fiction that passengers have the power to ignore the officers and their questions, even though officers have chosen the exact place and time—passing through the narrow jet bridge—when passengers will feel least free to ignore them.

We all learn that airport security is important and we should obey officers. They never inform passengers they have a right to simply ignore them, and it is hard to imagine people choosing to do so. And then there is the fact that people of color are drilled repeatedly about the dangers of ignoring police “requests.”