I thought I’d become immune to the indignities of travelling with an African passport, but an encounter last month proved me wrong.
After a series of meetings in Dakar, I travelled back to London via Madrid on a red-eye Iberia Airlines flight. Disembarking from the plane in Madrid in the early morning hours, I got separated from my white male European colleagues—an Austrian and Brit—and was directed by a stern-looking Spanish security agent to the ‘RSU’ section of the airport to await a connecting flight to the UK. The flashing information screens designated ‘HJK’ as the lounge area for my departure, however, so I resolved to go there.