Actor Riz Ahmed from Rogue One: A Star Wars Story accused airport authorities in Chicago of racially profiling him, forcing him to miss a Star Wars convention, reports The Daily Mail.
Such extensive searches for Ahmed are nothing new. He told an audience at the CAA Amplify conference in Ojai he’s been targeted for secondary searches at airport screenings for 15 years.
‘It’s scary to be a Muslim right now, super-scary,’ the Daily Mail reported him as saying.
Fox News reports that Ahmed talked about being swabbed at an airport and being subjected to extensive questioning.
“(Hasan Minhaj) could win a Peabody, I could win an Emmy, Ibtihaj Muhammad could win the Olympics, but some of these obstacles are systemic, and we can’t really face them alone,” Variety reported he said at the conference. “We need your help. I’m basically here to ask for your help.
He pleaded with the Hollywood executives in attendance to be aware of how they portray Muslims in their films and TV shows. He cautioned against only casting Muslims as terrorists.
“The efforts of individual artists or storytellers may be bold, they may be progressive, they may act as beacons of hope for other people, but in the face of institutional prejudice and institutionalized obstacles, systemic obstacles, our efforts can sometime still fall flat,” he said to an audience which included Obama-era senior advisor Valerie Jarrett, “Patriot Act” creator Hasan Minhaj, playwright Young Jean Lee, Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson, and “Just Mercy” stars Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx.
“I think lives are quite literally at stake here,” he said. “The representation of Muslims on screen — that feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded.”
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RE: Star Wars actor Riz Ahmed barred from flight in Chicago: Excellent article. And in this country, the majority of terrorists are white. Use them in your movies!