Pitchfork

Exhibit Q in the case of very misguided cops v. innocent black Americans: Ahmir "?uestlove" Thompson, drummer and mastermind behind the Roots.

During a recent trip though the Buffalo airport, Thompson was detained, degraded, hassled, and humiliated by airport security, police, and Drug Enforcement Administration officers because of a large amount of cash he had on his person and his choice of wardrobe, according to Thompson's MySpace blog post from Monday.

Thompson had purchased his plane ticket close enough to departure time that his boarding pass was flagged for an extra security check. So far, so normal.

But because he had quite a bit of cash (some foreign) on him from recent DJ gigs and because the officers said he "fit the description [of a drug dealer] with [his] knitted Rastafarian hat," he had to put up with an hour of harassment best whittled down to its essence by ?uestlove himself:

"it was just so fucking degrading man. that is all i can describe it as. i'm sitting there like how am i gonna convince these guys that this dude with 30 dollar old navy jeans (white boy shit) and a 3000 dollar louis bag (nigga shit) and 5 figures in cash (white boy shit) and a coach seat (nigga shit) and a story of stadiums sold out across the world (nigga shit) but can't name a hit song of his (white boy shit) (and what the hell is you doing in buffalo of all places (white boy question) followed by my 'shrug' (nigga response). add on top of that my cd collection: the sly and the family stone box set and ladies of the canyon (joni mitchell) what kind of mofo is this? and 6 books all of connundrums and riddles?"

His entire account of the event is here, and it's worth a read.

Thompson was able to board his plane at the last minute, and he seems to have escaped with nothing more than some understandable paranoia. But still, the ignorance displayed by the questions of the officers involved is upsetting. Sing one of his songs? WTF? Cody ChesnuTT does that!