Woo Hoo! I'm Finally an African!

Today’s arrival in Entebbe airport was very different from last year’s. Last year, I traveled with a group of about 20 American young people. Once we arrived at the airport, we went through the immigration check, got our luggage and were on our way. I always wondered, how Entebbe verified that arrivals were allowed to enter the country because there was no security gate or officers between the baggage claim and immigration check. Basically, you could pretend that had gone through immigration and just walk straight over to baggage claim with no issue and then out of the airport clean and clear. This year, however, because I was a black girl traveling alone, I received the authentic African treatment in the airport.
I first realized that something was different because when I was in line for the immigration check there was an African woman in front of me who was unable to get through. She presented the officer with her license and the officer immediately looked apprehensive. She asked the woman where else she had traveled that year and once the lady was unable to tell her, she told her that she would be unable to allow her into the country with that passport. She informed her that she would have to go to the immigration office before she was able to officially enter the country.
The whole time I was observing this, I wondered what wouldn’t stop the woman from retrieving her bags and simply walk out of the airport like I had done the previous year after my immigration check. Well I was soon to find out.
Once I passed through immigration, got my passport stamped, and claimed my bags, I was randomly stopped throughout the airport two more times. The officers asked to see my passport and they each verified that it had been stamped and I was indeed allowed to enter the country. I must say however, that once they saw it was a US passport, they didn’t look too intently for the stamp, but what caused their initial approach of me, was my Blackness.
Though this excited me because I was finally being treated like a local, it annoyed me that the year before I was able to walk through this same airport without interference because of my white travel mates. I wish that there will come a time when Africans do not treat White people as omniscient beings. Everyone no matter what race they associate with should receive the same treatment, especially in the eye of the law. White visitors should not be abstained from the verification of a visa and allowed to enter the country freely, while Africans are being scrutinized.
But in the same boat, I was happy to be finally viewed as an African because though this caused a bit of annoyance in the airport, I knew that for the next month it would benefit me because prices of goods would not be as inflated on the account of my Americanness.