Ari Lennox was arrested because she ‘wouldn’t calm down.’ For some Black women, that hit a nerve.

While it’s still unclear exactly what happened at the airport, many fans raised alarm after the singer alleged racial discrimination. Lennox tweeted about the encounter, writing, “I’m being arrested in Amsterdam for reacting to a woman racially profiling me.”

Earlier, Lennox wrote that security at the airport “hated black people.”

A spokesperson from KLM Royal Dutch Airlines told the Guardian Tuesday that there was an “altercation … about seeing her identification.”

“The lady did not show the correct document. When the employee confronted her, she drew the wrong conclusions,” the spokesperson said.

KLM told The Lily it was “unable to go into detail” about the incident, “but we can say her management has apologized for her behavior on behalf of her to us.”

In a statement to the press, Dutch military police spokesperson Robert van Kapel said that “our unit found a woman full of emotions, that wouldn’t calm down. That’s why she had to be taken into custody.”

Van Kapel said police had speculated she was “under the influence of alcohol,” which was “later confirmed.” It’s unclear when Lennox will be released. After the incident, Lennox’s manager, Justin Lamotte, tweeted that she “is safe and appreciates the support and everyone checking on her.”

(Dutch military police and Lennox’s record label, Dreamville, did not respond to requests for comment.)

Traveling while Black: Some Americans are afraid to explore their own country, concerns that evoke the Jim Crow-era Green Book

For some Black women, Lennox’s arrest hit close to home, highlighting the specific vulnerabilities they may feel while traveling.

Lennox, whose real name is Courtney Shanade Salter, is an R&B star best known for her 2019 single “Shea Butter Baby.” The 30-year-old singer has drawn praise from fans and music critics for her soulful music, as well as her outspoken social media presence.

“I was just blown away because she is, of course, a Black woman, but a celebrity as well,” Tomlin said of hearing about Lennox’s arrest. “But at the same time, I should have seen it coming because it’s happened before to Black women. When they’re traveling, they’re deemed as hostile.”

Tomlin said she has endured years of being consistently “singled out” by Transportation Security Administration agents in security lines for reasons that were not clear to her. Agents would pat her down from her permed, straight hair to her feet, she said.

The pat-downs happened so frequently that Tomlin said she got “desensitized” to it. But in one incident in 2019, Tomlin said a TSA agent handled her so aggressively that a young White woman in line began crying and filming it.

It was a reaction Tomlin herself didn’t feel she could express, she said. As a Black woman, even when she felt violated or exposed, “you have to prove that you are safe.”

She found the Dutch officer’s comments that Lennox “was full of emotions” particularly jarring.

“It’s a double affront. And it’s the experience that Black women have dealt with for many years in this country and abroad,” Tomlin said.

Kristin Denise Rowe, an American studies professor at California State University at Fullerton, said she is uncertain about what happened in Amsterdam, but found how Dutch police described the incident notable.

“I think that there’s a particular context around the ‘angry Black woman,’ the irrational Black woman, that might be lurking in the background of some of this,” said Rowe, who studies how culture, race and gender interact with body politics.

People may not necessarily know they’re tapping into those tropes, Rowe added. And although many may associate them with U.S. history and culture, these stereotypes have a foothold outside of the United States.

For Nadia Brown, a professor of government and chair of the women’s and gender studies program at Georgetown University, Lennox’s arrest is part of “the same old, tired script” of how Black women are viewed in public spaces.

While this is true in many contexts, according to Brown — her research focuses on Black women in politics — airports can heighten feelings of being scrutinized, she said: “The airport is just one of those places where we know we’re all being surveilled.”

This is true not just of airport authorities, she said, but also of other staffers and travelers.

“Traveling while Black is always seen as highly suspicious,” Brown said.

This taps into a longer history of Black people being explicitly restricted when traveling, she said, such as during Antebellum slavery, when they needed to show documentation that they had permission to be out or papers showing they were free.

That legacy continued through post-Reconstruction and the Jim Crow era, where segregation laws throughout the United States restricted travel for African Americans. Through the 1960s, Black people relied on the “Negro Motorist Green Book” to help them travel safely. The book outlined which motels, restaurants and service stations welcomed African American patrons: choices that could mean life or death for them.

What was the real Green Book? A crucial guide for for Black travelers during segregation.

Airline travel has added new dimensions to racial harassment. In recent years, Black women have alleged being discriminated against on flights for issues including their clothing and how they smell.

In Lennox, Brown sees a person who may have felt her body was surveilled for being “out of place.”

“It’s so, so familiar for Black women,” she said.

Brown questions the version of events relayed by KLM and Dutch authorities: If Lennox were emotional — and even if she were drunk — why wouldn’t the response be to talk to her, rather than detain her?

For Brown, it comes down to a legacy of Black women being unfairly perceived as a threat: “How many other Black women have been detained for similar behavior — or a lot less?”