For hundreds of years women couldn’t vote and minorities were categorically segregated.
That’s a strawman analogy. We’re not talking about privacy as a whole. The discussion here is about the supposed right to privacy at, what amounts to, a government controlled entrance point into the country. You have to identify yourself no matter which technology is being used. There’s no anonymity at an airport (from the government). Whether it’s technology or a piece of paper, you are legally required to identify yourself.
I keep saying this over and over, but if you want to talk about digital privacy, focus your energy on smartphones and the internet. The impact for privacy violation and the impact for regaining privacy rights is the most effective there.
Only a subset of any population has any interaction with an airport and the privacy implications there are next to nothing (because there is no right to anonymity there).