racial profiling happens all the time here. whenever i travel to milan, i try to make sure there is a black guy in the same carriages so when the border control guys come, they go straight to him and leave me in the clear.

HUH?????

I dont understand what you are saying.

My point was, in response to the OPs reference to incidents like this happening in London or Paris would cause a riot, I pointed out that what with whites being the minority in either jurisdiction, then surely it would not be a case of racial profiling or singling out minorities.

The reality is that this is Zurich. I'm not saying they should have to by default, but the majority will be able to if they want - just like the rest of Zurich (to their credit).

Maybe the Brazilian tourists didn't speak English?

FWIW, two of the Brazilian group were women & were also asked for their ID.

Well then I must have a Babel Fish in my ear, as I heard one of them say quite clearly in English "why are you checking us?"

Yes. They were non-Caucasian. Did you really need me to tell you that?

The missing link between your thinking and my thinking is that you imply that such controls are conducted in the couple of places where non-whites are in majority (there are very very few such places in France, there are far more whites so called Gaullois in the city banlieues than general public thinks) and I experienced such controls in railways, Champs Elysée, Châtelet and around Les Halles, all places with vaaaaaaaast white majority. They target non-whites or more exactly non-pale because they are told to. It's a policy, it's a strategy. They think they have a higher chance of getting something out of it they can add to their crime statistics because they have targets to meet. I have no idea if they are right or wrong about the chances, but fact is, only the pale rich kids ones were dealing in the high school I was. They don't show up in crime statistic and probably are lawyers, teachers, business men or bankers now. They were dealing AND had excellent grades... nobody was looking for them.

This


happened to me on a Berlin-Warsaw train, my dark-skinned wife was looked upon with suspicion by 5-0 but they glossed over me...even though I'm a halfy, she looks more "ethnic"

That's because they *were* bored. What a crap task for police to be doing.

There are at least 3 "post 10pm flushers" in my block they could be popping caps in instead...


High visibility policing is actually quite an effective policy. In general.

That's just naive to go with the assumption they're looking for "non-white". As per the OP, "blacks" and "Asian" looking folks were singled out. Last time I checked, the two don't resemble each other.

SMH.... the extend humans go to justify a deed.

Depends if you mean South-East Asian, or Southern Asian.

It does happen in Barcelona! With the amount of people being illegal here, they do target some specific skin color for control.

Not really, I was merely relating to my experience in central london, and passing through paris where I was very much in the minority being a white male.

Look again in Paris as people in the street do not always match people living in the surroundings (maybe you were in Barbès, where there is indeed close to zero pale people), but I trust your judgment for London.

Police and customs targeting anybody with a bit of coulour pigmentation is a big runner. I was suspect number one in Iceland when arriving from Amsterdam as single non-blond young man. They asked all kinds of indiscrete questions, I answered with the diplomacy you can imagine and invited them to group sex. They obviously liked controlling me, who am I to deprive them from that pleasure.

Less funny however the black man in Oslo who get himself a super-hightech-bike for his birthday and was stopped by the police for control every single day often several times. He went to the newspapers with all the documentation so that policemen are informed. He was smart, he congratulated the police for being so zealous if one day his bike is stolen.

Do you have an English expression for contrôle au faciès?

So now we're splitting hairs, huh? I think it's clear that for the OP to described some as "Asians" I'm sure there was a stack difference that enabled the conclusion they were "Asians" and not "blacks". Bet the cops couldn't make that distinction?

The overriding point to be made here is that the social and somewhat institutional fabric of this country, like many others, are at least subconsciously prejudiced toward non caucasians. Many have already acknowledged this fact on numerous thread in this very forum. So to merely speculate the existence of a "man on the loose" scenario by invoking the prevalent stereotype of non caucasians is quite disingenuous and borderline appalling.

Damn those detergent salesmen.

Do you have any idea how many policemen in Brazil will speak German, or even English?

Oh, FFS

I have only been to Paris twice, and I was only passing through, and my exposure to Paris on the whole was limited. I rode the meto, I walked about around Paris Nord and surrounding area, had 3 hours to kill, and Paris Gare de Lyon and surround area, again a few hours to kill. I appreciate that might account for small part of Paris, but that was my observation from a commuting perspective in those areas.

English expression, erm, not sure what your french expresison means, control faces??? England operate a stop and search regime at their discretion. Sure, people often feel they are being discrimanted against, but as mentioned above, they often cant win. Damned if they do damned if they dont