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Comment by ilovefood | Hacker News Reader

I love walking and there are many parks next to where I live. However I am never able to fully enjoy it or indulge in any longer thinking activities as most of the time I'll be interrupted by either elderly people asking me "to go back where I came from" or random ID checks by undercover police. This happened a lot (5x times) over the last year when I decide to go and walk in a park, once even during an online call with my team. I live in a medium sized city in Germany and come from North Africa / France and it might show a bit too much. As a mitigation I once seriously considered changing how I look by for example dressing more like a dad or walking the neighbors dog as an alibi for being "normal". Maybe it would have interested the old ladies too, who knows. For the time being I'll keep at walking on streets or inside the city as it's less strange to see foreigners there. Can't wait to have my private forest :')

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Interesting post, when I worked in Vienna I had a guy who was from Nigeria on my team, his dad was a diplomat to the UN, I believe. One day he told me how long it took him to walk back and forth to work, but it didn’t make sense it took that long. He said because he was African the cops in certain districts stopped him every day to search him, claiming he was a drug dealer and basically just to harass him. So he took the extra time to avoid that district. What an eye opening conversation, to see that racism really does show it’s ugly little face everywhere, even in countries that aren’t really known for it. He was well dressed and worked in tech, mental gymnastics would be required to assume he was slanging drugs.

It's not a racism, it's a reasonable precaution.

Why reasonable? The guy was stopped just because being black

nah, its was pretty clear racism. he was well dressed and had absolutely nothing suspicious about him(he even carried a diplomatic passport) the only thing different about him or I was his skin color and i walked through that same area many times, all hours of the day, wasted, and never once got stopped.

I would like to encourage you to make your experience (semi-)public in your local community. In times of campaigning, talk to people at campaign booths. Tell the members of the city/local council of different parties about it. Go to the mayor's public office hours.

And look for a group of people who want to something about it. There are also a large number of Germans who find the racist discrimination by the police scandalous and think that it is high time to do something about it. Best not individually, but collectively.

Then attitudes can change, even in conservative circles. I come from a place that recently elected a mayor with a Turkish background who was supported by the conservative party (CDU). Something like this would hardly have been conceivable twenty years ago, but I hope that it will now become the norm.

A friend of mine who is white also was checked by the police a lot (in Germany), simply because he had a certain jacket that was apparently associated with drug dealers or trouble makers (checks can include anal probes for hidden drugs, apparently).

So maybe dressing for the occasion could work. Sorry for your ordeal. You'd think police would know you after the umpteenth check.

This advice is warm spirited and practical and I endorse taking actions to make oneself safer. But, also, it's disgusting that anyone should be harassed by police and feel unsafe walking where they live. That is a terrible status quo and the GP deserves better, full stop.

On the one hand I agree, on the other hand it is a fact of nature that clothing displays a message. I think demands that clothes should not be significant are simply unrealistic.

I think even if police suspect somebody, they should still treat them with respect, though. That is the real issue.

You can not ask the police to never suspect anybody - that would make their jobs impossible and ridiculous.

Really, I think we should sincerely and earnestly question what problem the police are presumed to solve. The most useful functions they serve in my area are to help direct traffic during construction, for which they absolutely do not need weapons. Otherwise the idea is that we will be safer if a handful of armed people drive around at their whim staring at pedestrians. They can't go back in time, nor do their methods demonstrate any hope of preventing anything. What do they do? edit: I should add, for anyone wondering what my positive contribution to this is, that the idea of a community taking measures to keep itself safe and peaceful is not a problem. But also that isn't what police do in theory or practice.

I suppose most of it is about drug and gang crimes. Drugs are of course debatable.

Here in Berlin we have parks taken over by drug dealers and people don't feel safe. What is the solution? I don't know. Berlin's government responded by giving the drug dealers designated areas for drug dealing. I rather suspect they rely on those dealers for their personal supplies.

Whatever it is, it demonstrably isn't targeted harassment of the people already in the throes of addiction, poverty, etc. Drugs result in violence because they are illegal, not the other way around. Portugal is oft cited but for good reason.

I used to walk in a park every night at around midnight, in a big city with tons of police gang units. Not once was I ever approached by anyone. It was peaceful every time, without exception.

That changed when the police started driving their massive SUVs on the park path after 11pm to make sure nobody was in the park. The first time they did it, they argued that the park was closed, though there were no signs saying the park was closed. It turned into a big verbal argument but thankfully it didn't escalate badly. That night I looked up the city code and found that if there's no gate, then the law allows me to walk to the end of the park. I went to the police station to complain, and was told that I shouldn't worry about it because they're not trying to get "people like me".

But still, it happened again, and the cop basically told me "we're going to keep doing this until you stop". So, while the cop wasn't exactly disrespectful, he was wrong about the law in a way that manifested no differently from persistent harassment. They're just trolling for anything illegal on a default position of wronghood.

You're asking the wrong questions.

I wonder if Corona was part of the issue. There were a lot of weird rules about staying in parks during the last 1.5 years. At some point, people were allowed to walk, but not to stop or sit down, for example. There were quite a few ugly scenes with police trying to evict people from parks.

Goodness gracious. I'm staying the hell out of Germany. That would even be extreme in the US

I know what you mean, but I would think it's also racist a lot of times. I know of a case where a friend who is german, born in Germany, just that one of the parents is an immigrant. He has a C-level job at a medium sized company and he was stopped together with a colleague while going to have lunch, while dressed as someone at that level would dress, because some old lady said that some foreign looking people were acting suspiciously (it wasn't them). They put them through some humiliating experiences, not believing they work where they work and harassing them.

In the same time I also have some "hacker" type friends that were constantly being stopped by the police, even though they were white, but they just have a questionable fashion taste compared to the general population.

Sure there definitely can be racist elements, just wondering if perhaps at least they could be mitigated by dressing in a certain way.

That's not meant to justify the behaviour of the police, just to find a short term solution for being able to take walks.

That was heartbreaking to read. I’m sorry. It really surprised me when I read Germany. Shame on those people and the politicians who allow police to harass you. Shame on them!

I was also very surprised when I read that it was in Germany.

When it comes to police checks, it is important to know your rights: https://anwaltauskunft.de/magazin/gesellschaft/strafrecht-po... The police is not allowed to discriminate against you just because you look foreign. Always demand that they tell you why you were stopped and that they show their badge.

When it comes to racists, I personally would reply with irony and humor to make them look silly. But ignoring them can also be a viable strategy.

Eastern Germany is very racist. I'm white and I repeatedly got "the looks" when I spoke Polish on a trip there.

Not like Poland is better, but somehow people don't expect it in Germany.

I think it depends entirely on where you are in Germany, like everywhere you have more tolerant places and more intolerant places. Curiously the places with the least foreigners are the most xenophobic ones and vice versa.

> Curiously the places with the least foreigners are the most xenophobic ones and vice versa.

That's actually the standard. It's easy to be xenophobic when someone has very little exposure to other cultures. Once they get exposed over a long period of time, people realise that they are just people too.

It’s also easy to be tolerant towards someone you don’t have to interact with. Once you get exposed to other cultures you realize that they are different.

I guess the realisation we're talking about is going from thinking "they eat human babies" to "they drink different types of tea".

I would say that is more like different cultures have different values:

Different ways of treating women, different ways of treating animals, different ways of treating the ambient, different ways of looking at work, different ways of looking at state, different ways of looking at religion, different ways of looking at morals, different ways of looking at neighbors, different ways of looking at property, different ways of looking at mating (...) While elites from any culture may be open minded and flexible, the average individual is not.

Elites may thrive in a multicultural society but the other incumbents don't. It's not surprising when they idolize any politician that respect them.

I agree with you in part, particularly with why there has been a backlash against multiculturalism. Also with the reality that different cultures tend to have different views to a wide range of issues.

But I’m not sure what you mean by elite. Donald Trump and the whole modern Republican Party are the elites, and I wouldn’t describe them as flexible and open-minded.

Exactly. When your main exposure to other cultures is via tabloid media versions of those cultures, it's not surprising that you believe strange things about them.

Police doesn't care. It's also illegal to discriminate and you can technically call the police when people do it, but they either don't come or will question you instead. "What did you do that they would do this".

And don't let anyone fool you into thinking that this is an eastern Germany problem. I grew up in one of the largest cities in the West, don't come from africa and have been told to go back where I came from plenty of times(which is actually amusing considering my background), have been assaulted by security people, peppersprayed by elderly men, etc.

There are also some EU laws that actually make the random checks somewhat legal.

Don't forget that Germany is the place that happily called for solidarity with BLM movement by the same people that would call Chinese "ching chang chung" on national television. Sure they don't shoot you, but they will make sure you have as little upward mobility as possible.

A lot of Africans that I know, take the University education from Germany and then move the US or Canada when they get the chance. You will rarely see any people of colour in leadership positions in Germany, heck there are hardly even eastern Germans in leadership positions in publicly listed German companies.

As much as I dislike a lot of things about the US at least in the professional sense you are treated with respect if you're good at what you do.

EDIT: oh and if you want to see what Bavarian police thinks of immigrants maybe took a look at some of the drawings in the police calendar.

https://taz.de/picture/224461/948/gdp_kalender2.jpg

https://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/img/incoming/crop190229...

I thought I was hurt a lot by casually racist comments passed by coworkers in a small, relatively liberal town in the US Midwest.

Then I read about your experiences and count myself lucky. I can say nothing other than, I hope things get better over time.

That is not a good comparison. It's not ok to pass casual racist comments.

Casual racists comments and jokes fall into the micro-aggression category.

Next time, I hope you build up the courage to tell your aggressors that you are not ok with racist comments.

> That is not a good comparison. It's not ok to pass casual racist comments.

You are right. It's not, and I didn't mean to diminish my experience, only amplify how the OP's seemed much worse.

> Next time, I hope you build up the courage to tell your aggressors that you are not ok with racist comments.

I did, a few years ago! I also left that job and warn other minority groups vocally about the hostile environment there.

A workaround which could work for regular people not bothering you would be using headphones.

I had exactly the same experience while travelling in Morocco. Random ID checks by police and people bothering me all the time. And I'm male..

Unfortunately comments like mine (and yours) don't make things better. Possibly they make things worse.

That must absolutely suck. I’m sorry you have to deal with that.

That sucks. This kind of behavior should be monitored and have consequences till it stops.

What's the name of the city?

It shouldn't have to be this way, but try wearing sport clothing and make it a light jog for extra health points.

And by that I mean actual sports clothing, not the archetypical tight Adidas tracksuit that the average European troublemaker wears.

Oh, the irony....

Where's the irony? The bias is there whether you like it or not.

Never have I ever been harassed while wearing sports or hiking clothing, including accidental trespassing in countries where I barely spoke the language. Can't say the same about the outfit I mentioned, while doing nothing wrong.

The fact that the Adidas tracksuit and the tiny bag are the closest thing to the official uniform of a drug dealer in much of Western Europe became apparent really quick.

> Where's the irony?...Never have I ever been harassed while wearing sports or hiking clothing, including accidental trespassing in countries where I barely spoke the language. Can't say the same about the outfit I mentioned, while doing nothing wrong.

I think the OP is likely referring to the recent incident [1] in Georgia in the US where a black man was chased down and killed while he was jogging on the street in, guess what, T-shirt and shorts.

I am aware that your recommendation is possibly about Germany. It's still ironic, and in my opinion your recommendation is ineffective.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Ahmaud_Arbery

Yeah, we're talking Europe in this thread though. Nobody ever gets shot while jogging, even less so by another civilian. Gun homicide and killed by cop deaths are orders of magnitude lower.

But yeah I should have gauged my comment towards a mostly US-centric readership.

Your problem is not that you are North African, but rather that you are living in an area controlled by a group of people who feel that this is a smart policy to have, which of course it is not.

Come to the USA-- for all of our problems, you can at least walk in a park without encountering police.

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