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Comment by aprilthird2021 | Hacker News Reader

aprilthird2021

> I have to say I don’t find myself too surprised that anybody doing extreme-long-distance running through insular Croatian towns might arouse the interest of the local constabularies

I don't live in Europe, but just help me out, why call the cops on a guy running down the road, in running gear, even if he's an ethnicity you rarely ever see?

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Most of the comments here are missing the mark IMO.

The primary reason why he got so much police harassment is because Croatia is a EU Schengen border country, the patrols here are much stricter than everywhere else, and the associated problems are much worse as well.

I don't think it's entirely due to racism - if you were a border policeman, and you are tasked with bringing in people illegaly entering the country, what would you do seeing a person of color running on back roads near the border of an otherwise extremely ethnically homogenous country?

For every case of someone who entered legally and got harassed, they probably bring in thousands of people which they are supposed to bring in (ie. entered ilegally).

If you're travelling through sensitive border regions, attracting unwanted attention is unfortunately an occupational hazard.

https://www.ndtv.com/offbeat/indy-nelson-man-who-visited-eve...

https://www.pap.pl/en/news/pole-wrongly-sentenced-life-congo...

How can it not be entirely due to racism, if race is the only factor determining whether you stop someone who is jogging on the street in jogging clothes and likely athletic supershoes?

Ya know, this is an incredibly interesting question. Because my instinct is to say that, if the patrols duty is simply to analyze anyone who stands out, and they do so in the proper channels without malice or harassment, then that would be the least racist possible scenario in which this occurs, some may say, not racist. But then even if the guard is kind and helpful, is the guideline "people who stand out must be questioned" racist itself? It sounds like yes. But then what justification do they have for that, is it genuinely that the vast majority of illegal crossings come from people who stand out? Or do most of them blend in, or is it just the stand outs that get caught, thus making it appear in data as if they're the problem and intensifying the patrols around them? Like the airplane problem.

Then the hypothetical, what if it were true that the people attempting to harm your society singularly visually differed? Would that be racism, some strange "justified racism" or simply not racism? If you say, we are not prosecuting on race, but on propensity to crime. Well that starts to sound like some things I've heard in my country, which we believe is racist. Interesting questions.

Well, the neighboring country to Croatia is Bosnia and Herzgovina. The ethnicy is similar and some from there also have motivation to enter illegally. Basing on race ignores those.

Also turning it around: Is it right for somebody, like the runner, who legally entered to repeatedly be treated bad just because others who share skin color do bad?

even better, the first check could have asked him for his route, and phone ahead to let their colleagues and especially the call centers know that he is coming. with a photo even. the reverse of a wanted poster. and if they had to deal with a lot of illegal immigrants in the area, the maybe could have asked him to wear something easily identifiable that someone else would not wear. maybe a number thing that's common for runners in a competition.

part of the problem is not only that he is checked, but how he is being treated during those checks.

i mean that's my experience in china. every interaction with authorities was extremely polite and friendly. even when it was an issue where i broke the law because i didn't register my new address in time. of course africans experience racism in china as well, so i can't say for sure that they would get the same treatment as me, but certainly not what this guy experienced in croatia.

exactly this, and add to that, the demographics are similar in all eastern european countries. so what's special about croatia? https://brilliantmaps.com/european-black-population-by-count...

after reading the article i found the links to other articles on the guardian site linked to this: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/oct/10/p... "Croatian police accused of burning asylum seekers’ phones and passports". the problem seems to be more than just never having seen a black person.

> so what's special about croatia

To add relevant context Croatia is at the edge of the Schengen zone. On the other side of the border are Serbia and Bosnia with less strict border controls and visa rules, so this is one of the roads for illegal immigrants to reach rich western countries. This and Hungarian borders are what's between them and their goals. Connect that with the fact that Croatia doesn't have non-white minorities, there were probably zero cases before this of black person wondering down the roads who was not an illegal migrant.

Passport are also needed for deportation. I can not see any reason, why police would burn their documents. It creates a lot of extra paperwork and headaches.

Destroying passports is a normal practice for illegal immigrants. It extends their stay in EU by several years. Most countries are considered safe, and it is hard to claim you are from Syria with Egyptian passport.

The police aren’t burning passports because it’s procedure, or even legal. It makes it harder for asylum seekers to prove where they’re from.

I'm not from Croatia, but for context

>ethnicity you rarely ever see?

Rarely... I was 20 years old when I first saw a black person in real life. This was in a center of a big city, and it surprised me so much that I remember exactly where and when it was.

Nowadays times have changed and it's not that rare in my country - at least in big cities. But I imagine a Croatian farmer seeing a black person - running! - and calling the police to investigate what the hell is going on.

> But I imagine a Croatian farmer seeing a black person - running! - and calling the police to investigate what the hell is going on.

So is this common? I would not call the police immediately among seeing something odd or unusual that isn't threatening...

You wouldn't, but someone would. Cops get called all the time for out-of-the-ordinary things that you'd not even think of calling for.

Power failures, parked cars, loose animals, strange kids, balloons, weather, etc.

For a laugh I used to read the local paper which published a log of police calls, they were along the lines of "A dead racoon was reported on Oxbow Rd. When officers investigated they found it was a hat."

Loose animals can be a danger to traffic, and the police should be called.

I've done this when a horse had escaped from a field at the edge of a village.

And as unfortunate as it is, some people see black people running in their neighborhood as a danger to society and will call the police (or in some cases will just hunt them down and kill the person themselves https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-judge-sentences-three...)

Very poor flamebait...

This is schengen area border country, dealing with tons of smuggled immigrants, most of which are coming from Africa. While having from 0 to next to 0 local population of same/similar ethnicities.

First thing to many occur to especially older folks watching news is illegal immigrant running ie from busted police operation, not some epic runner. They definitely dont recognize running sportswear.

I mean, that is literally racism, the assumption about the man, based on his race, is that he is an illegal immigrant

Which other assumption would be reasonable, considering Croatia's ethnic structure? You have to take local circumstances into account.

But all of racism is based upon the idea of "reasonable assumptions". You don't need to assume. By your logic, stats can inform assumptions about black people being up to some crime, Arabs being up to some terror plot, Indians committing some rape, etc. etc. But the whole point is that one person should not be tarred by the assumptions others make about their ethnicity.

Your question is a trick. If only statistics make something reasonable, then the only "reasonable" assumption is that he is a criminal. And all racist assumptions will be "reasonable". But the very idea that a person should be assumed about based on his ethnicity is not reasonable or morally right.

In Spain people call the cops for seemingly everything. I had a bunch of race motorcycles I was unloading at my house and some idiot neighbor called the cops because they thought I was running an illegal repair shop. I had to spend almost an hour proving that my four kids raced semi-professionally. Even had to show them their race licenses before they realized that I was telling the truth. I have found in many places in Europe people have a very hard time minding their own business — especially old ladies. For reference, I’m a white American. So some Croatians calling the cops after seeing a black dude doing a Forest Gump in the middle of nowhere would certainly attract the attention of the local busybodies.

He's doing something weird hence the police calls.

I'm from that part of the world and had the same thing happen when I went camping.

The police officer asked if I lived in the west, then left me alone with a warning about bears and gypsies.

It’s racism. I’m guessing you’re from the US, the least racist country in the world.

People see he’s a different race so they treat him badly because of it. No one is worried about being called racist.

He was arrested several times a day for being black. No one in the whole chain of events viewed this as a problem.

Do you believe the US is the least racist country in the world or have i missed some sarcasm? I'm truly not trying to antagonize, just curious

Who would you nominate? The US certainly has severe problems with racism, but everything I've ever read about other countries has led me to believe that this isn't actually a totally implausible claim.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/least-rac...

Number 1: New Zealand.

Number 73: USA

Methodology:

> The WVS survey asks respondents from more than 80 countries dozens of questions, including one that asked respondents to identify types of people they would not want as neighbors. The more people of a particular country responded that they would be happy to have a neighbor of a different race, the more racially tolerant the respondents' country would be considered

That is based on 2 studies, one of which puts the US as one of the least racist countries and the other puts the US as among the most racist. Something is wrong.

The US is very racist by self reported observation of racism. However citizens of different countries have different definitions of racism.

If you use a constant definition of racism like “Would you live next to people of another race, yes/no?” Then you find that almost all Americans say yes (low racism) . In some other countries over 70% of people would not live next to a person of another race.

Name a country that is less racist.

Canada. New Zealand. Jamaica.

Canada and New Zealand are part of the “west” so they’re very similar to the US.

Jamaica is a good pick. A non western country that has very low levels of racism.

Maybe the assertion should be that the US is amongst the least racist countries in the world. The US is clearly in a different league compared to Russia, China and India.

Why do you think Caribbean nations are not part of the "west"? How about countries in Africa or South America?

Why do you think Russia, China, and India are "more" (moar?) racist than the US? All three of those countries are continent-sized and (internally) wildly diverse. Interestingly, all three of them have significant minority groups that practice Islam, Buddhism, and Christianity, yet they are peaceful places to live. This whole Internet trope that the US is more or less racist than country X is weird. I see it so many times. Any country that had institution racism well into the 20th century (many!) is going to be working through a continent-sized garbage dump of cultural baggage. I don't care so much about any country's absolute state; I care more about their direction and progress.

Two interesting examples:

30 years ago Germany treated Turkish people, who had peacefully and legally settled thanks to the post-war guest worker programme, as second citizens. Today is completely different. There are ethnic Turks who are national ministers!

Less extreme: Both Italy and Romania have large populations of Roma people (outdated term: gypsy), but today they are more integrated into mainstream society than ever. 30 years ago they were absolutely second class citizens.

Regarding China, Russia and India. They’ve all got a big problem with the literal enslavement of people from ethnic minority communities. I think that’s racism.

https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/

It depends a lot on which part of the US you look at. Here’s a high school having its first ‘integrated’ (i.e. not racially segregated) prom a mere 11 years ago: https://youtu.be/fDla-r2uj7U?si=Zun-NdDnjnSq0Yk4 The idea of formally separating an event like this by race would have been shocking 11 years ago in many Western countries. The US is ahead of the curve in some ways regarding racism, but it still has incredibly high levels of de facto racial segregation. As a Brit who lived in the US for a while, this was the aspect of US life that surprised me the most. Many white Americans still quite openly regard majority black towns or city districts as no-go areas (even though they don’t openly talk about it in racial terms). You see segregation on a smaller scale too (e.g. the common pattern of the restaurant with all white serving staff and all Latino kitchen workers). I’m aware that this kind of segregation isn’t usually the result of a deliberate evil plot to segregate people, but it’s still notable.

I am not saying that the UK is necessarily ‘less racist’ overall than the US. I think racism manifests itself quite differently in the two countries, so it’s hard to compare.

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