Taking Photographs While Black

[baratron]

On second thoughts, maybe I don't want to have an LDR with Seattle.

I really must finish typing up the story of being racially harrassed on the bus a few weeks ago. Hm.

Comments

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I have mixed feelings about that story. The writer may be entirely correct in his assumption, i.e. the police were singling him out for special attention on the basis of his ethnicity. However, that is an assumption, and a recurring theme seems to be "I know why they were asking, but they wouldn't admit it" - without psychic abilities, I'm dubious about whether he really could know that.

Based solely on what he's written (without even hearing the police's point of view), it seems like he was acting quite differently to the other people with cameras - there's a difference between a tourist walking past with a camera hung round their neck, and a person who sets up a tripod and stands there for 30 minutes. As for the guy with the easel, I think it's safe to say that it takes a lot longer to do a painting than it does to take a photo, so there is an obvious reason for that person to be standing around for a long time. The writer almost seems to be veering into Ali G territory ("Is it because I iz black?").

On a general note, my experience with the police has been that things go much more smoothly if you co-operate. I've been stopped a few times for minor driving offences (e.g. going through a red light at 3am with no other traffic around), and I was polite and apologetic. In return, the police let me off with warnings. By contrast, if I'd started saying "Oh, come on, why aren't you out catching real criminals?" then I probably would have been fined or arrested. I can respect the writer's decision to take stand up for his principles, but I can also see why it looks suspicious if you refuse to show someone proof of ID.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

I think - well, lots of things. But the first one is that there's a hell of a difference between someone being stopped for a traffic offence where you knew full well you shouldn't have done it, and someone being detained for a "crime" that's apparently been made up on the spur of the moment. That's really the problem I had with that story. Likewise, co-operating with a single policeman is easy enough, but with 8 of them surrounding you? I would fucking freak out and have a panic attack on the spot - which would then be taken by them as a sign that I'd been up to no good.

In the UK, we are not obliged to carry ID around, let alone to show it to an apparent officer of the law on demand, but in other countries this is different. As the writer of that site says, every time someone demands to see your ID the request gets logged in a database somewhere. And, as civil liberties groups both here and abroad have said, this can get used for nefarious purposes. Want an excuse to detain people without charge? Pull out a couple of pages of database file that says they've been communicating with subversive groups, or (heaven forbid) taking photographs of public places. There's no smoke without fire. They must be suspicious.

Paranoia? I don't know. I kept my eyes open when I was travelling. Standing in a customs queue for several darn hours, you don't have anything to do but watch who gets pulled over. I'm lucky because I pass for white and still pass for 'student' - but other scruffy backpackers were not so lucky - and being brown without due care and attention? Hrm.