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Walking While Black

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Re: Walking While Black

#71

Post by m_fayer »

Double_a_92 wrote: post #65
whack wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Racism in America varies greatly, depending on where you live. The following is the most objective metric I could find for racist tendencies in America: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/12/08/acros... Looking at the map, the Pacific Northwest is one of the least racist, and the south is one of the most racist. This matches pretty well with what I would have expected. Interestingly, NY state itself ran…

From my experience racism is more subtle in those european countries. E.g. you only get disadvantaged in more anonymous situations, but never actively excluded or attacked in person. I live in Switzerland and noticed that especially when looking for jobs. When I was in middle school we had to look for apprenticeships to do after we finished school. In my class 5 of 20 were foreigners, and only I found a place (after…

I know the situation in the US and here in Germany, and if I had dark skin I'm really not sure which poison I'd choose.

In Germany a Westernized dark-skinned person will feel quite comfortable, but when it comes to things like competing for promotions, investments, capital, heck even flats, and etc. - they will tend to lose out a little too often. People in positions of power, while friendly, have a strong and unexamined tendency to gravitate towards their comfort zone. They're looking for a good gut feeling, for trustworthiness, for what seems like a good match - and, shocker, those feelings are most often produced by upper middle class to rich native-born German men. It's pervasive, and I don't see much talk here about the need to overcome discomfort and implicit bias, at least not among the elites. In fact, any suggestion that they should step outside of their comfort zone produces resentment, more often than not.

So, in Germany, you don't need to worry about the police, or about random aggression all that much. But you'll face a glass ceiling. And while everyday existence for the same person in America may be menacing and emotionally oppressive, America is also the country where 2 of the major tech companies have Indian CEOs, and no one blinks an eye. Germany is still very far from that, unfortunately.

Re: Walking While Black

#72

Post by dudul »

majewsky wrote: post #61
the_greyd wrote: post #32

I would identify as how the author describes, someone who's slightly nervous at the sight of a black male walking towards him at night. I try to suppress this feeling, and try to act normal, at which point I'm really overthinking. And I'm sorry. I am sorry that this has happened to you and to black people in general, how as a society we have fucked up so much. I am suddenly reminded of the book "The Lathe of Heaven",…

I know the feeling. Where I live (in East Germany), there are now a lot more immigrants/refugees from the Middle East and Africa then there used to be a few years ago. I noticed that when I'm sitting in the tram next to a group of immigrants, my lizard brain evokes a feeling of unease because it's an unfamiliar situation (I don't know any people from this ethnic group in person, I don't understand their language(s),…

> I don't understand their language(s)

I remember reading an article a few years ago explaining how one's brain tends to react somewhat negatively when hearing somebody speaking a language they don't understand. It's actually "normal" (as in "good luck fighting thousands of years of evolution") to feel unease when around people speaking a language you don't understand.

Funnily, the paper was also mentioning that the same thing happens when hearing somebody talk over the phone. The fact that you can only hear 1/2 of the conversation somehow triggers some defense mechanism in your brain.

Re: Walking While Black

#73

Post by sureaboutthis »

superkuh wrote: post #31

This was a wonderfully written piece and a lot of it rings true to me even as a white as you can be person in a smallish state university town in the midwest. But maybe being 6'2" with a big unkempt hobo beard is almost as scary as being black. I too love walking the streets at night. And I too have to not be myself and behave in very conscious ways to avoid being hassled and detained by the police. Police just assum…

>Police just assume that if you're out at night you are a criminal.

No they don't. What they are doing is noticing things that are out of the ordinary. You do the same thing. If everyone is wearing a suit, and one person is wearing shorts, watch all the heads turn. A black man walking through an all white neighborhood late at night will draw attention from any person in that neighborhood. The same is true if a white man was walking through an all black neighborhood. No different. The police would stop him, too.

I was going to work one morning and, as I got into my car, I noticed my wife's tomato plants had some red ones. Leaving my car door open, I walked to the garden to examine them to see if they could be picked. When I turned around, a policeman pulled up in a squad car. He recognized me but said he stopped because he saw a car with its door open making him wonder if it was a break-in. He then saw this poorly dressed guy wandering around the yard. Both out of the ordinary.

When he saw me, he laughed, and drove away.

I own a restaurant. One night, I got a call from the police that they noticed our back door was slightly open. That's different for two o'clock in the morning. They walked in and notice our cash drawer was missing. Patrol cars were dispatched through the neighborhood, a shopping district where there were lots of people walking around, when they found a guy walking with a metal box under his arm at two in the morning. How unusual.

Re: Walking While Black

#74

Post by michaelgrafl »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #54
michaelgrafl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to take lots of walks at night before I had a full time job and children. I live in Austria and it seems bizarre to me that police officers would check you out just for walking around at night. I never had such an experience whether I was living in Vienna or my small hometown. What I did see was black men having to show their ID at subway stations, which to me was a very unsettling thing, because it was pretty…

Is taking walks maybe an uncommon thing in the USA? In many places, yes. But part of the article takes place in New York, where it isn't. I have lived without a car for over a decade. Almost everyone immediately assumes that I am simply poor and can't afford a car. This happens to also be true, but I wanted to live without a car for a long time, I'm an environmental studies major and I have terrible eyesight problems…

I find that really interesting. People here start driving their kids to school, which would have been unthinkable when I was a teenager 20 years ago.

Most of my friends who live in Vienna actually don't have a car. It's just so much more of a hassle compared to taking public transport, let alone expensive. Even if they have a car, it's probably parked in some rural area during the week and just used for the weekend when parents are visited, on outings, etc.

I wish I wouldn't have to own a car. That's one of my biggest gripes with living in a suburb.

Re: Walking While Black

#75

Post by usrusr »

toomanybeersies wrote: post #59
superkuh wrote: post #31

This was a wonderfully written piece and a lot of it rings true to me even as a white as you can be person in a smallish state university town in the midwest. But maybe being 6'2" with a big unkempt hobo beard is almost as scary as being black. I too love walking the streets at night. And I too have to not be myself and behave in very conscious ways to avoid being hassled and detained by the police. Police just assum…

I used to walk home from my friends' house to mine when I was at university in New Zealand, often drunk or high. The police would usually stop and talk to me if they drove past. I always thought of it as a good thing. I lived in a high burglary area (being a student area), so there were a lot of shady characters walking around at night, especially in the back streets. They never actually detained me or even got out o…

> The police never viewed me through the lens of suspicion, they never talked to me in an accusatory tone. I felt more like they were checking that I was OK, rather than checking that I was a criminal.

As a European I wonder if this is "because Freedom", that the state-sceptical tradition laid out by the US constitution has created an expectation that police should never interact with anybody who isn't a criminal. That way, the attempt of making the police nicer has made them less nice, by removing nuance (unless you happen to never fall into the area of uncertainty, where nuance will be missed). Any thoughts on this by Americans?

Re: Walking While Black

#76

Post by michaelgrafl »

skissane wrote: post #43
michaelgrafl wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to take lots of walks at night before I had a full time job and children. I live in Austria and it seems bizarre to me that police officers would check you out just for walking around at night. I never had such an experience whether I was living in Vienna or my small hometown. What I did see was black men having to show their ID at subway stations, which to me was a very unsettling thing, because it was pretty…

> Is taking walks maybe an uncommon thing in the USA? I once got sent to Plano, Texas, for a week. It was a training course for work. After the course, I went for walks in the afternoon / early evening. And it surprised me at just how deserted the streets felt. There were plenty of cars around, but so very few pedestrians. I didn't really feel unsafe, just more out of place.

A friend of mine who worked on a plant site in Alabama for a couple of months told me he would get weird stares from the locals when he was going for runs in the morning/evening.

I never knew whether to believe him, but everything in this thread seems to underpin his story.

Re: Walking While Black

#77

Post by circlefavshape »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #64

A good but disturbing read. This just stopped me in my (white, European) tracks: "When he dropped me off and I thanked him for his help, he said, “It’s because you were polite that we let you go. If you were acting up it would have been different.” I nodded and said nothing." Even the officer who made the effort to be fair, still expected submission.

Isn't that what all police expect, from everyone? Cops here in Ireland are generally friendly, but the best path to a frictionless interaction with them is to demonstrate you already know who's the boss, so they don't feel like they have to demonstrate it to you

edit: Having read now the article, I take that back. You've gotta be submissive with cops everywhere, but what this person describes is pretty extreme

Re: Walking While Black

#78

Post by belorn »

superkuh wrote: post #31

This was a wonderfully written piece and a lot of it rings true to me even as a white as you can be person in a smallish state university town in the midwest. But maybe being 6'2" with a big unkempt hobo beard is almost as scary as being black. I too love walking the streets at night. And I too have to not be myself and behave in very conscious ways to avoid being hassled and detained by the police. Police just assum…

I remember one of those very minor study that had a person trying to dismantle a bike lock in a park. Male with dark skin, male with white skin, female with dark skin and female with white skin.

The man with the dark skin had people tackle him down while calling the police. The other people on the team that was observing had to rush in to disarm the situation. The white man had people stare and point, but nothing dramatic happened. The woman with dark skin was practically ignored by people walking the park. For the white woman several people walked up and offered to help her with the bike.

I am not sure a beard and night time and actually changes this. The assumption about who can and can't be a criminal seems to be based on gender first, race second, and appearance/environment last. Would be very interesting to see a more deep study on that, through I expect they will mirror related studies such as those that look at outcomes from courts and criminal psychology.

Re: Walking While Black

#79

Post by degenerate »

majewsky wrote: post #62
LandR wrote: post #56

What are peoples thoughts on a guy walking behind a woman. Not intentionally, just it's late and you end up walking up behind a woman on a darkish street. I always feel I either need to slow right down, so i'm not closing the gap (don't want to speed up as that might seem really dodgy..) Or just cross the road entirely. I feel we're in this weird place where every guy is perceived as a potential threat, so I understa…

> I always feel I either need to slow right down, so i'm not closing the gap (don't want to speed up as that might seem really dodgy..) Or just cross the road entirely. I usually try to overtake them very quickly, so they can see me. It helps that I'm a very fast walker.

I do the same. I walk quickly and as far to the side of them as I can, making a decent amount of noise. That way they can hear my location and be less alarmed.

Re: Walking While Black

#80

Post by beaconstudios »

Jaruzel wrote: post #47

North America's attitude towards people of colour, absolutely disgusts me. I simply do not understand why that a country that was founded on on the principles of freedom continues to act this way. The fourth amendment clearly states that all citizens should be treated equally if suspected of a crime, yet this simply does not happen. Yeah, the UK (my homeland) has it's problems, but in the main, racial in-equality is…

we actually do have this problem in the UK - for example, with the police targeting black teenagers/young adults for stop-and-searches in London. It seems a lot less pervasive/severe than in the US though.
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