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>No but then I've never passed a counterfeit nor robbed a woman at gunpoint in her home either.

The majority of interaction with Americans I have is via this site, and I've seen quite a few comments over the years by people who claim to have received bad treatment at the hands of police in spite of doing nothing wrong.




Reply to sibling's reply to me. Why do you think she was subjected to that? I would guess it's because of the high levels of illegal immigration into European countries from Africa and many other places, including the trafficking of women for prostitution. It sucks for your gf that she perhaps looked to these policemen like she maybe fitted the demographic somehow but what are the police supposed to do?


To my sibling commenter (because reply stops at this depth):

> I'm not black but I've been subjected to stop and search on the streets of London. I've been taken aside and put in a room by police while they checked me out on entering the UK only to eventually be told "OK, you can go" at the end of it, no apology. But generally I've found with police that if you're polite and cooperative they are respectful in return. My first boss in the UK, who wasn't white, one of the first things he said to me was to be wary of black people, they have a chip on their shoulder. I was pretty shocked to hear him say that actually.

I'm not black either, and I live in the UK.

I've been stopped by police, I've seen others stopped by police, and I've been with people who are stopped by police.

For the most part the interactions have been fine, but I have seen what looked like black folks "hassled" in London which I have not seen happen to white folks. It is just anecdata and may be nothing but random experiences.

For me the most striking difference was on the border between France and Switzerland.

My girlfriend was black; I was white. We were stopped at the border driving across, by men with extremely large guns. I got a cursory skim of my papers, but my black girlfriend had to get out of the car, be detained for a while, have her papers checked other and generally given a hard time. Even though she had a stronger connection to both countries than I did. However we both had UK passports. They basically didn't believe she was a UK citizen, or that she worked for the UN... just down the road!

Eventually they let us drive on, but it was a very striking difference in treatment.


I'm not black but I've been subjected to stop and search on the streets of London. I've been taken aside and put in a room by police while they checked me out on entering the UK only to eventually be told "OK, you can go" at the end of it, no apology. But generally I've found with police that if you're polite and cooperative they are respectful in return. My first boss in the UK, who wasn't white, one of the first things he said to me was to be wary of black people, they have a chip on their shoulder. I was pretty shocked to hear him say that actually.




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