Transoceanic Profiling: ongoing racism in Germany and the United States

Police brutality, particularly in altercations involving immigrants or people of color , has been on the rise in recent years. With immigration rising in both the U.S. and Germany, it appears that diversity comes with a cost.
(Photo courtesy of cagle.com)

Last week an unnamed German citizen, 26, won a landmark discrimination case in the Higher Administrative Court for Rhineland-Palatinate.

Here is the catch: he is black. 

Both a German citizen and a student at a university in Kassel, the man has been taken aside at least 10 times by federal police. On this occasion, he was traveling to visit family in Offenbach. The police took him aside, thinking he was another undocumented illegal.

However, when the police harassed him to hand over his travel documents, he finally decided to stand up to them. Other train passengers spoke out against the officers, but nevertheless, the officers continued to harass the student. Eventually, he was taken to the police station where he was finger printed and placed into a holding cell. They questioned whether or not he could speak English and had documents.

Eventually, he was released once he showed his driver's license. His reason for resistance? Due to his past experiences being taken aside, he found that police need to give at least one reason for questioning passersby. In his case, the police failed to do that.

Though the student did not seek monetary damages, he characterized the experience as "the worst day of [his] life."

In California, this experience is common amongst Latino immigrants, legal and illegal alike. Thus, racial profiling has become especially prominent, particularly in border states. Racial profiling is defined as taking a person's race or ethnicity into account when deciding whether to engage in enforcement.

In 2008, the ACLU of Southern California released a report, which analyzed Los Angeles Police Department pulling over pedestrians and determined that African Americans and Latinos were "over-stopped and over-frisked" by law enforcement, much like the officers in Germany.

According to this ACLU study, blacks and Latinos were 76 and 16 percent more likely to be pulled over and searched than whites. Twenty nine and 32 percent of blacks and Latinos were more likely to be arrested as a result of these searches.

What other trends have there been in regards to racial profiling in the U.S. and abroad? Are there any patterns you have notice?

A German View of America's "Democracy"

How do German's view America's Presidential election? It seems the answer to that question would be "pointless". In an article published in Der Spiegel, they said "Democracy is about choice, but Americans don't really have much of a choice ... the people are helpless in the face of their power, as is the president". This article begins with a brief overview of some problems the East Coast has been facing in the wake of Sandy, and goes on to give a bleak view of our democracy. Later, the author mentions that "From a European perspective, it doesn't matter who wins this election. Only US foreign policy is important to us". This statement sends a very clear picture, if the previous writings didn't, of how Germans feel about American politics. And of course, if the message hadn't been clear enough, the article ends on a point of hopelessness, saying, "The downfall of the American empire has begun. It could be that the country's citizens wouldn't be able to stop it no matter how hard they tried. But they aren't even trying".

Is this true? Is America dying or is it just in the midst of a rough patch? Is there anything we can do to repair our reputation among Germany and the rest of Europe or are we forever going to be viewed as a failed democracy?

Twitter Blocks Germans’ Access to Neo-Nazi Group

    With the flourishing of social media, the distance between different countries has grown smaller, and the spreading of

information has never been easier. It seems that this very democratic culture of open information from the U.S. has

quickly spread across the globe, even to places that freedom of speech has never been guaranteed; such as the middle-

eastern countries that had started their revolution via Facebook.


    However, on September 25th, 2012; one of the largest and most influential social media, Twitter made a controversial

move in Germany that triggered debate all over the world. This controversy started with the group "Besseres Hannover,"

a neo-Nazi group in Germany that had been posting far-right tweets and swastika symbols, which could be prosecuted

according to the laws in Germany. Though this incident caused little resistance due to its laws and Nazi past in Germany,

people from other countries have raised their concerns over freedom of speech. What if, the government of Russia

decided to suppress youtube videos that acted against the government? This is a serious problem since it makes the

social media companies potentially subject to manipulation by governments that are authoritarian.


    On the other hand, JIllian C. York, the director for international freedom of expression at the Electronic Frontier

Foundation said that, "It's not a great thing, but it's a way of minimizing censorship. It's better for Twitter if they can keep

countries happy without having to take the whole thing down." As China did. Youtube also has a similar company policy

about removing videos that contain hate speech. However, if content being deemed inappropriate could be removed by

company policies or the legal system of the country, then, what is freedom of speech? Or moreover, what is

appropriateness? 

Gay marriage abroad: policies in Germany and the United States

Angela Merkel, DE Chancellor, is part of the Christian Democratic Union. (Photo courtesy of CNN.com)

According to CNN writers Grep Pleitgen and Janina Bembenek, the German high court has granted same-sex couples the same tax benefits of heterosexual couples. Over the past couple years, there has been a heated debate between Christian Democratic Union (CDU), headed by Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the Liberal Democrats.

In the past, the Christian Socialist Union, a sister union to the CDU, has spoken out against equal tax benefits, saying that heterosexual couples receive those benefits because their relationship goes towards "making new life."

Much like civil unions in California and Delaware, German government officials passed domestic partnerships into law in 2001. Now, the Bundestag is permitting the same tax benefits for these couples at the urging of German liberals.

There is a similar situation in the United States. As the election closes in on U.S. citizens, the gay marriage debate is becoming even more heated. Religious groups are speaking out against same-sex marriage, citing the Bible as their moral reasoning.

In Washington state, Referendum 74 is up on the ballot. Should the bill be passed, gay marriage would become legal in Washington state.

Washington state candidates, Jay Inslee (left) and Rob McKenna (right). (Photo courtesy of KATU.com)

However, its passage depends both on the election of Republican candidate Rob McKenna or Democrat Jay Inslee. With much of Washington's gay population focused in Seattle, the King county vote will likely reflect their vote.

As a supporter of R-74 and a democratic voter, I can only hope that the United States government will turn in favor of supporting gay citizens' rights.

Racial Profiling: Germany vs. Arizona

In a recent ruling courts ruled against racial profiling based on skin color. After an incident where 26-year-old student refused when asked to show his identification on a train due to his dark skin color and was subsequently held at a police station, the student brought the case to court, suing for discrimination.  After a lower court deemed the police action acceptable a higher court overturned the ruling, saying that this action had gone against Germany's anti discrimination law. This case could set a precedent against racial profiling by the police.
   As a US citizen and resident of Arizona this case reminded me of SB1070, Arizona's recent illegal immigration law. This law, while it does not openly accept racial profiling, does promote it by allowing officers to demand immigration papers if there is reasonable suspicion that they are dealing with an illegal immigrant. The term reasonable suspicion basically allows the officer to decide who could or could not be illegal. In the case of Arizona, most illegal immigrants come across the nearby border with Mexico, thus making it extremely easy to suspect anyone of hispanic heritage of being illegal. In any case, I was glad to see that Germany has made it clear that requesting identification purely based on one's looks is not acceptable. I hope that Arizona can learn from this example and eventually follow suit.

German Guilt, Postwar Burden

In this article written by German- Canadian journalist Ingeborg Boyens, she confessed the ambivalence growing up as a German immigrant in Canada. In her memory, children of German heritage were often being bullied and recruited as the evil losers in war games that were played out on the street. The German identity of these second generation children was often being purposely disguised. “I was so desperate to blend in, on the walk to the bus stop most mornings I undid the braids my mother had earlier lovingly plaited. On the walk home, I redid the braids to complete my transformation from German to Canadian to German again. Did my parents not notice my flyaway, disheveled look? If so, they never said.” This sense of German guilt has prevailed since the Second World War. Though it might have subsided over the years, the residue of the war has still been nibbling many Germans and people of German heritage. “My German guilt will be with me until the day I die. ” Boyens admitted. She also mentions that in Winnipeg, the German-populated town where the author grew up has only one German restaurant, with the fear of any hint of German nationalism. However, this is the reflection of an at least 40 year-old, decades have passed, and the situations are different to those of the next generation German- Canadians and Americans. In Seattle, just by walking around U-District and a little further down to Roosevelt, at least 3 German restaurants/ bars can be seen, and the restaurants also do not avoid playing German TV shows and music. Time has passed, it seems that, although many Germans are still afraid of showing patriotism and nationalism, but the circumstance has changed, and the identification with German heritage and culture are slowly making their way back.

~Eunice

Marijuana

Marijuana has been a hot topic of late in the U.S. with the debate over whether or not to legalize it. It appears that the same is also true in Germany. Der Spiegel's article "German Politician Inhales on Live TV", they briefly discuss the legal state of marijuana, and the repercussions of using it.

They also mention the possibility of classifying marijuana "on the same level as other 'soft' drugs such as alcohol and nicotine". How does this compare to the American discussion? Would Germans agree with how we regulate "soft" drugs?