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> For minorities and poor people, the EU fares a lot better on individual freedoms than the US does That's not true at all. All you have to do is go to France

> For minorities and poor people, the EU fares a lot better on individual freedoms than the US does That's not true at all. All you have to do is go to France to see how far Europeans are willing to go to restrict the individual freedoms of minorities. Of course, you won't get data on just how much those groups are in the minority, because France has also conveniently made it illegal to collect this data, but you don't have to have exact numbers to see that the French government has no problem passing laws that directly curtail minorities' freedoms.

klmr 8y ago
> All you have to do is go to France I’ve lived in France for several years. And yes, I agree that France unduly restricts individual freedoms (and protested against it). I’m not claiming that any single country is perfect. I’m claiming that they are, on balance, better than the US (when you’re poor and/or a minority). Basic personal safety is a prerequisite for freedom: If you can’t even be sure that you can afford medical care keeping you alive, or if you need to worry that institutionalised racism means you get shot by police or thrown in jail for a trivial misdemeanour that earns a white person a slap on the wrist … then “freedom” is simply a theoretical concept. And yes, institutional racism also exists in France (and in every other European country) but it’s much less normalised than in the US.
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > And yes, institutional racism also exists in France (and in every other European country) but it’s much less normalised than in the US. This is the line that white people in France often say, but it's completely wrong. Racism is much more institutionalized in France than it is in the US. Racism is so institutionalized in France that it's almost impossible to talk about it, because it's woven into the legal and societal fabric and so deeply embedded. > Basic personal safety is a prerequisite for freedom You are dramatically overestimating the extent to which it is safe to exist in France as someone who is Black, Arab, or Muslim. Which is a common mistake, given that France has literally made it illegal to collect data on police brutality and incarceration rates of minorities in France, the way we can in the US. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, or that France isn't also an incredibly dangerous place for minorities - and arguably much more so - as anyone (like myself) who looks Black, Arab, or Muslim and has so much as traveled to France or lived there can attest.
  - jimmaswell 8y ago
    I remember in high school, my French teacher said racism was much more overt over there and in Europe in general.
  - klmr 8y ago
    > France has literally made it illegal to collect data on police brutality and incarceration rates of minorities in France You’ll need to provide a good reference for that because this is completely wrong as far as I know (AI doesn’t mention it, for instance [1]). Again, don’t get me wrong: I deeply disagree with the way police acts and is organised in France. [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2009/04/france-police-above-law-20090402/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2009/04/france-pol...
    - chimeracoder 8y ago
      > You’ll need to provide a good reference for that because this is completely wrong as far as I know (AI doesn’t mention it, for instance [1]). Since 1978, it's been illegal in France to collect census information on race. This is done under the guise of providing "equality under the law". In practice, as pretty much any minority could predict, all it does is make it impossible to actually talk about the systemic discrimination which happens[0]. You say you lived in France for several years, and yet you're not aware that it's impossible to legally collect data on anything related to racial, ethnic, or religious minorities (including police brutality and incarceration rates). Which, in a way, is my exact point: making it impossible to talk about these issues in France doesn't mean that they don't happen; it just means that people who aren't affected by them aren't aware of them, and so they can continue believing the illusion that this racism somehow doesn't exist, or isn't as bad as it really is. [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-french-law-makes-minorities-invisible-a7416656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-french...
      - klmr 8y ago
        Look, I obviously know about this law but this is a completely different thing from what you claimed and it doesn't mean at all that it's forbidden to catalogue police crimes against minorities. I will concede that it makes it harder to do so by referring to official records (and this is indeed a problem). But your comment sounded like it would be illegal to, for instance, independently collect complaints. And it's emphatically not. Amnesty and others do exactly that, including looking at racial factors.
distances 8y ago
For someone having no clue on this topic, could you give some examples?

klmr 8y ago

> All you have to do is go to France I’ve lived in France for several years. And yes, I agree that France unduly restricts individual freedoms (and protested against it). I’m not claiming that any single country is perfect. I’m claiming that they are, on balance, better than the US (when you’re poor and/or a minority). Basic personal safety is a prerequisite for freedom: If you can’t even be sure that you can afford medical care keeping you alive, or if you need to worry that institutionalised racism means you get shot by police or thrown in jail for a trivial misdemeanour that earns a white person a slap on the wrist … then “freedom” is simply a theoretical concept. And yes, institutional racism also exists in France (and in every other European country) but it’s much less normalised than in the US.

chimeracoder 8y ago
> And yes, institutional racism also exists in France (and in every other European country) but it’s much less normalised than in the US. This is the line that white people in France often say, but it's completely wrong. Racism is much more institutionalized in France than it is in the US. Racism is so institutionalized in France that it's almost impossible to talk about it, because it's woven into the legal and societal fabric and so deeply embedded. > Basic personal safety is a prerequisite for freedom You are dramatically overestimating the extent to which it is safe to exist in France as someone who is Black, Arab, or Muslim. Which is a common mistake, given that France has literally made it illegal to collect data on police brutality and incarceration rates of minorities in France, the way we can in the US. But that doesn't mean it doesn't happen, or that France isn't also an incredibly dangerous place for minorities - and arguably much more so - as anyone (like myself) who looks Black, Arab, or Muslim and has so much as traveled to France or lived there can attest.
- jimmaswell 8y ago
  I remember in high school, my French teacher said racism was much more overt over there and in Europe in general.
- klmr 8y ago
  > France has literally made it illegal to collect data on police brutality and incarceration rates of minorities in France You’ll need to provide a good reference for that because this is completely wrong as far as I know (AI doesn’t mention it, for instance [1]). Again, don’t get me wrong: I deeply disagree with the way police acts and is organised in France. [1] https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2009/04/france-police-above-law-20090402/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2009/04/france-pol...
  - chimeracoder 8y ago
    > You’ll need to provide a good reference for that because this is completely wrong as far as I know (AI doesn’t mention it, for instance [1]). Since 1978, it's been illegal in France to collect census information on race. This is done under the guise of providing "equality under the law". In practice, as pretty much any minority could predict, all it does is make it impossible to actually talk about the systemic discrimination which happens[0]. You say you lived in France for several years, and yet you're not aware that it's impossible to legally collect data on anything related to racial, ethnic, or religious minorities (including police brutality and incarceration rates). Which, in a way, is my exact point: making it impossible to talk about these issues in France doesn't mean that they don't happen; it just means that people who aren't affected by them aren't aware of them, and so they can continue believing the illusion that this racism somehow doesn't exist, or isn't as bad as it really is. [0] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-french-law-makes-minorities-invisible-a7416656.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/how-french...
    - klmr 8y ago
      Look, I obviously know about this law but this is a completely different thing from what you claimed and it doesn't mean at all that it's forbidden to catalogue police crimes against minorities. I will concede that it makes it harder to do so by referring to official records (and this is indeed a problem). But your comment sounded like it would be illegal to, for instance, independently collect complaints. And it's emphatically not. Amnesty and others do exactly that, including looking at racial factors.

distances 8y ago

For someone having no clue on this topic, could you give some examples?