4 ms·

> 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'

> 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.
etiennemarcel 8y ago
Ethnic statistics are not totally forbidden, they're very strongly regulated. http://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/01/16/est-ce-que-les-statistiques-ethniques-sont-interdites-en-france_1652990 http://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/01/16/est-ce-que-les... Yet if tomorrow these statistics were allowed and were to show (for example) that 50% of people in jail are Muslim, what would be the use of that number? The far left would use it as proof of discrimination and the far right that muslims are a danger to society. Societies like the US where there's a "race" checkbox on forms and where ethnic statistics are legal, are far from being less racist or discriminatory...

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.

etiennemarcel 8y ago

Ethnic statistics are not totally forbidden, they're very strongly regulated. http://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/01/16/est-ce-que-les-statistiques-ethniques-sont-interdites-en-france_1652990 http://www.liberation.fr/checknews/2018/01/16/est-ce-que-les... Yet if tomorrow these statistics were allowed and were to show (for example) that 50% of people in jail are Muslim, what would be the use of that number? The far left would use it as proof of discrimination and the far right that muslims are a danger to society. Societies like the US where there's a "race" checkbox on forms and where ethnic statistics are legal, are far from being less racist or discriminatory...