YOu may have missed this very important ruling-A court just confirmed: To be Dutch is to be white

[malaise]

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/9/29/a-court-just-confirmed-to-be-dutch-is-to-be-white

“Please come with me, sir.”

That is what Mpanzu Bamenga, a city councillor and academic from Eindhoven, Netherlands, heard soon after arriving at the airport of his hometown following a short work visit to Italy in 2018.

He quickly realised that he had been selected for an extra security check because he is a Black man. After all, he was a Dutch national arriving at a Dutch airport, holding a Dutch passport. It was clear that there was no obvious reason for him to be singled out like this – other than the colour of his skin.

This was not Bamenga’s first experience of racial profiling in the Netherlands – this is, after all, not a rare experience for Dutch nationals from minority backgrounds. I myself have been pulled out of the passport control cue at the Schiphol Airport for a “routine” security check in the past. I was on my way to a conference in the United Kingdom, where I would give a lecture on, I am not making this up, racial profiling.

When faced with such discrimination, we all want to scream: “Is this because of the colour of my skin, is this because you think I do not look Dutch enough?” but we don’t usually say anything out loud, because we do not want to agitate the customs officer and be held longer than necessary. We go along with it and swallow the pain.

But after his experience in 2018, Bamenga decided to do something about it. He first lodged an official complaint. And later, with the backing of rights groups like Amnesty International, RADAR, Controle Alt Delete and PIPL-NJCM, he brought a case against the Dutch government to end racial profiling.

Marechaussee police force (Kmar), which is in charge of border security in the Netherlands, tried to legitimise its officer’s decision to single out Bamenga for special questioning by claiming that he had “matched a risk profile” because he walked quickly, was travelling on his own, was well dressed, and he looked “not Dutch”.

As a result of decades of migration and colonialism, thousands of people from different corners of the world – some voluntarily, some not – ended up in the Netherlands. And their presence in the country cracked the notion of “Dutchness as whiteness”. The post-colonial migration from the Dutch East Indies and the Moluccas, and later Suriname and the Dutch Antilles, the labour migration from Turkey and Morocco, and the more recent arrival of refugees from Bosnia, Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Congo and so on, shook up the whole idea that being Dutch equals being white. Or so you would think.

[Joinfortmill]

1. Terrible.

[Delphinus]

2. Why did I

expect better of this country I thought was pretty open and liberal?

[tulipsandroses]

4. This is the same country that has a black face festival

This is actually a thing there -Black Pete

[qazplm135]

9. Europe's racism

is every bit as bad as America, if not worse in some ways.

[Hortensis]

3. No, they did not rule that nonwhites were not Dutch.

Let's be honest. Racial issues are serious enough everywhere without pretending they're the worst they could be.

Next somebody's likely to be claiming Dutch government has decided to deport all nonwhite residents, since any ruling that they weren't Dutch would clearly pave the way.

[malaise]

5. Ask the British about Windrush

Wake up world - this is one slippery slope.

[Hortensis]

7. Yeah, well, sleep well without worrying that you'll wake to find nonwhites

have been stripped of their Dutch OR English citizenship by legal fiat. Or that segregation has been reinstituted. An increase in ugly social conservative attitudes and just general meanness defines this era, but nothing's to be gained, and imo there's a lot of danger, in imagining equality is being erased in western liberal democracies like the Netherlands.

We do need to worry about what could happen here, of course. Far too many to deport. How and in what different ways would a white, male, class based autocracy affect all groups in society? Including women; it certainly wouldn't be limited to stripping away reproductive rights. I wonder about that a lot. With 11M undocumented Hispanics gone, those who survived the camps deported, there'd be a huge manpower shortage. Low-hierarchy whites would find themselves glad to have their jobs. Forget college for them; that'd be over beyond skills to serve the needs of local industry. But could AA find themselves preferred over whites for some jobs? I wonder whenever this topic arises, a lot more intellectual curiosity than worry.

I've been thinking I'd like to get a good book on how people make a living from black markets. At this point I'm just curious, but I am curious. They exist of necessity under all the kleptocratic dictators tRump admires and reportedly have increased enormously around the planet due to pandemic disruptions of economies.

[GPV]

6. Sending this to my son in Amsterdam. GF is Dutch and Algerian.

[malaise]

8. Good idea

This planet is in deep trouble

[qazplm135]

10. As a black man

I chuckle when someone acts as if racism is a new thing or even worse than before.

It's always been a thing and it's always been bad and ubiquitous.

However, life as a person of color today is still 2000 times better than it was fifty years ago and infinitely better than when entire black neighborhoods were literally wiped off the face of the Earth.

If the planet is in deep trouble now, where was it in 1920?

[malaise]

11. As a black woman I agree with you

re being better off than we were 100 years ago. I am also fully aware of the dynamics at play today and I do believe the planet is in serious trouble.

[qazplm135]

12. Serious trouble in what way?

If it's in serious trouble now what kind of trouble was it in before?

[Demovictory9]

14. Betterthan 100 years ago doesnt mean things are great and that change isnt needed

[qazplm135]

15. Didn't remotely say that

Now did I. I specifically said that racism was still a problem and still "ubiquitous."

[malaise]

16. It has all been documented and more than a few of the problems from then have not

been resolved. And there are new problems and not just for non-whites.
Take a good look at wealth disparities on our planet.

[qazplm135]

18. Wealth disparity has also

Always been a problem.

I'm sorry but the issue with portraying things as on an apocalyptic downward trend is it discourages people from doing the work to improve things.

Saying there are problems is accurate. Saying the world is in trouble because we haven't fixed the problems that have been with us since forever is what I'm struggling to understand.

If the world's in trouble because of racism and wealth inequality then it's been in trouble forever.

[malaise]

19. Seriously you have lost me

I am struggling to get your point

[qazplm135]

21. I'm struggling to get yours

I'll ask again. In trouble how?

How is it in more trouble than before?

[JudyM]

23. The counterpoint of course is to wake people up; we need a call to action.

[qazplm135]

25. The work never ends

Action is always required.

[Marcuse]

20. America is not as good as it could be. America is not as good as it should be.

But thank God Almighty that America is not as bad as it was.

[malaise]

26. +1,000 and not just the USA

[StarfishSaver]

22. Agree with you

[GPV]

27. Sure is. :(

[DFW]

13. I get singled out at the airports in Amsterdam and Frankfurt all the time

Sir, you have been selected for a "random" additional security check. The Dutch, in particular, find it highly suspicious that an American like me should speak fluent Dutch without ever having lived in the Netherlands. The fact that five million Dutch citizens speak fluent English without ever having lived in England or the USA apparently doesn't matter. My wife, who is a tall blond German, never is harassed like that--except in the USA. Of all people, the last American immigration officer to harass her at the Atlanta airport was himself an immigrant from either Surinam or the Netherlands Antilles: Dutch nameplate, Dutch/Caribbean accent and all--the last guy you would have thought would harass someone coming into the USA.

His problem with my wife? Her fingerprints didn't match what he claimed he saw on his screen. We protested that she was showing him the same fingers she had on her hand the last time she entered the USA. Nope, he wasn't having any of it. He tossed her passport into a special pouch and led her/us (I went with her, of course) into a detention area. Maybe he himself had been profiled going into Germany, and this was revenge, who knows? After about an hour, she was called in front of a supervisory board who reviews detainees, and decides if they warrant further attention, or if the reason for their initial detention was not justified. The head guy looked through her passport and asked what the problem was. We explained that the guy who had led her/us to detention thought her fingerprints didn't match the last fingerprints she had when she entered the USA. He rolled his eyes, apologized, and let her go. It still wasn't pleasant.

[malaise]

17. My mother was profiled in Belgium back in the 1990s

Like you she spoke too many languages. It was hilarious after the fact for a number of reasons.

[StarfishSaver]

24. This article and headline are misleading

Among other things, the Hague court did not rule "to be Dutch is to be white." Instead, the Court held that ethnicity could be used as one consideration when profiling passengers for additional screening, but it couldn't be the only or predominant factor. It didn't go anywhere near addressing what it means to be Dutch or whether only white people can be Dutch

I find the ruling to be problematic, but it is not nearly as alarming as the headline and article claim.

Dutch activists lose ethnic profiling case, vow to appeal

A Dutch court ruled Wednesday that border police can use ethnicity as one of the criteria for selecting people for checks at the border, a legal defeat that rights activists immediately vowed to appeal.
The decision came in a case brought against the government by two citizens, backed by rights groups, who argued that they were singled out for checks by officers from the country’s Marechaussee police force because of the color of their skin.
...
The Hague District Court ruled that ethnicity can be one of the criteria for singling out passengers, but not the only one. The checks are carried out at airports and on trains and buses from European Union destinations to prevent people illegally coming and staying in the Netherlands.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/dutch-activists-lose-ethnic-profiling-case-vow-to-appeal/2021/09/22/8d6ad782-1b95-11ec-bea8-308ea134594f_story.html