Tuesday, April 04, 2006

"Racism-free"

In Meyrin I saw small billboards showing a picture of part of the moon with crosshairs zoomed in on the rim of one crater. The legend: "This is a 100% racism-free zone. Let's make our neighborhood one too." (Free paraphrasing by yours truly) If life in Switzerland is like life in the US, when you see ads like that you know that race hatred is a notable problem in the area. And in every single case of my observation these past 20 years, the hatred has been blacks hating whitey, or Arabs hating whites, or Hispanics hating blacks. I'm told that white racist groups are a big deal in prisons, but I don't hear much from them outside. And yes, you hear a lot of things if you ride the bus regularly and listen. And yet all the anti-racism campaign materials I saw or heard were directed at the white audience.

And so I suspect that the Meyrin racism campaign is another case of looking for your missing watch under the street light because it is brighter there. It's easier to talk to people like yourself than to try to figure out how to talk to the guy from the other culture and get him to cooperate.

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