unexplained inspections

Happy Black history month!

I was on a mini tour of two cities here recently. Last Friday morning in Dresden, after great gigs with wonderful people, I got a text from my boyfriend asking how I was. I responded

Sunny. I feel great.

In March, I will have lived in Germany for four years. I have loved it here.Though I couldn't say I have toured here extensively, I have a fair bit, and in that time I have seen a little of this country. It is important for me to note, that what happened later that morning had never happened to me before.



Trains in Germany are almost never late. You can usually set your clocks by them. But on this icy -10 day, standing alone on an empty platform , my train *was* late, and every ten minutes, announced as later still.

Ten minutes late became
twenty minutes, became thirty.

I was freezing.


I was so cold all I could think about was how cold I was.

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw them.

Two tall police officers, approaching up the stairs with no sense of urgency, talking to one another. I kept focused on the display board hoping there would be no further delays.

The policemen approached. As they drew closer I still didn't think they could be coming over to me, until there they were asking, politely I should add, where was I going?

Leipzig.

In the pop quiz I wasn't aware I was taking, this was the first wrong answer. Why was i going from this platform, when I should be going the other direction?! ah, because of a problem with the trains, I had to go change at the main station. ok, fine. Was I living in Dresden? No? Ok. Did I understand German?

I smiled. This struck me as a funny, as it was in German that we were speaking.

English?!

He questioned/demanded. In German I replied.

Yes, perhaps, better we speak in english.

And then he asked.

Can I see your passport?

In Germany, the police have the right to stop anyone at any time and ask to see their id. If you're a foreigner this means carrying your passport. You hear that you can carry a drivers license or a photocopy of your passport, but this isn't true. By law you must carry your passport with you at all times. In Berlin, many foreigners I know that live here, don't.

I always reckon its more likely my bag get stolen or lost than a random cop asking for id, so i risk it. It was luck that I had decided to take it with me this time. I have toured many times in Germany having left it at home. I didn't feel great about this random check, but instinct told me to be polite and cooperate. That way it would be over with quickly.

They both peered closely at my passport, passing it back and forth between them a few times. The first started to bend it back at the sides. Then he flipped it to the front page, inspecting the biometric chip. He flipped it to the other side, gave me a long look that suggested comparing me to the picture within it. He asked, suspiciously

You were born in washington dc?

Yes

You also have an american passport?

I used to but it expired. I moved to Europe as a teenager, Since then I havn't needed it.

I am used to official people being confused about dual citizenship. a lot of people, even people working in customs and passport control don't get it. I would be happy to explain, what I didn't expect was for him to change his tone and ask sharply

Why do you have this document?

Sorry? I don't understand?

I really didn't.

How do you have this passport?

my father is english.

this also appeared to be the wrong answer.

You do not have an american passport?

I did. I stopped using it. I have lived in europe since I was as teenager.

He nodded. unconvinced. Passed my passport back to his colleague, who flipped through the pages at various speeds, stopped, played the front page back and forth in the light, checking the hologram, took out a small magnfying glass and scanned the small print.

What were they looking for? Why were they doing this? What would they do next? How long would they keep it?

And then I understood...

They think my passport is fake!

The guy who had been inspecting it now walked off a couple meters, calling someone on his phone. I watched with concern as he walked away further. His colleague kept close to me. I asked him

Is there a problem?

No. Don't worry. nothing is wrong.

(unexplicably, he was smiling.)

The sentiment seemed to be, it was silly for me to be concerned. As if them checking my passport didn't suggest that they thought something with it might be wrong.

I watched the board. Ten minutes later I was given back my passport, with no apology or explanation as to why it had been taken and inspected. They just walked to the end of the platform and had a cigarette.

Mercifully, my train came. I was confused as to what had happened. When I got back to Berlin days later, I did a little online research. I wasn't really sure what I was looking for. I tried the key words: police passport check racist germany.
I found a few horrible stories.

I stumbled on some relevant german words: Rassistische Polizeikontrolle
which really helped my search. It seems that this kind of thing doesn't necessarily happen often, but it does seem to be common.

It sounds funny in english, but the act of police doing this is called: controlling. So you are controlled by the police when you are asked for your passport. Weirdness and darkness of that phrasing aside, it is clearly a form of racial profiling, that many deem to be institutional racism.

The way it works is this, in a place like Dresden for example, where people of colour are scarce, when a policeman sees someone who doesn't look ethnically german he or she thinks, ah, there is a chance they are an illegal immigrant, particularly when that person or persons are spotted at and around train stations, or in trains. So the police carry out a check.

I thought this kind of thing couldn't happen in a place as diverse as Berlin, so I was horrified to discover that in the last years Berlin's airports and certain so called "dangerous" areas of Berlin, police had been actively encouraged to utilise racial profiling. Which I suppose in the case of airports doesn't mean so much, considering all they are doing is sanctioning something that tends to happen anyway...

But back to being controlled in and around trains and train stations, in most of the stories I read, the people who had been controlled, had all asked why they had been approached. Always the police response had been to either:

• Ignore the question and ask for the passport again, or
• Act offended/angered at being questioned. It was in their right, they had no need to explain.

Before writing this blog, I spoke to a friend of mine, a dj and a woman of colour, who tours the country frequently. I asked if she had ever been asked for her passport by the police, she told me of a time it had happened . she said

What really bothered me, is that he refused to tell me why he wanted to see my passport. Yes I think I know why he would want to see it, but at least it would be good to have confirmation of that.

Would I have felt better if they explained to me why they wanted to take my passport? Maybe not. But knowing that the police also have an obligation to explain their actions, particularly when one has not done anything wrong, might at least make those that are *controlled* feel less powerless.

Funny thing is, in the moment, as I felt myself get angry and upset, I thought:

This would never happen in England!!!

And then I remembered the reports after the riots. All those kids stopped and searched, sometimes daily, in their own neighborhoods. Sadly I thought, no, even there something like this happens all the time.What must it feel like to endure it regularly ? Near your home? How uncomfortable had it made me feel, having happened this one time?

When I think of those two policemen, for the most part they were nice. Abrupt but not aggressive, kind of polite. It may never occur to them, how what for them may be a routine action, could unsettle someone in such a way. But isn't that the point? Shouldn't they be made more aware ?