Living in Europe as a young South Asian male, one gets used to not getting used to racial profiling. It manages to spoil my mood every time! The first time I was shaken, also because it was my worst experience of racial profiling yet. I don't feel shaken any more and I am pretty cool when I am being questioned. Both the times that I have been profiled in the past three months is when I was one of the few people of colour in the airport/flight and when I hadn't shaved my face. Today, the officer made me wait for 10 minutes at the counter before letting me go through. It felt like he was doing his damndest to find something on me. At first, he struggled to find my Schengen visa page, and I had to show him. This has never happened before, as immigration officers gain a knack for finding the right visa page in seconds. Then, he kept starting alternately at my face and at the visa page. I realized the reason for his puzzlement and told him that I was resident in the U.K., while showing him my residence permit. I thought that would be the end of the matter. But, he took my residence permit, held it up and dropped it on the table. He did this a couple of times. I don't know--did he expect it to float in air if it was fake? Further puzzelement, staring at my visa page and conferring with his fellow officers in Swedish followed. I kept my cool, but my patience had begun to run thin. He then fingerprinted my thumb. After 3-4 minutes, he discovered that that hadn't worked and he fingerprinted my fore finger. He then asked how long was I going to be in Sweden and why. When I told him, he asked for my conference invitation. I had prepared for such an eventuality and I promptly produced it. He then asked to see my return flight tickets before allowing me to go. I was trembling with anger by then.
Yes, the default attitude towards young black and South Asian men in the West is suspicion, but this man took it to far. Maybe I wouldn't have minded if he asked for all these documents promptly. Okay, if you need more proof, ask me for it, and let's be done with it.
Instead, I was made to feel like a truant child waiting to be caned while the schoolmaster takes his time getting the cane ready. No reason for this annoying and humiliating charade.
If you don't like people of colour, you couldn't as for a better job than as an immigration officer. Its even better than being a police, as here you are dealing with non-citizens who have even fewer rights than criminals. Unless you call someone the N word to their face (and there are witnesses) there is little you can't get away with.
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