I leave for America in three weeks, to live there for the foreseeable future. So for the next 21 days I’m writing down one memory per day of my time living in Europe. As a writing exercise but also as a way to test my brain. You can read them all here.

Day 10 | Paris, October 2014

I was going to write about another London music memory today. But then the news of yet another grand jury non-indictment came in from NYC this time and I don’t really feel like I can write anything particularly happy or poignant. Still, I want to try and see this project through to the end, for whatever personal fulfillment it might bring me.

I went to Paris two months ago by train. From Brussels to Paris is a two-hour ride, and thanks to the Schengen area regulations there are no border controls, per se. You walk onto the train in one city and walk out the other. But that platform you get off at in France is — like certain areas in airports — a special zone where border police can stop and control you. Generally what happens is that the cops, most of them in undercover outfits, stand at the end of the platform and perform random stops as people exit.

The reason why I was stopped this time isn’t relevant. This isn’t about me. But I was stopped, and questioned at length. As frustration grew on both sides one of the officers made a passing comment that “at least you’re not black, it could be worse.” He laughed. Nothing in his delivery or timing indicated anything other than a genuine belief that this was an ok thing to say for an officer of the law.

There are good cops. And there a lot of cops that are racists and a lot of cops that get off on power trips. And that’s a generalisation that applies to any country I’ve lived in. Japan, Italy, France, the UK. America may seemingly have it worst, thanks in no small part to its gun regulations, but the fact is that it’s shitty everywhere. And it’s not going to get better. It’s been shitty for decades, centuries.

It’s not a case of changing the system. You can’t change centuries of engrained authoritarian abuse. You need to dismantle it. And that is going to take a lot of work.