Racial profiling while out and about with your equipment...

[mobilezen]

Given that I haven't been to too many public places as far as carrying my equipment and taking shots, how many of you get harassed just cause of your ethnic background? Sometimes I feel like I get a little leeway cause I'm Asian. i.e. Japanese tourist, tourist in general, etc... I have gotten a couple stares, have had (Addison) police sit there and watch me but nothing to the point of being harassed or having my equipment confiscated. I guess I've been lucky and probably should knock on wood cause my photog adventures are about to go int full swing.

[Gordon]

I think it helps me. My 'not from around here' accent usually helps people accept that I'm a tourist, with a camera, even if I've lived here for 7+ years now. Either that, or they don't understand a word I say and give up in disgust. Not quite sure really.

[Torrey]

Originally Posted by Gordon

I think it helps me. My 'not from around here' accent usually helps people accept that I'm a tourist, with a camera, even if I've lived here for 7+ years now. Either that, or they don't understand a word I say and give up in disgust. Not quite sure really.

So where are you from originally?

[Mike G]

Some skirt wearing country where they wear stuff like this

(Scottish also .. don't look at me like that Gordon)

[Gordon]

Me, on the town lake trail a few years ago. The boomerang for kilt pin isn't entirely authentic, but it is handy that the knife in the sock is sharp.

[Cope]

Originally Posted by Gordon

but it is handy that the knife in the sock is sharp.

Sgian Dubh, laddie, Sgian Dubh! And they're hose, not socks!

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by Gordon

I think it helps me. My 'not from around here' accent usually helps people accept that I'm a tourist, with a camera, even if I've lived here for 7+ years now. Either that, or they don't understand a word I say and give up in disgust. Not quite sure really.

I'm sorry, Gordon. Could you repeat that? My ears have an accent.

[kenw]

being simply "different" is usually enough to get curious looks and possibly more.

I frequent trackside areas, and really can't blend in in the least. Everyone from the neighbors, cruisers, cops, etc gives me the once over.

btw, I'm a WASPM50+.

[Stephen H]

I'm not really sure how racial profiling would tie in to photography. Minorities in general aren't noted for committing crimes with cameras, so it seems carrying a camera would be to your advantage rather than not. Possible exception if you're arabic-looking and photographing the nuke plant or something. If you're wandering around with a camera, I can't say right offhand if it would be better to be a foreignor or worse.

[kenw]

I highly agree, Stephen. Much perceived prejudice is in the eye of the beheld. you FEEL you are different so you see anything and everything as prejudice instead of just normal curiosity or normal attention. I've felt it in lots of places. It's real, but it's more a function of my hyper-self-consiousness and some curiosity (try being blonde in the Japanese countryside) than overt prejudice.

I had a train crew ask if I was a lawyer, since I was taking pics at the scene of an earlier train-car accident (unbeknownst to me) and was wearing my work clothes (office type)......A LAWYER!!! where's the ACLU when I need them???? :O

[Stephen H]

Some questions like that are really hard to answer. I was stopped while taking pictures of a dam at Lake Lavon a while back. There weren't any signs saying "no photography" and after a fair bit of research and even conversations with the Corps people, I'm pretty sure that there simply wasn't any actual rule against photographing that dam. I've had the refinery security people check on me when taking pictures of a locomotive on refinery grounds. I've had the cops check me out when parked (unknowingly) in the general vicinity of a county jail. Had the cops interrupt a nice smooching session with a girlfriend when I was a teenager even. But in each case, I didn't actually violate any law or do anything wrong. Had I been a minority or foreignor, I would probably be convinced that each incident was because of that and that alone. It would be easy to get paranoid.

On the other hand, I was out shooting trains in downtown Fort Worth a few years back, and while circling through some neighborhoods trying to get back to the freeway, I came upon a police roadblock and driver-license/ insurance check. That doesn't seem so odd until I reflect that in 30 years of driving, I've NEVER seen police doing that in "my" neighborhood.