He did have to escape on short notice after he shared or said something on his YouTube channel that offended the Chinese government (IIRC).
In many countries, cities, and neighbourhoods in "the west" if you aren't white you experience exactly the kind of insecurity you describe elsewhere. There are plenty of incidents where non-white residents are arrested while working on their own car, or entering their own home because a neighbour saw them and decided they did not or could not belong. There was a rather notable protest movement just last year that had it's roots in a group of people not being allowed to freely exist in the same way as the rest of society.
This is the same sentiment that I get from most non-white foreigners.
Does this go beyond anecdotes and are that quantifiable occurrences that are disproportionally happening in the west vs. other countries? Because I know of many contrary anecdotes of Non-European people, living very safely and without such concerns in western countries.
In my opinion I'd tend say that modern western societies are the most safe and welcoming societies for foreigners, were you face the least amount of discrimination as an outsider.
Corruption is a pretty good example. When it occurs non-western country it's called out and criticised but when speaking about western countries we dress it up in fancy clothes. In the U.S. it's "Lobbying", in the UK it's "Cronyism" or "Chumocracy". By redefining the terms, corruption becomes something that only happens elsewhere, in less "civilised" places, and not something that has to be dealt with at home.
Labour could be another, there's a huge lack of perspective in discussions around foreign labour standards where we will condemn the working conditions in China or India while ignoring the fact that these people are experiencing those conditions working in the factories of some of the wealthiest companies in the west.
I think it depends on so many factors that you shouldn't make a blanket statement in any direction. You can say both things on different areas of the same city.
People learn fast if things are not good. If you’re targeted, if you’re harassed.
I don’t mean people who have very little choice (their home countries are so bad they have to leave), but I mean middle class families who have alternatives. They still choose the west as a destination by choice.
I think this is a reasonable proxy indicating life isn’t bad for foreigners immigrating to the west. If it were bad, they’d choose to stay home or a neighboring country that has similar culture.
Also, regarding travel. Most people experience their travel to other countries as middle class visitors, not as lower class visitors. Take someone from a first world country who didn't go beyond high school who earns <$25,000 and put them in one of these places and see how far their skills take them.
Yeonmi Park, a defector (escapee?) from North Korea, was surprised in what could and could not be said in the US when she went to university:
Her father was literally sentenced to a labor camp. How can that possibly compare to anything you'd run into at Columbia. Yeah, it's annoying that people wouldn't cut her a break with the pronoun stuff as she was learning english. But again, that's worse than North Korea?
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/21/the-man-who-re...
In terms of the typical outcomes, in the first case those people are rightly considered criminals and will be held accountable if caught. In the second there is usually no accountability even though we know who carried out the action.
The only people who feel this way are people who have been scared into it by reading too much of this garbage
Criticize the US as much as you want (after all, you can do it), and the US government DOES deserve a good deal of criticism, but saying that the countries are somehow equivalent in the consequences for anti-state speech is laughable.
In the USA, the rules are known well in advance. There might be questionable rules, but POTUS cannot decree a rule into existence and put a bag over your head an hour later.
What the US does to non-citizens outside the USA is a messy area. Inside the USA? The rules are far more clear.
As a collective institution there was the whole Edward Snowden thing where he pointed out that the NSA had definitely not been following those rules and no one who knew what they were doing seemed particularly keen on stopping them.
> Inside the USA? The rules are far more clear.
Is false. The NSA was/is carrying out a mass spying operation over a number of years and involving hundreds of people that directly contravenes those rules.
Can you clarify this? As far as I'm aware, the US govt can dispute anyone's citizenship without recourse, even if you're holding e.g., a valid passport.
From 2016: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/22/504031635...
As far as I know, nothing in this article has changed.
Your cite does not support your claim. If Palma had ever had a US passport (expired or not), his situation would never have occurred in the first place.
You mean like this guy, for example? https://www.npr.org/2020/12/11/945565473/u-s-clears-for-rele...
Or the (by now, likely in the thousands) people killed by US drone attacks?
I don't want to play the whataboutism card, but let's not pretend that the US is somehow exceptional here. In fact, I'd consider it one of the more troubling countries, with the kindappings, Guantanamo, and the "grey area" on the borders, where your constitutional rights do not apply.
The world is not a nice place, and the US is no exception, unfortunately.
https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793
"Police violence is a leading cause of death for young men in the United States. Over the life course, about 1 in every 1,000 black men can expect to be killed by police."
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56834733
According to this ^, the police in the US is 3.5x more likely to kill civilians compared to other developed nations. (It would be interesting to find a world-wide comparison here.)
These soundbytes usually (intentionally) omit half of the story. For example, how many police officers are being killed in encounters with black men?
And how many less lethal (for black men) encounters would there be with black men not attacking officers or third persons but actually complying with police orders?
The greatest danger to a black person's life only second to coronary diseases is another black person.
It's these kind of questions which grievance studies activists and journalists never (dare to) ask.
Unlike your claim that "journalist never (dare to) ask", the numbers of violence against police are well studied, published and easily available with a search. Had you done that, you'd have realized that your basic premise is wrong: violence _by_ police is significantly higher than violence _against_ police.
Indeed, police work is _less_ dangerous than e.g. farming, construction, trucking and sales.
https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfar0020.pdf
Edit: if you are interested, check also this https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-06-23/how-da...
Logging, fishing, aircraft, roofing, recycling, even landscaping is more dangerous than police work in terms of fatalities. Yet you don't hear politicians complain about the dangers of landscaping work, do you? Why do you think is that?
They'll just fabricate lies, label you a terrorist or a "Russian spy" and put you in prison.
I have friends travel to interesting places during times of (relative) stability. To paraphrase one of the guys that I know: "When you travel in some of these places, you exist at that time and place, not because you belong there or have a right to be there, but because nobody has decided you shouldn't."
I have always kept that in the back of my mind when traveling, even in places that I would consider first-world. It is certainly something that I would keep in the forefront of my mind if I lived or worked in a place like CN. It is always interesting to watch people who push the boundary, become emboldened and forget that they aren't the ones making the decision for their fates.
I have always thought of CN as one of those countries that wants all the benefits of a western society, with expectations that people will conform, with an implicit "or else".