Marlboro Red

In the 2000s, it struck me that nearly all empty cigarette packages dumped on the street were of Marlboro Red. And so I began to pay attention. I have seen one or two Camels and a few others, but almost all were Marlboro Red. Marlboro Red is the most popular brand. Its market share in the Netherlands is nearly 30%, and the second largest brand has just under 10% market share. But if you had to make a guess based on discarded empty packages, you would think Marlboro Red had a market share of over 95%. It was not scientific research but my observation and that of my wife. We made jokes about it. It was conspicuous. I did not make tallies, but it was like that, and I do not exaggerate. Marlboro Red smokers dumped their garbage on the spot, but other cigarette users did not. And so I once jokingly concluded that if you want to meet a jerk, you can go to a cigarette salespoint and check who is buying Marlboro Red.

It is more complicated to do this kind of investigation today. I still see cigarette packages on the street, but I can hardly find the brand name between the scary pictures of cancers and other terrible diseases you get from smoking. If 30% of the people dump 95% of the garbage, the remaining 70% is responsible for only 5%. And now you can calculate (95/30) / (5/70) = 44. Hence, smokers of Marlboro Red 44 times as often dumped their garbage on the street than other smokers, a stunning conclusion. It is not a coincidence because the sample was large enough to make the finding statistically significant. It is hard to say why Marlboro Red smokers differ from other cigarette smokers, but you can call it culture. Culture can explain the deviant behaviour of groups of people who share common characteristics, for instance, smoking Marlboro Red. It is only politically incorrect to say so.

The Marlboro Man embodies careless living in the consumerist society, perhaps even Western culture. It seems to include dumping your garbage on the spot. Litter is everywhere and it demonstrates the lack of respect for the world we live in many people have. Our brand choices tell a lot about our characters. Marketers have done their jobs well. A politically correct person might say that I am stigmatising Marlboro Red users. Perhaps only 0.1 of the smokers dump their cigarette packages on the street, so only a tiny minority of 4.4% of Marlboro Red smokers might do this. Maybe that is correct, or maybe not, but 44 times as much is a lot. If you intend to tackle the problem of littering cigarette packages and have a limited budget, you should focus on Marlboro Red users to achieve the maximum result. Marlboro Red smokers are people like you and me. They can be friendly, own a dog, have a job, and care for their neighbours. And we all do things that are not good. Our upbringing and values cause problems for others, so we need to address them. Our careless living in the consumerist society is perhaps the biggest disaster for our planet and humanity, so it should end. The Marlboro Man is a fading icon of the past. If you look at him, you see his days are numbered.

Can I trust my dentist?

How do cultures emerge and develop? History and circumstances go a long way in explaining that. The following example illustrates it. Professional groups also have their attitudes and ethics. When I go to a general practitioner, I trust this person. But when I go to the dentist, I have less faith in this individual. My doubts and prejudices against dental professionals come from my personal experiences and those of others. General practitioners and dentists are both similar medical professions. A general practitioner usually doesn’t benefit from the advised treatments, while a dentist does. And that can lead to undesirable situations. I changed dentists three times because of questionable professional ethics. I also took another general practitioner once, not because I doubted his integrity but because I found him incompetent. You have to trust medical professionals. Otherwise, your health or teeth could suffer the consequences. To prevent dental professionals from taking advantage of me too much, I only see the dentist once rather than twice a year, which is the generally accepted guideline. So what happened?

As a child, I lived in a rural area where I had the same dentist for over fifteen years. He didn’t propose treatments unless they were necessary. Once, he asked me whether I wanted to straighten my teeth by wearing braces. He added that it was not a medical necessity. He left it up to me. I didn’t think I needed that, so I have no perfect smile but irregular teeth. Many people today wouldn’t accept that, but my teeth aren’t ugly. After I had left my parental home and had settled in a city, I selected a new dentist. He took X-ray pictures and said a cavity was developing underneath a filling. He showed me the picture and pointed at a dark spot. I saw another filling with a dark area beneath it, and I said, ‘You can see a similar blot here.’ He replied, ‘That is something different.’ I am unqualified to evaluate these X-rays, but I could see these areas were alike, so the only logical conclusion was that the dentist was lying. Had he not shown me the photograph, I would have believed him. This incident made me suspicious and critical of what dentists were doing, and perhaps that was sometimes overdone.

Before he could treat my tooth for the supposed cavity, I came up with an excuse and selected another dentist. A few years later, I had a colleague who had married a dentist. She previously had lived in the same neighbourhood as I did. Her husband was not yet a dentist then, so she had had that same dentist I had found untrustworthy. She told me she had the same experience and had had a row with him. So I wasn’t the only one who had smelled a rat there. Her husband was a dentist-in-training, so she probably had valid reasons for quarrelling. It was a peculiar coincidence indeed. Thirty years later, the tooth and the filling were still in place. I later moved to the town where I live now and found an old-fashioned dentist. He was much like my first dentist. He often performed dental cleaning. That usually took ten minutes, and it cost € 21. I went there for ten years. Then, he joined a practice. Shortly after that, he retired.

I remained in the same practice. My next dentist didn’t perform dental cleaning but sent me to a dental hygienist. That treatment lasted twenty-five minutes and was a lot more expensive. Instead of € 21, I paid € 62. Standards do change, but I doubted I needed 150% more cleaning. But if my dentist advises the treatment, who am I to disagree? After all, he is the expert. I had no proof of it being overdone. After ten years, my dentist said my teeth were in good shape and clean. There only was a tiny bit of tartar, so he advised me to go to the dental hygienist anyhow. I expected a short treatment, but that didn’t happen. It seemed the dental hygienist could have stopped after ten minutes but went on for another fifteen minutes to arrive at twenty-five, so she could charge me for that. I found that dubious, so I looked for another dentist.

It would only get worse, even though not at the beginning. A new guideline stated that dental hygienists could do the periodic dental check-up. Somewhat later, the dental hygienist began to combine the check-up with dental cleaning and made the most of her time financially. I went there for thirty minutes, and she billed me for thirty minutes of dental cleaning. She also charged me for the check-up. A decent check-up lasts ten minutes. And so, you might expect a check-up and twenty minutes of dental cleaning if you are there for thirty minutes. I was too surprised to protest. And I wasn’t sure. Had I checked the clock correctly? The following year, she did it again. In addition to that, she charged me for taking X-rays and evaluating them. But how can you do all these things in thirty minutes if you already do dental cleaning for thirty minutes? It doesn’t add up. The dentists had decided to take pictures every three years instead of five, which is even more money for them. So far, these photographs had never yielded anything, only an imaginary cavity.

She was double-charging me. Dental cleaning was € 160 per hour at the time. That is what I brought home after a day of work. And I have a good salary. Many people work longer for that money. To charge that per hour apparently wasn’t enough for her. I found this particularly nefarious. After returning home, I emailed her, requesting clarification. She didn’t respond, so I filed a complaint with the Dutch Association of Dentists and went to another dentist. In my complaint, I protested against the double charging and noted that questionable ethics appear customary in dental care. I suspect only ten minutes of cleaning is a medical necessity. When I was young, there were no dental hygienists. As my wife once said, ‘The dental hygienist is a new profession created out of thin air that also needs employment.’ She hardly ever sees a dental hygienist. She once had left a dentist because he required her to see the dental hygienist without even checking her teeth. I hear similar stories from others. These practices are widespread.

My next dentist also advised dental cleaning. And this time, I was with the dental hygienist for forty minutes, and she billed me accordingly for € 119. In fifteen years, dental cleaning time increased by 300%, and the cost rose by 467%. I take much better care of my teeth than twenty years ago, but it doesn’t show up in dental cleaning time. My sister goes to the dental hygienist twice a year because of a condition causing excessive tartar. Perhaps it is hereditary and I also have it to a lesser degree. That may explain why my teeth need so much cleaning. My wife is in the same practice and went to the dental hygienist after five years of not going and received a much shorter treatment. And the dental hygienist said she didn’t have to return soon. Those aren’t the words of a dental hygienist who is after your money. In this case, it looks like changing standards rather than malpractice. The question remains why ten minutes were enough twenty years ago and why I need forty minutes now.

Not all dental care professionals have dubious ethics, not even most, but it is a significant problem in their professional group. Apart from that, standards have changed, perhaps beyond necessity. Here, you can see how a culture can emerge out of circumstances and history. Dentists always had a financial interest in treatments, leading to malpractice. Claiming a cavity is developing above a filling while there is not is outright lying. That rarely happens because you have to be evil-minded to do that. But giving more treatments than necessary is a matter of debate. Dental cleaning is suitable for opportunistic schemes to profit from the unsuspecting public. Since the 2000s, the government has promoted market forces in healthcare, so commercial interests gained influence. The same trend is visible in veterinary practices. Our cat Douwe died of kidney failure. We had spent hundreds of euros on tests, and they found nothing, and hundreds of euros on special diets until we went to an old-fashioned vet who didn’t test but just touched the animal and immediately found the problem and euthanised the animal for € 30. When I was young, most vets were old-fashioned, but modern vets don’t examine the animals themselves but perform expensive tests and charge over 1000% more. Investors buy up dental and veterinary practices. There is money to be made.

People who can afford it, and their animals, might get too much ‘care’. And those who can’t pay for it must go without it. Most dental care professionals and vets are probably unaware of the problems they pose to society. It gradually crept into their professional culture. Perhaps they tell themselves that old-fashioned care is insufficient and we need these additional treatments. Many Dutch don’t see the dentist anymore because they can’t afford it, sometimes because they pay so much for the vet. After all, your animal deserves it. And so, this extra ‘care’ can be detrimental overall. In the case of dental care, the costs rise, while the average health of teeth might go down. It has to do with how the Netherlands organises dental care. There are perverse incentives. It worsened once the government stopped interfering and left it to the market. A general practitioner operates as a gatekeeper and usually doesn’t profit from the treatments because other medical professionals perform them. If a separate dentist only does check-ups and advises on necessary treatments like a general practitioner, the problem could disappear, and dental care could become more affordable. A takeaway is that circumstances shape cultures, and most people are unaware of the damage their culture causes to others.

The political incorrect

We are unique individuals, but we are also part of several groups. For instance, you can be a dentist who smokes Marlboro Red. We usually share traits with others in those groups. Marlboro Red smokers and dental care professionals share cultural characteristics that make them behave differently from other groups, for instance, those who smoke other brands or general practitioners. Lawyers differ from construction workers, and those differences are more than occupation and education. Their sense of humour, the venues they visit, and the sports they do are usually different. A few construction workers may play golf, and some lawyers may play soccer, but on average, lawyers play more golf and less soccer than construction workers. And if you go to a woke message board, you find an entirely different atmosphere than when you visit a right-wing conspiracy site. These people live in separate worlds. They have different beliefs and cultures. These groups hate each other for that reason. It is probably okay to say that, but once you apply the reasoning on ethnicity, you step into a minefield. And probably for good reason because these differences can be an excuse for discrimination and racism. Racism is particularly damaging because it assumes that some races are inferior and cannot improve or that others are superior and should rule. But humans are programmable to a large degree, even though changing the programming is not always easy.

Most immigrants who come to Western Europe, the Arabian peninsula, or the United States look for jobs that Europeans, Arabs and Americans do not like, like hard manual labour at irregular hours. The Netherlands has nearly 1,000,000 labour immigrants, over 5% of the population. Entire industries depend on them. And who does remember the wave of over 1,000,000 Syrian refugees that came to Europe in 2015? We hear little about them today. Most of them found a place. But immigration also causes problems, most notably from groups who never lived in a society under the rule of a state. And cultural differences can cause conflicts as norms and values differ per culture. White European culture has wreaked havoc around the world. Just ask Native Americans about the cultural enrichment brought to them by White European culture. Likewise, other cultures also pose problems. Just ask the Swedes about the gang violence from people coming from groups that have not assimilated into Swedish culture. The Netherlands champions LGBT rights, but LGBT people often feel unsafe in some Dutch neighbourhoods where many Muslims live. The violent football hooligans in Europe are mainly white males, and often they have far-right sympathies.

We are at a point in history where we may have to define the values of the future for humanity and cannot shy away from criticism. We may need to cooperate as humanity on issues like poverty. If we intend multicultural societies to succeed, we must confront the issue of cultural differences and the problems they cause. Members of an ethnic group often share similar backgrounds and have experienced similar conditions. It is not so far-fetched to think this affects what they think and do and that this issue persists over generations. For instance, if your parents mistreated you as a child, you are more likely to mistreat your children. And if your parents suffered from exclusion or mistreatment or survived a concentration camp, that affects you too.

Ethnic groups have cultures. We picture Chinese, Germans and Arabs like we picture lawyers and construction workers. Individuals and groups differ, and we have more common characteristics than differences, but it does not mean that cultural differences are insignificant. If some harmful conduct relates to culture, it is politically correct to say that only a minority does it. Why do mass shootings happen in the United States and not in Europe? The politically correct gun lobby would say that only a tiny fraction of Americans go on a shooting spree. And that you need more good people with guns to stop evil people with guns. But random mass shootings are a typical American phenomenon and part of the American gun culture. It is not just gun ownership. Some European countries like Finland and Switzerland also have widespread gun ownership. And why do liberals in the United States mostly dwell in the cities and conservatives in the countryside? And somehow, I picture typical liberals and conservatives. In other words, I make profiles of them. I suppose most conservatives in the United States do not believe global warming is a serious issue. And I suspect that many woke liberals in the United States become angry if I say there are only two sexes, whatever people feel they are. Perhaps everyone can be delusional at times. Over here in the Netherlands, people do not become that angry about opinions, but I see the same patterns emerging. That might be due to the cultural influence of the United States.

And suppose all the cookies are gone on Sesame Street, and you must identify suspects. Would you not select the big-mouthed, blue-haired ones with a taste for cookies? That is also profiling. But perhaps it was one of Ernie’s pranks. If you did not think of that, you are prejudiced. We base our prejudices on experience and facts but also fiction and rumour. Only the facts do not base themselves on our prejudices. We often forget about that. Not all dentists are greedy money-grabbers, likely not even most. Even though some minorities face more difficulties than others, most individuals in those groups may do fine. And even though Marlboro Red smokers dump their garbage on the street 44 times as often as other cigarette users, it may be a minority. Or my sample could be skewed. 44 times as much? Really? But then again, US police kill 100 times as many people as their British counterparts if you account for population numbers. That number is even more unbelievable but can be verified. Cultures and societies are Big Things, but you cannot precisely define or measure them, so they are unsuitable for logical positivism.

In multicultural societies, people from some ethnic groups face more difficulties than others. As a result, these groups may pose more challenges to their host societies. That undermines the fabric of society as much racism and discrimination. It is one of the reasons why right-wing populism is on the rise. And culture often coincides with ethnicity, so the resentment often expresses itself as racism. Racists use this issue for their agenda, so there is no clear distinction between cultural criticism and racism. People see things happening but feel they cannot say that in public. That is also because of this unclear distinction. Genuine racists have no valid arguments. Others have complaints about the conduct of people from an ethnic group and express themselves in racist terms. And racists might say reasonable things. For instance, if someone says the Israel lobby has too much influence on US politics, does he merely state an opinion, or is he an anti-Semite? It is hard to tell. And if he is an anti-Semite, may it be due to the dissemination of the anti-Semitic conspiracy theories on message boards or the influence of the Israel lobby on US politics? It is also hard to tell. Discussing these issues in a climate of hatred and negativism does not help, but political correctness is an obstacle to solutions. You cannot only blame society because some ethnic groups do better than others. We could treat each other as adults instead. Cultures and institutions emerge under specific circumstances and can change. It begins with a sense of a common destiny. Building a society that includes everyone should be a primary political goal.

Humans are social animals who operate in groups. The cultures and values of groups play a crucial role in how they relate to society. Groups who pose problems often share a belief that the society they live in is not their society. You may become angry or frustrated when you fail in society due to circumstances you believe are outside your control. If you are autistic like me, you find it troublesome to adapt. You do not understand the unwritten rules. It brought me frustration as a child and disaster as a student when I left my parental home and moved to a dormitory. And that made me think. The dormitory had very different people than those I had grown up with. I did not know I was autistic and blamed it on cultural differences. Hence, I did not believe my fate was outside my control and became preoccupied with culture and fitting in. Eventually, I learned to comprehend with reason what people do intuitively, but it was a painstaking process that took years. In many ways, having a different culture is like being autistic. You find it troublesome to understand the unwritten rules of society. You are the black sheep. So, even when we are equal before the law, we are not in reality. And it is hard to say to what degree you can blame society, the individual or the groups individuals belong to. The answer is not the same for every person in every situation. The problem may not be our institutions but our attitudes that originate in our cultures. And that applies to us all, including me. Things could improve once we focus on our faults rather than pointing at what others do wrong.

Ethnic profiling

Cultural differences could be reasons why authorities engage in ethnic profiling. Culture often coincides with ethnicity. Crime levels also differ per ethnic group. Criminals are a minority in every group, but the differences are significant. The relationship can be misleading. When looking further, you see a coincidence between income and crime. And you find that these minorities have relatively low incomes. The next question might be why people from certain ethnic groups have low incomes. That relates to culture, but it is not the only explanation. Many immigrants came to Western Europe for low-paid jobs that required little education. Hence, income may explain crime rates better than culture. But you may also find that culture goes a long way in explaining financial status. And so, you still end up with culture as an explanation. And that should affect policies. In the Netherlands, the government invested in the education of minorities. Some of the best schools in the Netherlands are now Islamic. Perhaps the graph shows the results of that investment, but that is hard to prove. Still, it seems a better approach than correcting inequality afterwards by lowering standards and implementing a Woke ideology with political correctness officials. You can also observe that only a minority of every ethnic group is a suspect in a crime. And if you come to know a person, statistics become meaningless.

Ethnic profiling is controversial because it has undesirable consequences, as the following example demonstrates. Suppose a country consists of two ethnic groups. They are Group A, 2/3 of the population, and Group B, 1/3. Assume further that people in Groups A and B are each responsible for 50% of Fraud X. Hence, people in Group B are twice as likely to commit Fraud X than people in Group A. If you intend to combat the fraud, you could only verify people from Group B. You could apprehend twice as many fraudsters with the same effort. But now comes the catch. You do not check people from Group A, so only people from Group B end up in prison. While responsible for 50% of the fraud, Group B receives 100% of the punishment.

That is discrimination, so ethnic profiling is often forbidden. Some call it racist, but the reason for ethnic profiling should be a risk assessment related to cultural characteristics, not ethnicity. In this hypothetical case, it is the likelihood of Fraud X. If the assumption is unfounded, ethnic profiling could be racist, for instance, when many people from Group A dislike Group B. You can get a situation where Group A dominates society, and the authorities prosecute Fraud X while doing nothing about Fraud Z, that members of Group A commit twice as often as those from Group B.

If you dedicate only 50% of your resources to Group B, which seems reasonable because people from Group B are responsible for 50% of Fraud X, people from Group B get twice as likely punishment because Group B is half the size of Group A, but receives the same amount of checking. And because people in Group B are twice as likely to commit Fraud X, people from Group B end up in prison four times as likely compared to Group A. While responsible for 50% of the fraud, Group B becomes 67% of the prison population. People from Group B might receive harsher sentences because of a belief in society that they deserve or need it because they are unwilling to change their ways. As a result, it could be worse than the calculation suggests.

Perhaps ethnic profiling does more harm than good when you only use it for finding criminals. The end may sometimes justify the means, but it can undermine the trust of minorities in the authorities. Imagine that the police pull you over every week because you are black. Apart from annoying, it is demeaning. An argument for ethnic profiling is that resources are limited, so we must deploy them efficiently and effectively. So why check out this driver every week? It is a waste of police resources. If he checks out okay this time, he probably checks out okay the next time. Why not keep a registry of cars checked? You can also use ethnic profiling to help people. For instance, if Group X does poorly in education, the government could set up programmes to address the specific issues that Group X faces. It may be hard to effectively administrate a multicultural society entirely without ethnic profiling because central governments are bureaucracies acting on rules and aggregates.

So even if crime rates justify ethnic profiling, the consequences can be undesirable. In several Western European multicultural societies, males of North African descent are overrepresented in the prison populations. In the United States, it is black males. On average, they commit more crimes than the general population. But if the police do ethnic profiling, the prison population likely overstates their contribution to the total amount of crimes. In other words, these people may receive more punishment than other groups, most notably whites, for the same offences. And we can go back to the Dutch crime statistics and ask ourselves, ‘What is the level of overstatement?’

Ethnic profiling to check on people is one thing, but it can be a lot worse if you act on it without proof, as the Dutch childcare benefits scandal demonstrates. The Netherlands has benefits with advance payments for medical expenses, rent and childcare. The tax service administrates these benefits. These advance payments can bring people into trouble when they are not qualified to receive them and must pay them back afterwards. And the system is prone to fraud. In the early 2010s, a Bulgarian gang encouraged Bulgarians to register at a Dutch address and apply for benefits. As the tax service only checked afterwards, they noticed the fraud after the recipients had returned to Bulgaria. Many of the involved Bulgarians claimed they were unaware they had committed fraud. Perhaps that is correct, but they could have suspected something was wrong with it.

The childcare benefits involve applicants as well as businesses that provide these services. The tax service had trouble discovering who was committing fraud because the rules were complicated. A suspicion based on criteria supposedly indicating fraudulent conduct often sufficed to halt benefits and demand repayment. In other words, the tax service did not need proof to label you as a fraudster and order a refund of the advances. 71% were ethnic minorities, and many became destitute. Usually, they had filled in forms incorrectly. It is unclear whether the tax service did ethnic profiling outright or made selections based on criteria coinciding with ethnicity like income or postal code. Appeal courts ruled in favour of the tax service. At the same time, the government frustrated the investigations of a few persistent members of parliament. The Bulgarian fraud might have boosted ethnic profiling within the tax service. After all, that fraud did get its label Bulgarian for a reason. Investigations afterwards revealed the government had set targets for fraud collection the tax service had to meet. Politicians justified these measures because of feelings in society. Taxpayers do not like to pay for real or imagined fraud, and even less if ethnic minorities do it. We usually accept more from our kind than from others.

Suppose 5% of the people who use the childcare arrangement commit fraud. Assume also there are criteria to select 20% of the people doing 80% of the embezzlement. In that case, 20% of that selection commits fraud, and 80% does not. That might be a helpful set of criteria to find potential fraud, but it does not prove someone commits fraud. There was a political climate of right-wing populism that made it possible. Politicians tried to be tough on ethnic minorities because they feared radical right-wing parties would become the largest. A decade later, we see what it can lead to. Thousands of people who did not intend to commit fraud are in financial and emotional ruin.

The primary problem is a fraud-prone system of benefits. Possible solutions are less complex legislation, performing more checks, or not allowing private enterprises to perform government tasks. A blurry border between public and private is a recipe for fraud. For instance, the government could provide healthcare and child care like in Denmark. My father always says, ‘They make laws to be cheated upon.’ It is not the intention of lawmakers. But they are politicians, not engineers. If engineers build bridges like politicians make laws, you would not dare to drive over them. Politicians often cater for the interests of their voters, so you get a messy patchwork of arrangements. Good designs prevent fraud, and you must combat embezzlement as it undermines the legitimacy of an arrangement. After all, someone pays for it. These are tedious details. Making existing systems work better does not impress voters. And we cannot treat people who use those arrangements as fraudsters. You have to find the right balance. As an old Russian saying goes, ‘Trust, but verify.’

Discrimination everywhere?

Municipal officials from ethnic minorities experience discrimination and racism by colleagues, a 2023 survey in the Netherlands revealed. Civil servants participating in the survey said they faced discrimination. For instance, they received criticism when someone of the same ethnic group did something wrong. Those who spoke out against those remarks faced bullying and exclusion so others kept their mouths shut out of fear of losing their job or being labelled a problematic case. One can expect similar situations in other work locations. Discrimination is not a trivial issue. Those who make the remarks may think they are funny and their jokes harmless, but bullying and exclusion can cause psychological trauma. Often, discrimination is more subtle. When you are not selected because of your ethnic background, you often hear not why.

I once asked myself the following hypothetical question. If I had room to let, and two men applied, one white man from Bulgaria and a black man from Suriname, both had similar jobs and gave a similar impression, which one would get the room? Probably, I would choose the man for Suriname. Most Surinamese are black or coloured, and Bulgarians are white. I have a preference. Suriname has been a Dutch colony, and most people from Suriname living in the Netherlands are nearly as Dutch as the Dutch themselves. And I have a prejudice that Surinamese seldom cause trouble. The crime statistics do not underpin my prepossession. So, where did I get the idea from? The people I have met? Television? It is not clear. And knowing this, I would probably still choose the man from Suriname. Why? Surinamese are culturally closer to the Dutch than Bulgarians. And here we arrive at the heart of the matter, something overlooked in debates about racism. About Bulgarians, I know very little. And Bulgarians may differ more from native Dutch than Surinamese. When I rent out a room, I do not want trouble. Judging native Dutch is hard enough already, let alone people from other cultures.

So what is the matter with me? I do profiling and have prejudices like most people. Otherwise, I would not have opinions about dentists and Marlboro Red smokers. And that includes ethnic profiling. I may not always be aware of it. But I am not racist. Otherwise, I would have selected the white guy. It is something else. I take no unnecessary risks and form opinions about groups like dentists and people from Suriname or Bulgaria without being aware of it. Fear of the unknown protects us from danger. Prejudice often comes from things we hear or experience. These traits have a nasty side and can turn into xenophobia. That is not to say there is no racism or that it is not widespread. But if the most significant underlying issues are unfamiliarity and cultural differences, then identifying racism as the problem only scratches the surface and may do more harm than good.

Those who are different face exclusion and violence. And I am different from the rest, so I know what it means to be picked out for special treatment for no other reason than who I am. It makes you doubt yourself and ask, what is the matter with me? But it is how groups of humans deal with deviant behaviour and press for conformism. Even people who think they are open-minded and cherish diversity are not so different because they often do not tolerate those who disagree. Cooperating in groups requires a degree of conformism, so cultural differences and unfamiliarity cause trouble and uncertainty. It already begins with simple things like agreements and appointments. People from different cultures deal with them differently. There is no easy way out except sharing values, ending conduct that harms others, moderation, and understanding why people are the way they are. Think of the benefits in the long run and the long-forgotten words of the Reverend Martin Luther King:

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.

Today, King’s dream seems like a vague memory of a distant past. Perhaps we live in a period of social decline, but the trend in the crime statistics in the Netherlands does not support this assumption. That we are not there yet sixty years later might testify to the magnitude and complexity of the issue. Otherwise, it is a lack of willpower. Perhaps it was too much in the 1960s, as the colour of your skin may say something about your character because of culture. Different cultures pose different issues, and culture often coincides with ethnicity. But it is as hard for the black man to enter Paradise as it is for the red, white or yellow man. Cultures change, so it must be within our possibilities to make King’s dream a reality. A black sheep is as sheepy as a white one, so let’s all say baa together.

Latest revision: 23 January 2024

Featured image: Black and white sheep. Jesus Solana (2008). Wikimedia Commons.