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Comment by ChuckNorris89 | Hacker News Reader

The UK was even worse in this regard, with asian sex gangs grooming kids while the police knew about it and choose to ignore it to not look racist for targeting minorities with dark skin.

This move is all about surveillance and has nothing to do with keeping kids safe.

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Link for those interested in learning more: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotherham_child_sexual_explo...

NB there have been several other similar scandals but Rotherham is the most famous.

Abuse by pakistani origin men was happening in many towns for years (e.g. Huddersfield, Oxford, Rochdale, Newcastle, Derby ones all have wikipedia pages) and sadly the only people willing to speak up about it were English nationalist types like "muslamic ray guns" guy.

"muslamic ray guns" is a reference to a famous video from some very drunk working class guy, which was lampooned by almost everybody with a nice side of class snobbery.

Since then the scandals regarding islamic rape gangs have become public, and it has since become clear that he was trying to say "islamic rape gangs", not "muslamic ray guns". It was an issue which exclusively affected deprived areas and working class people. They knew what was happening but could not articulate it in a way which could be taken seriously by the establishment. He is owed an apology.

> They knew what was happening but could not articulate it in a way which could be taken seriously by the establishment.

Plenty of others could and did articulate it better. But it's so much easier to pick out and debunk the most inept of the disfavored side, and pretend they are representative of the rest, while highlighting only the most sympathetic of the favored side.

A very basic and very effective propaganda technique.

When the existance of your problems makes the people who make up the beurocracy uncomfortable or would violate their dearly held beliefs about how the world works they can ignore your problems for a very long time indeed.

Might be worth noting that the word "Asian" in the UK refers to what in the US would be called Indians. (And, in the details, the people in question here would actually be Pakistanis.)

Are Pakistanis considered Indian in the US?

At probably around the same rate Americans and Canadians are lumped together in India, that is, until you get to know them or they give some clear indication (flag, etc.)

That happens everywhere, this is why Canadians so often wear flags abroad, they don't like being confused for Americans. I originally thought they were really patriottic or something but the ones I met told me they were just sick of having to explain constantly.

I think Australians and New Zealanders get the same, confused for each other. And us Dutch are confused a lot with Germans too. Not that I wear a flag for it though :)

Source: Shared a house with a bunch of Canadians :)

I am thinking about wearing a Dutch flag when abroad to avoid being considered a German.

And I am German.

My guess is people from the region get lumped together. See also: Sikh People being mistaken for Muslims several years back.

Muslim Indians are often mistaken for Pakistanis.

The police chose to ignore it, but when we consider the full history of the police and wider institutions choosing to ignore children being abused in a variety of ways by a variety of people, the reason “not to look racist” is patently absurd.

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