Last friday, I was travelling between Brussels and Paris, on the train as usual.

Not as usual, I was wearing a pashtun hat and traditional pakistan clotheshalwar kamee, because I was going to see my son and explain him my trip in Pakistan earlier this month, and because you're supposed to be able to wear whatever you want.

Not as usual, we had custom officers in the train. Wasn't too difficult to guess, they had locked in the compartment next to where I was sitting (coach 8, at the end , that's where they always are). They were with a german shepard dog, and as friendly and smily as custom officers can be.

We were 8 in the compartment, I was sitting, with my hat and shalwar kamee, next to a black girl. The others where regular middle aged guys and women. The custom officers come in, flash their badge and ask to see the IDs of the black lady and myself.

The officer and his mustache asked me if I was "consuming", and if I had some with me. They asked me to empty my bag, and looked with a light through the beer bottle I had, to see what was inside. Emptied my pockets, checked everything and my unfortunate black co-traveler I didn't know and myself were left alone after 20 minutes.

I was tempted to explain the guy that if I was going to have something illegal with me, I would have had a nice suit and tie, and I certainly would have spotted them before leaving Brussels. I was tempted to explain them that being polite wouldn't have make them more ineficient. I was tempted to explain that I found quite strange that out of 8, the ones they checked were black and muslim looking. Then I remembered that these guys can lock you in for day(s) for no reason whatsoever, and I decided to shut up and suck it up, and avoid any further abuse.

Nothing big, nothing harmful. Small racism, small usual abuse of their minimal power from guys in uniforms. Nothing big, but discussing with my black friends, everything as usual, small racist behaviour, small prejudism, that, one step at a time, leads to fucking big problems.