9 ms·

Finally! This was one of the reasons I stopped actively using Nextdoor. My neighborhood in Denver is composed of a large group of elderly white people (who all

by pilom 10y ago

Finally! This was one of the reasons I stopped actively using Nextdoor. My neighborhood in Denver is composed of a large group of elderly white people (who all seem to use Nextdoor somehow) and then a diverse group of people who have moved into this lower income neighborhood as the old people have passed away. The amount of profiling was painful. We had a black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder and she posted to nextdoor that she thought her house was getting cased to be robbed (and the police and Nextdoor have a partnership in our area). Hopefully this helps some.

trose 10y ago
OMG Arvada is pretty bad too. We had some hispanic kids causing trouble in the park and people were trying to organize on NextDoor to go confront them with baseball bats. We're talking about 13 year olds here... It's definitely been used as a safehaven for paranoid old white people.
smsm42 10y ago
> black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder I think there's a problem with the police, not Nextdoor, here. I mean, ok, somebody asked to check out suspicious person (and police, with their experience, should know how (non-)reliable such reports usually are) and they did. But picking the person up - which I understand means detaining the person - is decision that the police officer responding is making. No reporter can make such decision. And if this decision leads to innocent man borrowing a ladder being detained - this is not really reporter's fault, it's the police being unprofessional.
- st3v3r 10y ago
  The reporter does carry some blame, for assuming that a black person is automatically suspicious.
- dopamean 10y ago
  From my perspective as a black man the problem is someone thinking a black man is suspicious for no reason other than that he's black.
  - rubicon33 10y ago
    You are making an assumption that there was no other reason. OP stated the man was mentally handicapped. Isn't it possible he was also acting strangely?
    - hondo77 10y ago
      A reasonable assumption given that the OP didn't give any other reason. Are you assuming there was another reason?
      - smsm42 10y ago
        We don't know anything about the reasons - we have only third-party information, which describes that some called the police on a mentally challenged person who had no ill intent, and that person also was black. Maybe racism added to the picture - quite possible, maybe not - it's impossible to tell from just this. It is a fact that there are many cases when black people are treated with prejudice, it is also a fact that there are many cases where mentally ill people are treated with prejudice, and it is also a fact that there are many cases where there are misunderstandings between people not caused by racism or anything like that. If you're a lone elderly woman and see somebody going about your property that you don't know and behaving weirdly, you might feel threatened, whether it's warranted or not. Surely, race may have played a role, but we don't have any real reason to conclude either way without knowing first-person accounts.
        TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
        We sure don't, but come on buddy... you know what is happening here
        hackuser 10y ago
- wcummings 10y ago
  It's a problem with everyone except the actual racists, right?
  - smsm42 10y ago
    Quite the opposite - if the police detains a black person that did absolutely nothing wrong, while they would not detain a white person in the same situation - aren't they the actual racists that actually acted on their racism? Why is that so hard to blame a person who has absolutely no power in the situation except telling the police their opinion - and so hard to blame somebody that has all the power?
parennoob 10y ago
> We had a black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder Also in other "reported by neighbor for walking around" stories of this sort: An Indian man visiting his son was reported as a 'suspicious black man walking around' – and was bodyslammed to the ground by a police officer for "not co-operating", which ended up leaving him partially paralyzed. The cop walked free. [1] Maybe the police themselves should implement filters like Nextdoor. [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-dropped-alabama-cop-who-partially-paralyzed-indian-grandfather-n573806 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-dr...
- lostlogin 10y ago
  I'm imagining the post from a high up, non-white police chief saying he had been around police for years and hadn't noticed any problems. However he was truely shocked when they shot 19 black man to death one month.
karma_vaccum123 10y ago
Police will regret that relationship. Xenophobic signalling on Nextdoor has surely resulted in a rapid rise in bogus resident calls. I know in our neighborhood it has. Residents now constantly post photos of "suspicious" people and vehicles with responders telling them to phone the police.
- hackuser 10y ago
  > Police will regret that relationship. Xenophobic signalling on Nextdoor has surely resulted in a rapid rise in bogus resident calls. I know in our neighborhood it has. It depends on the police. In many places the police have long practiced bogus harassment and arrest of black people (and other minorities), and this wouldn't change it. The real role of police, in those places, is effectively to suppress people whom the political class in power find to be 'undesirable', not only criminals but homeless, political protestors, minorities, etc. In those places, the 'bogus' reports on Nextdoor are business as usual. By the way, the political class in power (e.g., middle-class whites in some places) don't always consciously think about 'suppression'. They feel uncomfortable around the homeless person and unconsciously rationalize a reason to have them removed (he could attack someone, it interferes with local businesses, it's better for him to be in a shelter, etc.).
  - laretluval 10y ago
    Are you sure that the political class in power is the one that supports the police? Or is it the one that instinctively assumes that all the police do is suppress minorities?
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > Are you sure that the political class in power is the one that supports the police Generally, that's always true. Whoever has the power writes the rules. > instinctively assumes > all police do I don't feel like that tells me much, other than you are pissed off. I hope tomorrow is better.
brightball 10y ago
I really have to say I was impressed. I live in South Carolina around about 10 neighborhoods using Nextdoor. One of the neighborhood had a series of break ins to cars one night that got the entire neighborhood talking. Eventually, there was one older lady who chimed in that she'd seen 3 black teenagers in a pickup truck the day before. Somebody else chimed in that they were at her son's birthday party and then multiple other people in the neighborhood scolded her for jumping to a conclusion like like that (about as tactfully as they could). That was 2 years ago and despite periodic crime reports from the surrounding neighborhoods we haven't heard another profiling peep. Considering where it seemed like things started I've been impressed to see the virtually immediate correction. We have one older guy in our neighborhood who calls the cops on EVERYBODY. At some point it's just the person.
Nelson69 10y ago
I'm oddly glad that it's not just my neighborhood. Honestly, I liked living here a lot more before nextdoor. It's amazing how easy it is for people to say things to lower your opinion of them so dramatically. Nextdoor should monetize their dataset. I could see some value in having a database of the irrational and racist people. It could be as simple as NextDoor selling access to a neighborhood you're considering buying in for a limited time. I suspect it might be really difficult to find a "good" neighborhood but some are certainly worse than others.
askafriend 10y ago
Here's Jeff Atwood's take on the subject: https://blog.codinghorror.com/can-software-make-you-less-racist/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/can-software-make-you-less-rac...

by pilom 10y ago

trose 10y ago

OMG Arvada is pretty bad too. We had some hispanic kids causing trouble in the park and people were trying to organize on NextDoor to go confront them with baseball bats. We're talking about 13 year olds here... It's definitely been used as a safehaven for paranoid old white people.

smsm42 10y ago

> black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder I think there's a problem with the police, not Nextdoor, here. I mean, ok, somebody asked to check out suspicious person (and police, with their experience, should know how (non-)reliable such reports usually are) and they did. But picking the person up - which I understand means detaining the person - is decision that the police officer responding is making. No reporter can make such decision. And if this decision leads to innocent man borrowing a ladder being detained - this is not really reporter's fault, it's the police being unprofessional.

st3v3r 10y ago
The reporter does carry some blame, for assuming that a black person is automatically suspicious.
dopamean 10y ago
From my perspective as a black man the problem is someone thinking a black man is suspicious for no reason other than that he's black.
- rubicon33 10y ago
  You are making an assumption that there was no other reason. OP stated the man was mentally handicapped. Isn't it possible he was also acting strangely?
  - hondo77 10y ago
    A reasonable assumption given that the OP didn't give any other reason. Are you assuming there was another reason?
    - smsm42 10y ago
      We don't know anything about the reasons - we have only third-party information, which describes that some called the police on a mentally challenged person who had no ill intent, and that person also was black. Maybe racism added to the picture - quite possible, maybe not - it's impossible to tell from just this. It is a fact that there are many cases when black people are treated with prejudice, it is also a fact that there are many cases where mentally ill people are treated with prejudice, and it is also a fact that there are many cases where there are misunderstandings between people not caused by racism or anything like that. If you're a lone elderly woman and see somebody going about your property that you don't know and behaving weirdly, you might feel threatened, whether it's warranted or not. Surely, race may have played a role, but we don't have any real reason to conclude either way without knowing first-person accounts.
      - TheOneTrueKyle 10y ago
        We sure don't, but come on buddy... you know what is happening here
      - hackuser 10y ago
wcummings 10y ago
It's a problem with everyone except the actual racists, right?
- smsm42 10y ago
  Quite the opposite - if the police detains a black person that did absolutely nothing wrong, while they would not detain a white person in the same situation - aren't they the actual racists that actually acted on their racism? Why is that so hard to blame a person who has absolutely no power in the situation except telling the police their opinion - and so hard to blame somebody that has all the power?

parennoob 10y ago

> We had a black mentally handicapped man get picked up by the police because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder Also in other "reported by neighbor for walking around" stories of this sort: An Indian man visiting his son was reported as a 'suspicious black man walking around' – and was bodyslammed to the ground by a police officer for "not co-operating", which ended up leaving him partially paralyzed. The cop walked free. [1] Maybe the police themselves should implement filters like Nextdoor. [1] http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-dropped-alabama-cop-who-partially-paralyzed-indian-grandfather-n573806 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/assault-charges-dr...

lostlogin 10y ago
I'm imagining the post from a high up, non-white police chief saying he had been around police for years and hadn't noticed any problems. However he was truely shocked when they shot 19 black man to death one month.

karma_vaccum123 10y ago

Police will regret that relationship. Xenophobic signalling on Nextdoor has surely resulted in a rapid rise in bogus resident calls. I know in our neighborhood it has. Residents now constantly post photos of "suspicious" people and vehicles with responders telling them to phone the police.

hackuser 10y ago
> Police will regret that relationship. Xenophobic signalling on Nextdoor has surely resulted in a rapid rise in bogus resident calls. I know in our neighborhood it has. It depends on the police. In many places the police have long practiced bogus harassment and arrest of black people (and other minorities), and this wouldn't change it. The real role of police, in those places, is effectively to suppress people whom the political class in power find to be 'undesirable', not only criminals but homeless, political protestors, minorities, etc. In those places, the 'bogus' reports on Nextdoor are business as usual. By the way, the political class in power (e.g., middle-class whites in some places) don't always consciously think about 'suppression'. They feel uncomfortable around the homeless person and unconsciously rationalize a reason to have them removed (he could attack someone, it interferes with local businesses, it's better for him to be in a shelter, etc.).
- laretluval 10y ago
  Are you sure that the political class in power is the one that supports the police? Or is it the one that instinctively assumes that all the police do is suppress minorities?
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > Are you sure that the political class in power is the one that supports the police Generally, that's always true. Whoever has the power writes the rules. > instinctively assumes > all police do I don't feel like that tells me much, other than you are pissed off. I hope tomorrow is better.

brightball 10y ago

I really have to say I was impressed. I live in South Carolina around about 10 neighborhoods using Nextdoor. One of the neighborhood had a series of break ins to cars one night that got the entire neighborhood talking. Eventually, there was one older lady who chimed in that she'd seen 3 black teenagers in a pickup truck the day before. Somebody else chimed in that they were at her son's birthday party and then multiple other people in the neighborhood scolded her for jumping to a conclusion like like that (about as tactfully as they could). That was 2 years ago and despite periodic crime reports from the surrounding neighborhoods we haven't heard another profiling peep. Considering where it seemed like things started I've been impressed to see the virtually immediate correction. We have one older guy in our neighborhood who calls the cops on EVERYBODY. At some point it's just the person.

Nelson69 10y ago

I'm oddly glad that it's not just my neighborhood. Honestly, I liked living here a lot more before nextdoor. It's amazing how easy it is for people to say things to lower your opinion of them so dramatically. Nextdoor should monetize their dataset. I could see some value in having a database of the irrational and racist people. It could be as simple as NextDoor selling access to a neighborhood you're considering buying in for a limited time. I suspect it might be really difficult to find a "good" neighborhood but some are certainly worse than others.

askafriend 10y ago

Here's Jeff Atwood's take on the subject: https://blog.codinghorror.com/can-software-make-you-less-racist/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/can-software-make-you-less-rac...