5 ms·

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
      This one case is not meaningful; there is racism, it does cause black people to be harassed and worse, and that's a serious problem.
    - wcummings 10y ago
      You're trying really hard to justify how this isn't racism. The poster lives there and knows these people, take it or leave it, your opinion isn't valuable.
      - gaius 10y ago
        Why did the poster mention "mentally handicapped"? Was that not an attempt to manipulate our perceptions too? Obviously playing on the notion that handicapped people are harmless, therefore it must have been race, but that too is a form of prejudice.
      - jasikpark 10y ago
        What he's saying is that we don't know. Innocent until proven guilty, maybe?
        wcummings 10y ago
        This isn't a courtroom, it's OP's anecdote. Stop concern trolling.
      - smsm42 10y ago
        I'm not trying to justify anything. Saying "I don't know" is not justifying, it's admitting lack of information. > your opinion isn't valuable. Unlike yours, which is even though I obviously take the effort of not forming opinion before I have the information, while you seem to have formed opinion not only about the situation, but even about my motivations in discussing it, without any information to go on. If you think that makes your opinion more valuable, I think you are sadly mistaken.
    - fucking_tragedy 10y ago
      We don't know. But, the likelihood of race playing a factor in this particular person feeling threatened in a very specific way, the casing of her house for its future burglary by a black individual, is a bit higher than her being spooked by the behavior of someone who possesses the ability to travel to, locate and borrow a ladder from someone with the aid of a computer.
  - rubicon33 10y ago
    Huh? The op explicitly stated that the african american gentleman was mentally handicap. I'm merely begging the question, could the home owners reaction be based on some strange behavior symptomatic of a mentally handicap individual?
- sidlls 10y ago
  It's possible, but it's much more likely that our society's embedded and implicit racism influenced her perception of the man.
  - wernercd 10y ago
    Is that the only person she's sicked the cops on? Or one of many? Did she call the cops on other neighbors or did we only hear of the call involving the "retarded black man"? I mean... her notifying the cops of the other neighbor wouldn't have caused any issues if it was a white guy... Was that racist? Maybe... Maybe not... The thing is: We don't know. It's easy for armchair lawyers to pass judgement... but it becomes more difficult when you actually realize that one call isn't a pattern.
- finid 10y ago
  > because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder By that I take it to mean that they were neighbors. So if your neighbor stops by to borrow a ladder, would you call the cops on him/her?
  - SilasX 10y ago
    They may have had wildly different beliefs about their relationship, and there may be some critical details left out. Imagine the case where you haven't met the neighbor before, you notice them before they knock and they look like they've been hanging around there, and it's really hard to figure out what they're trying to communicate. Someone hearing about this might reasonably report it as "wow, calling the cops on a neighbor asking for a ladder", while you might see it as "weirdo I've never seen, who looked to be casing my place, and stammered out some BS excuse about wanting a ladder when I confronted him."
    - ethanbond 10y ago
      Because old white racist people are just exceptionally rare in the US.
      - smsm42 10y ago
        If only there was a term to describe situation when specific individual's actions and qualities are ascribed based on general statistic for people sharing the same racial qualifiers.
        mixedCase 10y ago
        Racing?
    - vivekd 10y ago
      no I think even in that situation I still wouldn't call the cops. It still seems like an extreme and paranoid response to jump to "he's casing me, better call the cops" from someone wanting to borrow a ladder and not being able to give a reason. I find it hard to believe that anyone goes about their daily lives with that level of paranoia towards every new person they meet. I think it's much more likely that it's because he's black. . . especially considering the background of negative race relations and stereotypes about black people and crime.
- mcguire 10y ago
  It's possible that he is an alien lizard using mental handicaps to conceal his lack of humanity. But making an argument based on speculation is not usually helpful.
smsm42 10y ago
It is a problem, true. But suspicion never killed anybody. In worst case suspicion alone would lead to you thinking that person is an asshole. To take it to the level of mortal danger would require armed people acting in specific way on this suspicion, and that's not the reporter who's doing that.
- tamana 10y ago
  The police work for the public. Am I responsible if I tell my employee to just go deal with someone and that someone gets roughed up? The first time? The 10th time?
  - Throwaway585250 10y ago
    They very clearly do not take orders from an ostensibly racist 70 year old. That's beside the point, because she wasn't giving orders; she was complaining about her neighbours on the internet, not to the cops. Lastly, it would be extremely surprising if she'd done the same thing twice, let alone ten times. It's clear that she was in the wrong for being bitchy on social media, but how could she have predicted the outcome? In what sane world do the police seek out unfounded accusations on social media then act on them?
    - hackuser 10y ago
      > how could she have predicted the outcome? I don't think it's hard to predict that police will harass a black person in a white neighborhood if someone complains, and my guess is that it's not the first time it's happened in that particular neighborhood. > In what sane world do the police seek out unfounded accusations on social media then act on them? I would guess it's not the first time the police pulled a report from Nextdoor. > In what sane world I don't know, but if that's your premise, this particular world must be very confusing for you ... :)
- hackuser 10y ago
  > It is a problem, true. But suspicion never killed anybody. A classic, recurring bug in the design of the human brain, one that gets triggered in me all the time, is that we naturally conceive of the whole world being like the tiny part that we experience; it takes serious effort to workaround that bug and walk in another person's shoes. Personally, I try to look for a specific signal: When I solve a problem - one I haven't experienced myself - by minimizing someone else's experience of it. e.g., 'That's not really a big deal.' Well, due to the bug referenced above it's not a big deal for me, but that attitude gets humanity in a lot of deep sh*t. Thus, I'm not going to tell the GP that it's not a big deal; I don't have to live under constant suspicion every time I'm in public - though I imagine that would be awful. I do know that harassment of black people by law enforcement (and civilians), which often results from suspicion, is a very big and widespread problem. Look up 'driving while black', or 'stop and frisk'; you can read many, many stories of people being searched dozens of times, being humiliated such as being made to drop their pants on the street for a 'search', being assaulted ... Think of it this way: Stop & frisk is a very widespread police tactic. So has it ever happened to you? Or to anyone know know? Even once? For most people reading this, the answer will indicate the bubble we live in. I'm pretty sure that if some attorney on Wall Street was stopped and frisked, or made to drop his pants, even once, the program would be over by the time he buckled them back up. > To take it to the level of mortal danger This isn't a realistic standard. Most serious problems in the world are not mortal danger, from assault to rape to being imprisoned, harassed, forced to eat in a different restaurant because of the color of your skin ...
Snesker 10y ago
Stop committing a massively disproportionate volume of crime and evil old white ladies will stop doing what's the only rational thing to do to reduce their chance of becoming victims, avoiding you like the fucking plague you are. Posting From My Perspective As Someone Who Doesn't Qualify Their Statements With Their Race And/Or Sex Except for that one in my post history. You can't handle my post history.

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
    This one case is not meaningful; there is racism, it does cause black people to be harassed and worse, and that's a serious problem.
  - wcummings 10y ago
    You're trying really hard to justify how this isn't racism. The poster lives there and knows these people, take it or leave it, your opinion isn't valuable.
    - gaius 10y ago
      Why did the poster mention "mentally handicapped"? Was that not an attempt to manipulate our perceptions too? Obviously playing on the notion that handicapped people are harmless, therefore it must have been race, but that too is a form of prejudice.
    - jasikpark 10y ago
      What he's saying is that we don't know. Innocent until proven guilty, maybe?
      - wcummings 10y ago
        This isn't a courtroom, it's OP's anecdote. Stop concern trolling.
    - smsm42 10y ago
      I'm not trying to justify anything. Saying "I don't know" is not justifying, it's admitting lack of information. > your opinion isn't valuable. Unlike yours, which is even though I obviously take the effort of not forming opinion before I have the information, while you seem to have formed opinion not only about the situation, but even about my motivations in discussing it, without any information to go on. If you think that makes your opinion more valuable, I think you are sadly mistaken.
  - fucking_tragedy 10y ago
    We don't know. But, the likelihood of race playing a factor in this particular person feeling threatened in a very specific way, the casing of her house for its future burglary by a black individual, is a bit higher than her being spooked by the behavior of someone who possesses the ability to travel to, locate and borrow a ladder from someone with the aid of a computer.
- rubicon33 10y ago
  Huh? The op explicitly stated that the african american gentleman was mentally handicap. I'm merely begging the question, could the home owners reaction be based on some strange behavior symptomatic of a mentally handicap individual?
sidlls 10y ago
It's possible, but it's much more likely that our society's embedded and implicit racism influenced her perception of the man.
- wernercd 10y ago
  Is that the only person she's sicked the cops on? Or one of many? Did she call the cops on other neighbors or did we only hear of the call involving the "retarded black man"? I mean... her notifying the cops of the other neighbor wouldn't have caused any issues if it was a white guy... Was that racist? Maybe... Maybe not... The thing is: We don't know. It's easy for armchair lawyers to pass judgement... but it becomes more difficult when you actually realize that one call isn't a pattern.
finid 10y ago
> because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder By that I take it to mean that they were neighbors. So if your neighbor stops by to borrow a ladder, would you call the cops on him/her?
- SilasX 10y ago
  They may have had wildly different beliefs about their relationship, and there may be some critical details left out. Imagine the case where you haven't met the neighbor before, you notice them before they knock and they look like they've been hanging around there, and it's really hard to figure out what they're trying to communicate. Someone hearing about this might reasonably report it as "wow, calling the cops on a neighbor asking for a ladder", while you might see it as "weirdo I've never seen, who looked to be casing my place, and stammered out some BS excuse about wanting a ladder when I confronted him."
  - ethanbond 10y ago
    Because old white racist people are just exceptionally rare in the US.
    - smsm42 10y ago
      If only there was a term to describe situation when specific individual's actions and qualities are ascribed based on general statistic for people sharing the same racial qualifiers.
      - mixedCase 10y ago
        Racing?
  - vivekd 10y ago
    no I think even in that situation I still wouldn't call the cops. It still seems like an extreme and paranoid response to jump to "he's casing me, better call the cops" from someone wanting to borrow a ladder and not being able to give a reason. I find it hard to believe that anyone goes about their daily lives with that level of paranoia towards every new person they meet. I think it's much more likely that it's because he's black. . . especially considering the background of negative race relations and stereotypes about black people and crime.
mcguire 10y ago
It's possible that he is an alien lizard using mental handicaps to conceal his lack of humanity. But making an argument based on speculation is not usually helpful.

smsm42 10y ago

It is a problem, true. But suspicion never killed anybody. In worst case suspicion alone would lead to you thinking that person is an asshole. To take it to the level of mortal danger would require armed people acting in specific way on this suspicion, and that's not the reporter who's doing that.

tamana 10y ago
The police work for the public. Am I responsible if I tell my employee to just go deal with someone and that someone gets roughed up? The first time? The 10th time?
- Throwaway585250 10y ago
  They very clearly do not take orders from an ostensibly racist 70 year old. That's beside the point, because she wasn't giving orders; she was complaining about her neighbours on the internet, not to the cops. Lastly, it would be extremely surprising if she'd done the same thing twice, let alone ten times. It's clear that she was in the wrong for being bitchy on social media, but how could she have predicted the outcome? In what sane world do the police seek out unfounded accusations on social media then act on them?
  - hackuser 10y ago
    > how could she have predicted the outcome? I don't think it's hard to predict that police will harass a black person in a white neighborhood if someone complains, and my guess is that it's not the first time it's happened in that particular neighborhood. > In what sane world do the police seek out unfounded accusations on social media then act on them? I would guess it's not the first time the police pulled a report from Nextdoor. > In what sane world I don't know, but if that's your premise, this particular world must be very confusing for you ... :)
hackuser 10y ago
> It is a problem, true. But suspicion never killed anybody. A classic, recurring bug in the design of the human brain, one that gets triggered in me all the time, is that we naturally conceive of the whole world being like the tiny part that we experience; it takes serious effort to workaround that bug and walk in another person's shoes. Personally, I try to look for a specific signal: When I solve a problem - one I haven't experienced myself - by minimizing someone else's experience of it. e.g., 'That's not really a big deal.' Well, due to the bug referenced above it's not a big deal for me, but that attitude gets humanity in a lot of deep sh*t. Thus, I'm not going to tell the GP that it's not a big deal; I don't have to live under constant suspicion every time I'm in public - though I imagine that would be awful. I do know that harassment of black people by law enforcement (and civilians), which often results from suspicion, is a very big and widespread problem. Look up 'driving while black', or 'stop and frisk'; you can read many, many stories of people being searched dozens of times, being humiliated such as being made to drop their pants on the street for a 'search', being assaulted ... Think of it this way: Stop & frisk is a very widespread police tactic. So has it ever happened to you? Or to anyone know know? Even once? For most people reading this, the answer will indicate the bubble we live in. I'm pretty sure that if some attorney on Wall Street was stopped and frisked, or made to drop his pants, even once, the program would be over by the time he buckled them back up. > To take it to the level of mortal danger This isn't a realistic standard. Most serious problems in the world are not mortal danger, from assault to rape to being imprisoned, harassed, forced to eat in a different restaurant because of the color of your skin ...

Snesker 10y ago

Stop committing a massively disproportionate volume of crime and evil old white ladies will stop doing what's the only rational thing to do to reduce their chance of becoming victims, avoiding you like the fucking plague you are. Posting From My Perspective As Someone Who Doesn't Qualify Their Statements With Their Race And/Or Sex Except for that one in my post history. You can't handle my post history.