[Livia]

Probably best no one ever approaches anyone who is black. No stop and search, no racial profiling... and the fact that knife crime and gun crime are mainly black crimes... and black on black crimes... just let them get on with it. Otherwise you get a foul-mouthed rant and strangely, people supporting that.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

Probably best no one ever approaches anyone who is black.

To be fair I think it's probably best that no one approaches ANYONE to randomly insinuate that they're committing a crime unless they can plainly see that they actually are . I probably wouldn't go on a tirade at some stickybeak coming up and accusing me of something - depending on my mood - but I'd have plenty to say about them as soon as they left.

If you KNOW someone is committing a crime then by all means confront them if you want to. If you think something looks suspicious enough to warrant reporting then do that. In this case I don't think it even would warrant that - all that was really warranted was taking a "mental note" of the time/car/person so that if a crime DID occur and people were asking around, you could say what you saw. There was clearly no imminent threat of a violent crime so why confront someone?

[Livia]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

To be fair I think it's probably best that no one approaches ANYONE to randomly insinuate that they're committing a crime unless they can plainly see that they actually are . I probably wouldn't go on a tirade at some stickybeak coming up and accusing me of something - depending on my mood - but I'd have plenty to say about them as soon as they left.

If you KNOW someone is committing a crime then by all means confront them if you want to. If you think something looks suspicious enough to warrant reporting then do that. In this case I don't think it even would warrant that - all that was really warranted was taking a "mental note" of the time/car/person so that if a crime DID occur and people were asking around, you could say what you saw. There was clearly no imminent threat of a violent crime so why confront someone?

I don't know this woman, what the area's like.... but it seemed a bit of an overreaction to me. I mean, would a white bloke have acted like that? It's not unheard of for white kids to nick cars. Now we have to treat black people differently, when I thought the idea was that we would all be treated the same.

[Kazanne]

Originally Posted by Livia

I don't know this woman, what the area's like.... but it seemed a bit of an overreaction to me. I mean, would a white bloke have acted like that? It's not unheard of for white kids to nick cars. Now we have to treat black people differently, when I thought the idea was that we would all be treated the same.

My feelings exactly ,it's all getting a bit crazy now, people cannot do or say anything anymore ,just madness, everything is brought down to colour , it's doing more harm that good imo.

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Kazanne

My feelings exactly ,it's all getting a bit crazy now, people cannot do or say anything anymore ,just madness, everything is brought down to colour , it's doing more harm that good imo.

You want people to stop mentioning racism?

And what about... the actual racism?

[Marsh.]

Originally Posted by Livia

I don't know this woman, what the area's like.... but it seemed a bit of an overreaction to me. I mean, would a white bloke have acted like that? It's not unheard of for white kids to nick cars. Now we have to treat black people differently, when I thought the idea was that we would all be treated the same.

Treat black people differently as in not accuse them of stealing the car they're sat in... because they're sat in it?

A bizarre take.

[user104658]

Originally Posted by Livia

I don't know this woman, what the area's like.... but it seemed a bit of an overreaction to me. I mean, would a white bloke have acted like that? It's not unheard of for white kids to nick cars. Now we have to treat black people differently, when I thought the idea was that we would all be treated the same.

Honestly I think that the vast majority of people, if sat minding their own business in their car, were approached by someone accusing them of breaking into it... would be less than impressed. Yes I can absolutely imagine "a white kid" telling her to go **** herself. That's further complicated by the fact that - pretend as we might that it isn't the case - it's fairly likely that she decided he was a potential thief based on his appearance. Do you think she would have approached the car asking questions if a white man in a suit was sat in the passenger seat? I doubt it. I don't think it's ENTIRELY race based - I think she would have done the same if it was a "scruffy looking" tattoo'd white bloke in a hoody - but you do have to ask why her head said "HMPH this looks like CRIME!" when she saw a young black man daring to sit in a car, doing nothing at all.

I do think he could have accepted the apology more readily (even with the caveat of asking her to think about how her actions come across) but that's about it. I get why he was angry about being approached. Maybe there's some bias in that too - I can't ****ing stand curtain-twitching vigilante neighbours. Like I said by all means observe... take mental note... if someone comes around later saying "a car was broken into, did anyone see anything?" pass on that info but otherwise I wish people would just mind their own business.

[Kizzy]

Originally Posted by Livia

I don't know this woman, what the area's like.... but it seemed a bit of an overreaction to me. I mean, would a white bloke have acted like that? It's not unheard of for white kids to nick cars. Now we have to treat black people differently, when I thought the idea was that we would all be treated the same.

If it had been a white bloke she wouldn't have asked, that's the whole point here.

To treat people equally you stop by removing terms like 'black crime'

[Ammi]

...the lady said similar to...’...it looks as though you’re rifling through someone’s...‘...not just ‘rifling through papers’ or whatever, but ‘someone’s’...she had already decided that she didn’t think that it was his car...that was profiling someone, he’d been judged, which is why she confronted him...because she said that there was lots of car crime in the area...(...which there is in many areas, obviously, car crime is a huge thing...)...and since shes a resident of the area, it would be interesting to know how many ‘ confrontations’ she’s had with people in cars, looking a bit preoccupied in doing something in their car...

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Livia

Probably best no one ever approaches anyone who is black. No stop and search, no racial profiling... and the fact that knife crime and gun crime are mainly black crimes... and black on black crimes... just let them get on with it. Otherwise you get a foul-mouthed rant and strangely, people supporting that.

How many times does this myth of blackness being the indicator for crime need to be explained?