Is their any need to mention race of suspicious person? Facebook..

[tiredandfrumpy]

I'm on our local community facebook group and some lady has mentioned that some black man was trying to offer her daughter sweets and was offering her back to his house.

I could understand if she had a real description but you can't just warn people of a black man? People are going to be terrified if they see a black man now.

AIBU or is that an ok way of describing someone to watch out for?

Not trying to cause a war here just curious on what people think.

Well the vast majority of men in this country are white (about 86%). I think about 3% of the population are black. It is therefore by definition a distinguishing feature from the majority in this context as it would massively reduce the number of suspects so worth mentioning.

Sadly lots of these facebook posts are borderline racist false statements.

It's this, and when the stories are made up it's just out and out racism for clicks, comments and likes - and to spread their racism in the community.

I do understand your point OP, and your perspective, but I think an extension of that argument is that if she’d just said a man offered her daughter sweets, men could start saying ‘oh great, so kids will be scared of all men now?’. So we have less information of the suspect, and wider fear, and I don’t see how that would help? Ultimately, I do think children’s safety is the most important factor here, it has to be.

We get this all the time on our local Facebook group. The individuals involved dont even have to do anything, just be seen in the neighbourhood looking "Eastern European" (white but with a swarthy skin/dark hair) or "foreign " (anything but white).

I see where you're coming from but I suppose it depends where you live if it would be helpful or not. A area where predominantly white people live, then it would be helpful. Predominantly black people, not as helpful. Also, if you flipped this and you lived in an area where mostly black people lived (although I don't suppose there are many of them in the UK considering the percentage of black people in the uk) and a whitean was going round offering kids sweets and asking them yo come with him, then I'm sure the post would mention his skin colour.
Colour of skin is a distinguishing feature, same as hair colour, height weight, eye colour.

If the incident had happened in the West Indies and it was a white man offering sweets, do you think a prime differentiating feature from the vast majority, skin colour, wouldn't be mentioned? YABU

@tiredandfrumpy

I'm on our local community facebook group and some lady has mentioned that some black man was trying to offer her daughter sweets and was offering her back to his house.

I could understand if she had a real description but you can't just warn people of a black man? People are going to be terrified if they see a black man now.

AIBU or is that an ok way of describing someone to watch out for?

Not trying to cause a war here just curious on what people think.

I think the description is fine. However you suggesting ’People are going to be terrified if they see a black man now.’ is not fine and ridiculous

Asian as a descriptor is useless. Are we talking Japanese or South Indian? Worse than useless.

I think if its a genuine desciption of someone who has done something wrong then its fine. Sadly lots of these facebook posts are borderline racist false statements. I have had lots of heated arguments with friends who regularly share 'stories' of eastern european or asian gangs' going around trying to kidnap young girls. Or 'black men' knocking on doors pretending to sell things but robbing pensioners.

This is a lot more common than people realise..

I wouldn't mention that a man was white, because where I live 95% of men are white. I would mention if he was black, as no-one would expect that. If I lived in an area where a high percentage of men are not white, I'd probably mention that the man was white.

I think it's mentioned because it is a major identifying factor.

If the sweets were offered to a child, I doubt the child would know specifics such as height / build etc! It might be the only thing they were able to notice / remember.

If I read that post, id be wary of any black man I saw offering sweets to a child - not just any black man I went past.

Yes but we live in a very diverse area so I don't see how the description of a black man is very helpful.

If it was predominantly white then yes I could 100% understand.

Do you also have an issue with them saying it was a man? Because that's similarly broad and unhelpful.
Are you worried people will be scared of all men?

I’ve seen posts before about “white men” so I don’t think it’s any different to that.

Every -imaginary- crime in our neighbourhood is committed by a man who “looked Eastern European”. These crappy posts are just racist dog whistles and I ignore them and think people that share them online are morons at best bigots at worst.

I don't see the problem. It narrows down the list of possibilities.

If your children would automatically be scared of every black man after this, you are raising them very wrong. Consider that the majority of men who committed crimes against children in Britain were/are white. Are your children afraid of all white men? I doubt it.

If she said "a tall black man wearing a blue hoody and distinctive yellow trousers", that would've been fine; it's a description of the man .
But to use his skin colour/race as his only defining feature, it's not.

Black men are about 1.5% of the population so the description narrows it down significantly. Describing someone as a white man isn’t as helpful because they’re about 44% of the population. In addition it’s possible to describe white men in more detail with hair and eye colour, whereas most black men have brown hair and eyes so mentioning their hair and eye colour isn’t very helpful in distinguishing them.

It’s when the description says the suspicious person/people were “Romanian” or looked Romanian/sounded Romanian. Like, how can you tell unless they were speaking that language and you happen to speak it too? A person speaking English in a heavy accent could come from any number of places. I think most of these warnings are horse shit and often seem to be started by people with an agenda.

I see your point OP. “A black man” doesn’t narrow it down much for me (or many other people). I’d want to know an accent, height, build, type of car or whatever…

I see what you

@PoetryLaser yes this.

The thing is their are many black men that are picking their kids up around that time so to me is seems ridiculous to even post unless you have a decent description.

Kids can't be looking out for every black men they see.

So if she had described him as a man with blonde hair, would you be offended on behalf of all men with blonde hair?

Yes it's racist. Perhaps not intentionally but institutionally.
We've had this kind of story on facebook - Asian men in van etc. Police issued a statement that it was just a rumour, no evidence at all, after loads of children started reporting to their parents the 'suspicious' actions of every perfectly innocuous van driver of that race they saw.

I don’t think it’s racist. I see lots of posts about a “white males” being mentioned. It’s just a description surely… I don’t see how the jump would be made to being scared of all black men, just as I would not be scared of all white men.

Our village Facebook group is worse. The suspicious man was described as being 'coloured' 😱

We had similar in our local Facebook page. An “Asian man” was seen going up and down people’s driveways.

Turns out he was delivering newspapers.