Racist vigilantes on local FB page

[FromanEmpire]

I live in a small town with a military history. As such, we have had quite a few Afghan refugees settled here.

A few days ago, a woman posted to say that an Afghan refugee had been in the park and walking around watching her toddler. She turned away to feed her other child, and when she turned back, he was holding her toddler and walking off. She asked her sister who was with her to go and get the toddler back. Then, apparently, he said no to the sister several times and said he was taking the toddler home with him. Eventually, the toddler was returned.

Cue extensive outrage all over the Facebook page. Comments calling for riots and violence, comments locating the man involved, comments getting a few men together for a game of "human football"... Obviously people asked why she hadn't called the police and she said she had but they weren't interested.

Anyway, then there are posts of the man in different locations and people threatening to go after him.

Then, it turns out, the woman has partly lied and partly told half-truths about the whole things. Firstly, not a local Afghan refugee at all. Not local, on holiday. Not Afghan, police confirmed he's not Afghan but didn't say what he is. Not a refugee, here on holiday (we live in a touristy place). Police also confirmed it wasn't reported to them until the evening - and also that the report was made by a man. So, she didn't report to the police - just to Facebook.

It also turns out, the man was in the park with his own children (she made it sound like he was there alone) and that the toddler approached him, while the mum wasn't paying any attention, and asked to be picked up. And, of course, very strange that if a man were walking off with your toddler, you'd just ask him nicely to put them down...

Frankly, I feel really uncomfortable by this. This woman has blatantly lied and misled people to try and rile up a riot. I'm also scared by how many people were commenting incredibly racist things and calling for violence against (what turned out to be) an entirely innocent man. I'm really shocked, and I like where I live less now.

It’s your opinion they lied because they don’t subscribe to your worldview 😌

Spot on. It's always "what about the Rotherham girls?" and "what about antisemitism?"

You know what? I've managed to go every single day of my life so far and not been racist against someone of any race, not been antisemitic or islamophobic and homophobic, believed women who were victims of genuine crimes, supported those women getting justice and never once thought those things conflicted with one another. Never. I've never thought "I can't support this victim of rape because it'd be racist" or "I must support this blatant lie because it's against a black person"...

It's not an either/or situation!

No, I think they lied because the police, Andy Tree and the father of the kid gave a different version of events later on. Including that she didn't phone the police and he wasn't an Afghan refugee and that he didn't try to take the child.

No, she believes they’ve lied, as do the police and a local councillor. Truth has nothing to do with “world view”.

I'm so sorry that you've been made to feel like that, OP. It's understandable that you do though.

I feel like things have slipped backwards by about 50 years and that open expressions of racism and xenophobia are becoming more acceptable. It's bloody depressing.

I'm ancient and the last time things felt this bad was in the 70s, when the National Front were marching in the streets, the Anti-Nazi League were organising counter-demos and Rock Against Racism was a thing.

Perhaps racists, like the poor, are always with us.

On the same Facebook group multiple other people have posted photos and messages about the same lone man who has spent all week sitting in a children park by himself watching children playing. This has meant that some families are too worried to let their children go to the park in the summer holidays. I am gobsmacked that you are defending the behaviour of a lone man who is choosing of all the places to sit is in a children’s park

As per the police response, Andy Tree's response and the dad's admission, he isn't a lone man. He was there with his own children.

This is how the mob mentality works! Someone says "I saw a teen smash a window" when they actually saw a teen walking near a smashed window. Other people go "I saw that teen too! Acting suspiciously!" and someone else goes "yeah, I heard a smashing noise last night - must've been the same guy" and someone else goes "I saw two teens running yesterday!". Then people get up their ring doorbell footage of teens walking away from where the window was smashed and are all convinced it's the same teens and that running and existing are "suspicious".

Someone else posted on this thread saying they were once reported on their local FB page as "suspiciously" hanging around the primary school and people started saying they had seen him at other schools in the area (but OP hadn't been at any other schools in the area). Someone posts something and it just whips up hysteria.

It was a bloke supervising his kids in a park 🙄

This. It is really worrying.

Op wasn't the one making it about race, she was observing that the commenters on FB were making it about race and some were making violent posts and trying to stir up trouble. We have all seen in the past how things like this have escalated.

I seriously don't understand how some people are having difficulty with this.

She's also made it clear about her thoughts on other forms of discrimination. I guess they are not as important, asvhaving ones virtue recognised. Please.

That is exactly what you are advocating. We did nothing to the "Rotherham girls" and none of us failed to to protect them. It is not better to "be safe than sorry" if you are saying attack a totally innocent person based on their ethnicity because they MIGHT be guilty of something, possibly, one day if not now.

I have lived in a multicultural city since 2001 and there are a lot of second and third generation Asians, one of the largestest Jewish populations outside London, lots of Eastern/central Europeans who settled here prior to the Berlin wall coming down and those who came and enriched our communities when we were part of the EU. All of us mostly rub along together and they are our neighbours/friends/colleagues and we have more in common than differences.

The dog whistle politics that people take as gospel is quite terrifying really- as a nation we are going backwards. In my career I have worked with many asylum seeking families and individuals, and the vast majority are dignified people who just want to be part of our society (ie work, learn the language if they do not speak English already and give their children the best start and education). Many are highly qualified yet not allowed to work here. The children are often under a lot of pressure educationally to do well, so extra clubs and tuition etc. Pre Brexit (if any idiot voting for it had bothered to research) there were very clear statistics showing most immigrants living here contributed more than they took from our economy. This is in contrast to all those pensioners who shipped out to Spain etc and are now moaning about not having the same privileges since we voted to leave the biggest free trade zone in the world.

Our infrastructure is crumbling, no council houses/councils have no money and the nhs is in crisis, but immigration has not been the cause of this. Also, high crime rates and poor policing is not down to immigrants. I am certain some are not law abiding but do the white bristish thugs/rapists/shoplifters etc get reported in the national right wing press with inflammatory language?

Absolutely this

Oh aye. How did I "make it clear"? What are my thoughts? I agree that I've been clear but you seem to think that explicitly stating that I'm against racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, islamophobia (etc, etc) is offensive...

I saw that on the news earlier, and I damn near pissed myself laughing.

Where the fuck did the MP think they'd rowed from to rock up off the coast of Yarmouth? Did he really think they'd paddled their canoe all the way across the North Sea?

Even my racist, Reform-voting, Jaywick-dwelling brother isn't that thick.

Possibly so. Aldershot, another military town, has many Nepalese residents, who have associations with the Ghurkha regiment. They seem ok there but I assume it was their military connections that made it seem like a reasonable place to be.

This. ^ Not even engaging to be honest.

And the benefit of absolutely brilliant Nepalese food!

Did @Dangermoo really say ‘attack anyone that looks brown, just in case’?

You are on all of these migrant threads being not so subtly racist. I'm sure MN is going to be devasted you're leaving, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

She responded to an article about a brown person being attacked by vigilantes after incorrectly being accused of a crime by saying "better safe than sorry". I think most people would interpret that as saying to attack any brown person just in case.

Can you say verbatim what she has said that is racist?

Ah it's you. You are also all over the migrant threads claiming Afghans shouldn't be in the country. Dangermoo literally said 'better safe than sorry' on an article about an attack on an innocent refugee - then went onto say, 'im not advocating for violence' - not me sir, I'd never stir up racial hatred.

The idiocy is dumbfounding. Sadly, people will swallow anything if it confirms their shitty biases or they think it'll increase their platform (see Trump and cat-eating migrants).

Pretty much, yes. At the very least she said it's OK/understandable for innocent brown people to get attacked by racist mobs, 'just in case'. It is truly appalling.