Suspected suicide bomber shot at Stockwell station.

[cori]

Have just heard an unconfirmed report on the radio. Anyone else?

'vast' majority being what - 6 or 7 out of 8? We don't even know what race all of the people that tried to detonate bombs yesterday were! Hardly 'massive' stasistics to work on!

I'm with others on this.

I'm a Londoner who has avoided getting in a train carriage with a man that had a huge rucksack. Didn't look at his face, just saw his luggage and moved on.

On a bus I felt uneasy sitting near an Asian man (who was reading a book on Islamic scriptures) that had a fair sized bag at his feet.

I can't help the way I feel. I wish I could. Am I being racist, paranoid or understandably cautious? I don't know.

The irony of this is that my husband is a non-white Muslim. I am fearing people of my husbands culture. It is going against my morals but I can't help it. Its hard to get my head around to be honest.

over dramatic I think toothache

I don't think the police are particularly trigger-happy in this country and am hopeful that todays incident might be isolated.

I'm afraid that I too am afraid of blokes on buses and trains, on my own.
You may be surprised that I have taken a fair amount of grief because I am a red-head! Usually from white lads, I should add. Too often teenagers

actually I'm going out because the blatant racism (and I don't care what you say that's what it is) is P*ssing me off) I certainly WON'T be posting on this thread anymore or I may get myself banned from MN

aloha, if you get off the bus (and I know you're not getting on any bus!), so, if you get off the hypothetcial bus you ARE making assumptions about young asian men with rucksacks. you just are or you wouldn't be getting off the bus!

Probably not Batters but unfortunately that's life. Whether it's me, Aloha, Enid or the old man next door some people are always going to have these views.

I agree it is hard if you are a young male asian - I feel very, very sorry for anyone who is being hated. I don't hate anyone. I don't even hate the bombers. I feel sorry for them, actually. My heart bleeds for their parents. I have put myself at risk personally to defend people of different races who were being intimidated on the tube, including an asian woman who was being frightened by a group of white males. I have intervened when a homeless person was being beaten up on a station platform and everyone else was carefully walking around them.
But I bet I am not alone in feeling extra jumpy right now around people who match the description of the current bombers.

I think Meid sums it up QoQ
"I can't help the way I feel."
It's just human nature to be cautious in such uncertain times.

oh last point - as someone posted as I was writing.

Why avoid single men on public transport? You're much safer on there than out on the street!

If i was a bomber, the last thing i would do now would be to carry a rucsac....just like after the shoe bomber, your shoe weould be the most obvious place to NOT hide your in-flight explosive.

This is what terror is doing to us, robbing us of our logic and tearing us apart fom each other.

You will have to excuse me for a while, expat's quote has reduced to real tears, I must go away for a while.

This has opened my eyes too dino and not in a good way, I agree. I'm bowing out of this thread now too.

no of course I wouldn't be fine about it

but I'd probably change my choice of shoes

my point was that if you are told a particular type of person is a suicide bomber then it is human nature to avoid that type of person.

Sad but true. and this is such a strange situation for us all to be in that it is bound to be run by instinct rather than intellect for a while.

toothache not meaning to be flippant but if they were a 'confirmed' suicide bomber surely the damage would have already been done and countless lives lost?

i think decisions regarding general public's safety must be very difficult ant the moment and if we were reading eyewitness accounts of three coppers holding a bomber gunpoint before massive explosion we would be critising them for not acting quickly enough.

Again i am prepared to eat my words if this is mistaken identity but if you are innocent why run from armed police and hurdle barriers?

QoQ, I avoid single men when I'm out on my own anywhere if there are no other people around. And it's not because I think all men are rapists. It's just that I don't want to take an unnecessary risk.

I'm not www. I am thinking, 'there is a tiny, tiny risk here that this guy (who looks a lot like the bombers involved in the current crisis) might, just might, have a bomb in there - It's very small, even miniscule risk, so small that a lot of people wouldn't think twice, but I am frightened, very cautious and I want to get home to my kids alive."
That's not an assumption.
Just as when I get out of the carriage with a lone young male in it I'm not 'assuming' he is a rapist, am I?

how are you safer on public transport with a single male than out on the street where you could run to safety? Sorry this is a bit of a tangent but not sure I see the logic in that.

Enid has a point there. people are watching for men with rucksacks, future bombers could well have the bombs stuck up their arses for all we know.

On that note, I'm also bowing out. I jsut hope the racist attitudes beign brought about by these acts are short lived.

I'm sorry, Blu. I am crying, too.

I'm going to go to the mosque across the square and pray in there at lunch. Even though I am a Christian, an Asian Muslim friend of mine just came to tell me all are welcome there, for God is God no matter if he is Allah, Yaweh, or Jehovah.

Enid, I really thought I was going mad there and was the only person who thought vaguely like this.

I don't think aloha is being at all racist actually.

nope aloha, I completely understand your POV. As I said I think Meid sums it up by saying "I don't want to feel like this but I can't help it"

Ladies please don't bow out!!

Lets just make it factual thread regarding what is actually happening in london at present. Keep opinions out of it as I for one value the information given to me regarding events.

I am at work and Can't watch TV or hear a radio.