Your scenario would fly in the face of all known evidence, while the existence of irrational people, including racists, is in fact well-documented throughout US history and into the present day.
Oh, I see. So my scenario was just TOO far fetched to be considered. So exactly how many far fetched scenarios do we need to consider before we can confidently decide that swiping our phone in front of a stranger is worth the effort or not? Do we need to consider the 1 in 100 scenarios? The 1 in 1000 scenarios? The 1 in 10,000 scenarios?
Evidence? This runs against my own experience.
Really in your experience when you say to your friends, "Hey, that movie you saw in the trailer a couple months ago is coming out on Friday," and they say, "No way! I heard it was delayed until next summer!" So you say, "Yeah, look at my phone. The internet says they have a midnight premier Friday night!" When this happens your friends always double down on disbelief? How sad. That is quite unfortunate. All my experience says that people are willing to accept strong evidence that their perceptions were mistaken. Your friends must really get upset when they go to a Penn and Teller show and the magicians try to tell them that they DIDN'T just catch a bullet fired from a gun with their teeth.
And just a reminder here, revealing the mistake would literally take half a second.
This assumes that the violent racist was acting in a rational manner, which she obviously was not.
Wow, "Violent racist." I love how I'm getting flack for placing my bets on disturbed but probably rational, but you are totally confident in assigning her the title of "violent racist." No room for doubt here, right? No, her behavior was completely explainable by a rational actor put in a stressful and unfamiliar situation; Especially if we allow for the fact that she may have had specific (but unknown to us) reasons to suspect the kid had her phone.
So getting back to my point: Yes, if the woman is completely irrational then proving to her that your kid doesn't have her phone will fail to convince her. But what have you lost in the attempt? You've lost half a second of effort to defuse the situation and you are back where you started. So basically nothing. You have nothing to lose and a lot to gain if the gambit works. Proving your innocence in this sort of situation is the SMART move.
Shouldn't more people try to defuse confrontations? Shouldn't the police take the time to rethink escalating dangerous situations unnecessarily? I certainly think so, and I think WE should too. Especially when it SO fucking easy like it is in this situation.