White woman calls the cops on black Georgia man for babysitting two white kids

[ruby sparks]

Ah so we're talking about reporting racist incidents and not really talking about protecting children then - I suppose from that perspective not calling police on white guys makes sense

Of course white men abduct and abuse children, but the fact is that if the child and adult male are of the same race, the odds are much more likely that its a father, uncle, etc. Just a fact. And there are plenty of real world examples of people calling cops on same race men in the vicinity of children. I recall a story recently where an amateur single, male photographer was taking pictures of kids playing at a playground and had the cops called on him. So it does happen. As I said, I don't have the answer to these types of questions. I guess it boils down to evaluating the downsides of offending someone versus a child being harmed. Not an easy answer, IMHO.

Whilst I do think racism was likely involved here, I do agree with you that in general terms there are tricky aspects to this and it can be difficult to know when to call something overreacting and when to call it reacting with appropriate concern. From the aspect of the babysitter being male, I'd guess that this might have played less of a part than him being black (just my opinion) and that what might have played a bigger part was the children not being perceived as his, because of the difference in skin colour (which is of course not necessarily a sign that they weren't his, just perhaps that they were not biologically his). That said, in this case, I would call it overreacting because of the context. Plus, I think she followed him and called the cops after she had been told by the kids that he was their babysitter?

In general terms, what mostly worries men about interacting with children is when the children aren't theirs (or aren't perceived to be) and sometimes that their touching can be deemed inappropriate even when it is their child (think fathers teaching their kids to swim in a public pool for example) or a child they are charged with taking care of (think male primary school teachers for example).

I read of one case where United Airlines cabin crew had the police interview a male passenger (in other words intercept him when he disembarked) for inappropriately touching his son on a flight, when he was only comforting his son (putting his hand in the son's lap) because the boy was nervous of flying. United Airlines later apologised. That the father was gay may or may not have contributed, given that his male partner was not on the flight.

 

[southernhybrid]

I have a white friend who is married to a black man. She is outraged over this because her very dark skinned husband is the step father of her two very white older children. The kids were very young when the two of them were married and there were plenty of times when the step dad was out alone with the kids. Nobody ever bothered them. Things like this didn't happen as far as I know, until the current racist occupant of the WH starting enabling his fellow racists. My friend's white kids are now adults, so she doesn't have to worry about this happening, but she's really angry that this could have happened to her sweet, loving husband.

I also have a black female friend who is married to a white man. I wonder if anyone gets worried when he's out with their mixed race child.

I see men out alone with kids all the time. I'ts never even occurred to me to call the police if the men don't look like the kids. What this woman did was way over the top.

 

[ZiprHead]

Someone put it this way on one of the news discussion programs today: Trump deputized white people.

 

[Deepak]

Yeah, well kids are often in distress with their own parents. How often have you seen kids crying and rejecting their parents' demands (No! I won't go! Leave me alone!!...Waaahh!!) to leave the store, library, park, etc. Its not always that easy to tell if something truly awful is happening, or its an every day tantrum. And some kids who have been kidnapped maintain their composure out of fear of harm by their kidnapper. But, you are right that abduction by a stranger is extraordinarily rare, fortunately. We live in a very diverse, multicultural society these days, and the fact is, there are going to be these kinds of mishaps and misunderstandings occasionally. I think we do need to cut people a break who have made the wrong call on these situations, and give them the benefit of the doubt that they were doing it in the child's best interest and not out of racial or gender malice. Jumping to conclusions and posting the "racist incident" on social media doesn't really help anyone, does it? And if you want to avoid a possible confrontation, it helps to be aware of how things could look when you're in the presence of young kids. Don't be like Sheldon!:

So it's also, in my opinion, not terribly difficult to differentiate the distress when a child doesn't get candy or a video game, vs the distress that's associated to abuse. Not least of all because of the body language of the adult in reaction to the child.

But I'm willing to concede that we might be dealing with a master of the method, the Daniel Day Lewis of kidnappers who is completely inscrutable from the reaction of a parent - why not call the police every time we see children with adults? And why is the case of same race with distress something easily brushed off, but different race with no distress is chalked up to 'better safe than sorry'?

Posting the incident of course helps: a shooting is much less likely next time if a cop is aware of who he is, the harm to his business is reduced as potential customers can understand that his interactions with the police were bogus, and indeed it brings attention to flagrantly bad behavior from the woman. What purpose gets served by burying the story?