Man on push bike knocked on door

[charlesfare]

scareyt Wrote:

>As it stands, it just sounds like a simple part of the description given following a suspicious encounter with a strange man in case anyone else had the same thing happen to them.

Yeah, but the stranger in question was already off on their way by the time the OP got to the door. No one's managed to go in to any real detail about what exactly is suspicious about having your door knocked on. Where's the threat in someone cycling away for your house and saying "wrong door"?

>You develop a fine-tuned instinct for behaviour that isn't right and could turn into a threat, and that's what the OP sounds like to me.

I've developed a "fine tuned instinct" for certain types of behaviour, too. Please don't imply that your experiences and knowledge are some how more valid than my own. I'd be on the same page as you in there had been some sort of confrontation or act of violence, but I know first hand that black skin causes people to see threatening or suspicious behaviour where there is none.

[Saffron]

This is London. When someone knocks on my door unexpectedly, late at night, with all the lights already off, I'm ALWAYS suspicious... before I even open the door!

(Oh, am I supposed to clutch my pearls now?)

[scareyt]

I'm not saying they my experiences are more valid than yours, I'm saying that they are equally valid.

[Jeremy]

I'd hate to live in your house, charlesfare. People always knocking on your door at all times of night, and buggering off before you answer! Maybe you should move to a different street, it's never happened to me!

[charlesfare]

scareyt Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> It sounds like you have equated this thread with

> the front gardens one, and decided that somehow

> the OP was objecting to the presence of a black

> man on her doorstep in the same way that other

> people were objecting to rubbish and weeds in

> other people's front gardens, as some kind of

> undesirable rubbish spoiling their view. If this

> is genuinely what you believe then I feel great

> compassion towards you.

Cheers for the "great compassion" but nah, that isn't what happened. Believe it or not, I've got the cognitive faculties to separate two completely unrelated threads about to different topics. Read that back and ask yourself how patronising you sound.

[scareyt]

Ok I'm done. You are clearly incapable of appreciating someone else's point of view or of reflecting on your own position.

[LadyDeliah]

Or maybe they just don't agree with you?

[charlesfare]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Or maybe they just don't agree with you?

Exactly! Don't like being talked to like I was born yesterday either.

[Saffron]

Then don't write like you were. Simples.

[Jacqui5254]

Wow. Just want to add a bit of support for you, charlesfare.

[LadyDeliah]

I agree. What is inherently dodgy about someone knocking on a door and riding away before you answer the door, then explaining that it was the wrong house?

If that's not an inherently dodgy scenario, which I think is the case, what made the OP think it was?

It was night? Ok maybe, but most burglaries happen during the day and night time ones are more likely to be creepers where they don't wake the occupiers, so unlikely to knock first.

He was young? He was black? No?

What else was there?

[scareyt]

charlesfare Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

Read

> that back and ask yourself how patronising you

> sound.

Fair enough. I've now deleted most of that post. What I was trying to say is that yes it's crap that a young black man can't knock on the wrong door by mistake without being suspected of being a criminal. And it's crap that a woman can't open a door to any strange man late at night without feeling scared. Both of those things are crap.

[charlesfare]

Brilliant, then we're on the same page.

[malumbu]

Oh I thought it was a Ted Chippington story.

Google it if I have confused you.

[charlesfare]

I was walking down the road the other day...

[Jeremy]

LadyDeliah Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> What is inherently dodgy about someone

> knocking on a door and riding away before you

> answer the door, then explaining that it was the

> wrong house?

It's unusual. I've lived in South London for a while now, not once have I had a stranger knocking on the door in the night. Then realising it's the wrong house before anyone even answered (and the 'right' house is far enough away for him to get back on his bike)... pretty strange. Of course it could all be perfectly innocent (and probably is), but I'd at least think "what the hell was all that about?"

Just because you personally wouldn't find the situation suspicious, it's unfair to declare that it's categorically not dodgy.

From the way some people are carrying on, you'd think that the OP has already made up his mind that the kid was guilty of something. But I don't think that's the case.