A reasonable assumption given that the OP didn't give any other reason. Are you assuming there was another reason?

We don't know anything about the reasons - we have only third-party information, which describes that some called the police on a mentally challenged person who had no ill intent, and that person also was black. Maybe racism added to the picture - quite possible, maybe not - it's impossible to tell from just this. It is a fact that there are many cases when black people are treated with prejudice, it is also a fact that there are many cases where mentally ill people are treated with prejudice, and it is also a fact that there are many cases where there are misunderstandings between people not caused by racism or anything like that. If you're a lone elderly woman and see somebody going about your property that you don't know and behaving weirdly, you might feel threatened, whether it's warranted or not. Surely, race may have played a role, but we don't have any real reason to conclude either way without knowing first-person accounts.

You're trying really hard to justify how this isn't racism. The poster lives there and knows these people, take it or leave it, your opinion isn't valuable.

I'm not trying to justify anything. Saying "I don't know" is not justifying, it's admitting lack of information.

> your opinion isn't valuable.

Unlike yours, which is even though I obviously take the effort of not forming opinion before I have the information, while you seem to have formed opinion not only about the situation, but even about my motivations in discussing it, without any information to go on. If you think that makes your opinion more valuable, I think you are sadly mistaken.

What he's saying is that we don't know. Innocent until proven guilty, maybe?

This isn't a courtroom, it's OP's anecdote. Stop concern trolling.

Why did the poster mention "mentally handicapped"? Was that not an attempt to manipulate our perceptions too? Obviously playing on the notion that handicapped people are harmless, therefore it must have been race, but that too is a form of prejudice.

We don't know. But, the likelihood of race playing a factor in this particular person feeling threatened in a very specific way, the casing of her house for its future burglary by a black individual, is a bit higher than her being spooked by the behavior of someone who possesses the ability to travel to, locate and borrow a ladder from someone with the aid of a computer.

This one case is not meaningful; there is racism, it does cause black people to be harassed and worse, and that's a serious problem.

Huh? The op explicitly stated that the african american gentleman was mentally handicap. I'm merely begging the question, could the home owners reaction be based on some strange behavior symptomatic of a mentally handicap individual?

It's possible, but it's much more likely that our society's embedded and implicit racism influenced her perception of the man.

Is that the only person she's sicked the cops on? Or one of many? Did she call the cops on other neighbors or did we only hear of the call involving the "retarded black man"? I mean... her notifying the cops of the other neighbor wouldn't have caused any issues if it was a white guy...

Was that racist? Maybe...

Maybe not...

The thing is: We don't know.

It's easy for armchair lawyers to pass judgement... but it becomes more difficult when you actually realize that one call isn't a pattern.

> because he asked a neighbor to borrow a ladder

By that I take it to mean that they were neighbors. So if your neighbor stops by to borrow a ladder, would you call the cops on him/her?

They may have had wildly different beliefs about their relationship, and there may be some critical details left out.

Imagine the case where you haven't met the neighbor before, you notice them before they knock and they look like they've been hanging around there, and it's really hard to figure out what they're trying to communicate.

Someone hearing about this might reasonably report it as "wow, calling the cops on a neighbor asking for a ladder", while you might see it as "weirdo I've never seen, who looked to be casing my place, and stammered out some BS excuse about wanting a ladder when I confronted him."

no I think even in that situation I still wouldn't call the cops. It still seems like an extreme and paranoid response to jump to "he's casing me, better call the cops" from someone wanting to borrow a ladder and not being able to give a reason.

I find it hard to believe that anyone goes about their daily lives with that level of paranoia towards every new person they meet. I think it's much more likely that it's because he's black. . . especially considering the background of negative race relations and stereotypes about black people and crime.

The point is, you don't know they legitimately wanted a ladder, certainly not from what the resident knew at the time. All they see is someone who seemed out of place and who may have exhibited the suspicious behavior I described above.

If you've never been in a neighborhood with high crime, or where scam artists have preyed on the naive, great, but don't act judgemental toward those who may have.

Because old white racist people are just exceptionally rare in the US.

If only there was a term to describe situation when specific individual's actions and qualities are ascribed based on general statistic for people sharing the same racial qualifiers.

Racing?

It's possible that he is an alien lizard using mental handicaps to conceal his lack of humanity.

But making an argument based on speculation is not usually helpful.