A classic, recurring bug in the design of the human brain, one that gets triggered in me all the time, is that we naturally conceive of the whole world being like the tiny part that we experience; it takes serious effort to workaround that bug and walk in another person's shoes. Personally, I try to look for a specific signal: When I solve a problem - one I haven't experienced myself - by minimizing someone else's experience of it. e.g., 'That's not really a big deal.' Well, due to the bug referenced above it's not a big deal for me, but that attitude gets humanity in a lot of deep sh*t.
Thus, I'm not going to tell the GP that it's not a big deal; I don't have to live under constant suspicion every time I'm in public - though I imagine that would be awful. I do know that harassment of black people by law enforcement (and civilians), which often results from suspicion, is a very big and widespread problem. Look up 'driving while black', or 'stop and frisk'; you can read many, many stories of people being searched dozens of times, being humiliated such as being made to drop their pants on the street for a 'search', being assaulted ...
Think of it this way: Stop & frisk is a very widespread police tactic. So has it ever happened to you? Or to anyone know know? Even once? For most people reading this, the answer will indicate the bubble we live in. I'm pretty sure that if some attorney on Wall Street was stopped and frisked, or made to drop his pants, even once, the program would be over by the time he buckled them back up.
> To take it to the level of mortal danger
This isn't a realistic standard. Most serious problems in the world are not mortal danger, from assault to rape to being imprisoned, harassed, forced to eat in a different restaurant because of the color of your skin ...
I never said it's not a big deal. In fact, I said exactly the opposite of it: "It's a problem, true". Were you meaning to respond to somebody else?
> I'm pretty sure that if some attorney on Wall Street was stopped and frisked, or made to drop his pants, even once, the program would be over by the time he buckled them back up.
Unfortunately it's not as rosey as you describe - look up civil forfeiture and how many various people got hit by it and how this practice still persists though it is nothing but legalized highway robbery. Check out how easy is to get hit by something like "structuring", or google "three felonies a day" and follow the rabbit hole from there. But that would take us way offtopic. We know police in US has serious issues, both with race and with corruption. We know there are a lot of factors that make people of certain descents - such as African Americans - suffer more from these issues.
My point is not to deny any of that - quite the contrary. My point is that these issues are police issues, not the problem of whoever dared to call the police when they thought they were in danger. Even if they were mistaken on that part and there was no real danger.
It's clear that she was in the wrong for being bitchy on social media, but how could she have predicted the outcome? In what sane world do the police seek out unfounded accusations on social media then act on them?
I don't think it's hard to predict that police will harass a black person in a white neighborhood if someone complains, and my guess is that it's not the first time it's happened in that particular neighborhood.
> In what sane world do the police seek out unfounded accusations on social media then act on them?
I would guess it's not the first time the police pulled a report from Nextdoor.
> In what sane world
I don't know, but if that's your premise, this particular world must be very confusing for you ... :)