[Ice Constricter]

(Original post by Tommyjw)
Its not racism.

I live in a similar area and the fact is i am more likely to randomly be chased, beat up, stabbed by a black kid. Its just a fact. Now.. i would never purposely hide from them more than i do any white wannabes hanging around, but perhaps this couple have had a bad experience with black kids on your estate before. For all you know they could have been threatened, robbed etc multiple times and it could have always been, or quite a lot of the time, been from a black kid and like it or not that creates justification for bad feelings.

I know for a certainty i would avoid anyone i saw as a threat if i was with my girlfriend. When im by myself ill quite happily walk through them whilst they shout at me and all that crap, but id never risk going through it if i was with my girlfriend. I imagine it wouldnt be entirely different for a couple living together, it wouldnt be worth the hassle.

Sometimes its much easier to simply avoid the people who are more likely to cause problems than 'face up to it' just because it might seem a little racist.

I agree with your point in general accept for this case, because this is actually the OP's neigbours that are behaving like this ffs not complete strangers.

[Aquar]

(Original post by ednut)
I live in a council estate in north london

this is the problem.

[edd360]

I know it's hard no to take prejudice personally, but it's a natural precaution all human's take.

When me and my friends are hanging outside smoking trees I appreciate and accept we probably look intimidating to some, I can't take this personally though, we would never hurt a fly, but unfortunately there are people out there who would, and phrases like "better safe than sorry" exist for a reason.

I'm wouldn't say black people scare me because that would be ridiculous. But if I was walking alone at night and there was a black guy walking towards me, I won't deny I would be scared. Not because he's black, but because it's dark and I'm alone. For all I know he could be scared of me (not that I could scare anyone if I tried).

[Mz-Nmh]

People stereotype and generalise races because they don't know what they're really about. Ignorant tbh.