Same here. RatWoman is of mixed ethnicity but much browner than me, and I am mostly Irish, so whiter than white. Plus I’m much older than her; often I am mistaken for my kids’ grandfather. Photoshop that to make the guy look 20-30 years older and that could me and RatBoy the Elder in that pic. But all of our kids look markedly different. That said, I am often out in public with our non-carbon-copy kids, and I’ve never been hassled in this way. I’m not sure why. It may be that there’s a higher level of tolerance for mixed ethnicities here in southern California, or it might be white privilege, or age privilege that I don’t see, but I have no way of knowing that.
That said, I don’t know what else the cops could have done in this situation. It sounds like they handled it reasonably well.
My guess: the bus got pulled over, the driver had no idea why. It’s probably standard safety protocol to ask everyone to remain seated. (Also, I’d guess everyone remaining seated was helpful in getting back under way in a timely fashion.) It doesn’t sound like the bus driver was power-tripping or anything.
Equality in childrearing helps both men an women and is also considered a feminist concern. It is terrible for men to be discouraged from working with children and treated with suspicion and it’s part of a system that shifts the bulk of family responsibilities on women. Letting men take on responsibilities at home and with kids takes away one of the huge excuses used to deny women equal pay and promotion. It’s better for the emotional wellbeing of men, and it’s better for kids to be better able to connect with all their caregivers.
This happens to me too. It’s sad, but as a father I have to restrain myself from interacting with other people’s children in what I consider the normal, friendly way that a woman would. Even when the children are playing with my son or in the same area as my son, I minimize any talk to other people’s children, and I certainly don’t touch them, or let them touch me.
Looking very different from your own child (in my case, because of race) only exacerbates the problem. All men are considered pedophiles, except if they’ve got their own children. And when the child they’re with doesn’t look like them, they become highly suspect.
If your children don’t look like you, it’s generally a good idea to make picture IDs for them as early as possible. When they are too young to keep track of them, safety-pin them inside their clothing. Then you can show your own ID to the cops and the names & addresses will match. I also carry pictures of the family together in my wallet for additional evidence.
If you don’t take these kinds of precautions, you may well regret it. In the USA, any time you are around cops the chances of you being harmed or killed rise dramatically. You’re safer walking through the Port Authority at midnight with $100 bills hanging out of your pockets than you are when somebody’s called the police on you, especially if it’s “to protect a child”.
What exceptionally sucks about this particular case is that the poor guy’s already got albinism, which is a burden by itself.
This is what I was thinking. This kind of thing just tells kidnappers to kidnap kids who look a lot like them if they want to avoid suspicion in public.
Yeah, I know. And when I get home later I’ll take the time to google it. I merely meant that if anyone had any links handy, I’d be grateful, as I would give them to others if I had them bookmarked (and have in the past). I didn’t mean to suggest you need to do my research, and I’m sorry for giving that impression.
Eh one person’s “creep radar” is broken. Instead of just assuming the worst the person could’ve I dunno tried talking to the man and the child and maybe tried to get a better read of the situation. I realize you know that would take a little more effort but hey no one said the life of a “hero” would be easy.
My dad and I aren’t exactly the same color. He spent the first 20 years of his life working tobacco fields in the hot Southern sun. His skin has that sun dried leathery appearance of Crocodile Dundee. I spent the first 20 years of my life basking in the warm glow of a CRT monitor, so more of that pasty nerd look.
And my wife is about a quarter shade darker than a newborn, which somehow combining her whiteness with mine yielded a son with red hair…(no seriously one of the nurses in the delivery room gave an audible gasp when I mentioned the red hair - this is literally 10 seconds after he “arrived” and was lying on mom…tension so thick you needed an #8 blade to cut it.)
33yo gay white guy, and a foster parent specializing in caring for teenage boys. The kids are often a race other than white. I’ve experienced two situations very similar to this one. Stories like this keep me up at night; I don’t want to have a run in with the atrocious Portland police.
We carry papers with all of the youths’ identifying information at all times, I carry a foster parent ID, and I still fear that someone will see something they don’t like and I’ll spend an afternoon at a police station, or a youth I’m working will will somehow violate his probation to defend me to an officer. (A real worry with some of the kids - most have histories in the legal system.)
No solutions to offer, just wanted to share that “stranger danger”, terror-by-proxy, and (yes) racism are all involved, and are deplorable reactions to what is entirely a media-created “epidemic” of child abduction and exploitation. This work is already hard as hell and this brew of paranoia and suspicion adds to our burden. “Won’t somebody think of the children?!” People who think like the caller here aren’t protecting children, they are terrified and teaching children to be terrified too.
Ironically, I’m happy to talk about my kids, and most of them would be happy to talk to strangers. (Empathy and ability to converse appropriately is one of the skills I teach, so an opportunity to talk to a stranger would be welcome!)
I’d say in North America perhaps. But with TO it’s always good to take claims of this and that with a grain of salt. The Rest Of Canada’s (ROC) assertion that TO is somewhat full of itself and a bit navel-ly is well supported.
Here is a chart made from 2012 FBI collected US arrest data from this link I found in the source of a Wikipedia article. The only crime where woman are arrested more often than men (>50%) is prostitution. Relatively equal for white collar crimes like embezzlement and fraud. Men are very disproportionately represented for violent crimes.
Keep up the good work, brother. When adoptive and foster services finally started letting gay people into the lives of children without parents, the world became a much better place.
