Devil With A Red Vespa

CTK I get your point, and I agree with it. '...different speculations should be granted different levels of feasibility'. I for one, don't think that she was abducted by aliens, and now an alien inhabits her body, and that's why she did not call.

As you intimate, I do think that there is room for what I think we can call 'reasonable speculation'. I do think there is room within what is considered plausible to consider race as a factor for her inaction. I say inaction and not 'racially motivated' -- as proffered by you, echoed by Flexichick, and agreed on by Caseopele because there was no motivation here. DWARV failed to act.....

When we were all contributing on the 'Spitting' thread, I COULD be wrong (as I have not gone back to check) but I am pretty sure that the person who started the thread (and many of us) presumed that the spit was flying because of race. If many recall, my initial contribution was something like, 'hey, this is happening to me too, and I am Black,' so although race IS an element, there are other things going on as well -- assuming that the people who spit as I walk by share the same sentiment as the people who spat as he walked by. I didn't say race wasn't a factor -- though I could have, right? I assumed that it was (and is).

In the case of Dwarv I think that GENDER is a factor too. One of the earlier contributions to this thread stated that I ought to put myself in DWARV's shoes (I am paraphrasing), that essentially, we could safely presume that her neighbor told her that a MAN dropped off the keys, and this must've rattled DWARV some. The person who stated this expressed in what seemed a matter of factly way that this is New York, after all, she isn't going to call some guy she does not know on her cell phone and have some stranger have her number'; do we all remember this? So, to recap, there is a safe assumption that she knows her good samaritan is MALE, but unfamiliarity is what bars reaching out and thanking him.

So - if we can comfortably speculate that gender was given to 'DWARVa' (I thought I would rename her), why is it implausible for me and my buddy to also add on the additonal element of race? Now, I understand that YOU don't think race was an element that led to her inaction, and that's cool. But, seriously CTK, if it is reasonable to put GENDER (i.e. the samaritan's sex) under the 'tent of speculation' where all the reasonable speculations are housed for this scenario, why is RACE outside the tent? Why is it implausible to consider race? After all, the neighbor saw the samaritan; she could describe him. I am sure if he spat in her face and she had to describe him to someone, she would say (at the least) 'a black guy' spat in my face; she wouldn't say, merely, 'a guy spat in my face'.

But we are going in circles. This has said this before in a different way. To your credit you make an exceedingly GREAT point:

"...there's no groupthink collective and people disagree here all the time... so I think the fact that pretty much everyone disagrees that DWARV's actions were racially motivated should say something...."


My point is that if it can be reasonable to think her suspicious to respond due to sex, then I don't see how race would not be considered an element of her supposed suspicion. In fact, it seems somewhat disingenuous to wholly filter race out.

I actually think it's a bigger inaccuracy to say that DWARVa is a 'thoughtless twit' as Caseopele states (and others have implied) than to say, as my buddy said to me sadly, 'She's probably just another scared white girl who hears these gunshots, is aware of the violence in the neighborhood, and just wants to keep herself safe.'
In that statement I think he understands the heaviness of being Black and male and being thought of wiith skepticism. Speaking for myself, I walk these streets, and I see the fear in the eyes of whitefolk as they walk by me sometimes, and I wholly understand it. I don't like it, but I understand it. I know it has everything to do with unfamiliarity, gender - and RACE - and nothing to do with the moral limitations that people have.

.... But you know what? Maybe she never saw the note at all.

Again, I don't know if she is a total ditz.I don't know if she's self-centered as implied. I actually think it's more of a stretch to judge her harshly than to simply say, 'she ain't callin' some Black dude whom she doesn't know, who knows where she lives'.

Ironically, it seems as if I view her with more sympathy then many who disagree with me that race is a plausible reason for her not calling -- which is interesting, because many are ready to speculate about her, i.e. to give THEIR image of her some type of character trait (fear, selfishness, self-centeredness, etc.) I hope as those who do this think about how they imagine DWARVa to be, they would see it is they who paint the canvas, and name the image.

Regarding cat-calls, MHA doesn't do that. I say hello, good morning, and good evening ( to everyone) and leave it at that . Either because most women are so battle weary inundated by male critique and compliment, I keep both to MHAself.