But “doesn’t look right” is culturally determined and informed by our conscious and subconscious biases. For people unaccustomed to mixed-race families, “doesn’t look right” means calling the police down on the innocent children and grandparents in your neighborhood. At its core, “see something, say something” isn’t about a war on crime, it’s a war on surprises, whose core premise is to mistrust and fear things you can’t understand.

The story that inspired him to say so is this:

Scott Henson, “a former journalist turned opposition researcher/political consultant, public policy researcher and blogger,” recounts how he was repeatedly stopped and eventually cuffed and detained while walking his granddaughter home through a park in Austin, TX. Henson is white and his granddaughter is black, and the police said that they were responding to a “kidnapping” call. But their response terrified the little girl and humiliated her grandfather. And it’s not the first time it’s happened to them.

(Thanks, Mr Jender!)