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Coincidentally on Hacker News front page right now ... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18318647 ... a story about being black while legitimately shopping with no intention of stealing. I'm not sure the author of that article could use the hi-viz trick and get away with it ... or have the luxury of even contemplating it as a lark all in "harmless fun".

edit: grammar and emphasis

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One could argue that to somebody with racist inclination a black person wearing a hi-viz might look even more credible.

Exactly. No one intentionally drawing attention to themselves could possibly be up to something nefarious, they'd draw too much attention to themselves to get away with anything.

I think GP was playing on the assumption that those employed in these traditionally low-paid jobs such as security and maintenance would predominantly be black.

I once was shadowing a deliver driver in a suburban neighborhood. We were both in high viz and I stayed in the car for this delivery. The guy rang the bell and no one answered so he followed standard process and looked for a secure location to reduce the chance of theft when he left the package unattended. He was looking for just a few seconds when a neighbor came up to hassle him, ask him what he was doing and accused him of wanting to rob the place. While wearing a hi-viz vest. Racists will see whatever they want to see. He could have been wearing a flashing hard hat too and I'm sure the neighbor still would have harassed him.

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