Iād die on the hill that āstranger dangerā is a deeply unhelpful mentality to have. āOoooh everyone is out to get me theyāre all gonna perpetrate harm thatās actually more likely to come from someone I already know. I better never talk to anyone in my community who I donāt already know, just to be safe. Iām sure there are no other biases interwoven with this mentalityā like oh my god human traffickers do not just randomly spawn in every parking lot. You donāt have to go solo hitchhiking across the country but you also donāt have to live in fear that every guy on the street is the knife man whoās gonna get you. Like have situational awareness, yeah. But most of the time the guy on the street is not knife man heās actually just a guy on the street and heās probably pretty chill, and youāre driving yourself crazy by living in a constant state of unnecessary fear.
Like always safety comes first, especially if youāre in a marginalized group more likely to be targeted by random people around you. But thatās different from stranger danger. I might even say that stranger danger is something that contributes to marginalized groups getting targeted by random people. Which strangers do you find distrust worthy? Why? Does vague distrust justify harmful actions in the name of self defense? Stranger danger draws everyone away from more important issues of safety (underlying bigotries, systemic injustices, abuse in the home, etc) and towards an amorphous boogeyman that has no solution, because itās not the real cause or culprit.
