Posted on 12/21/2025 5:11:08 AM PST by MtnClimber
One of the most dangerous illusions Americans are living under today is the belief that safety is ambient, existing automatically, everywhere, and at all times, by virtue of laws, norms, or declarations. For decades, we have been trained to assume that public spaces are fundamentally benign and that vigilance itself is somehow antisocial or unnecessary.
That assumption is no longer valid.
A steady stream of viral videos now documents what many quietly sense: sudden assaults in stores, flash-mob robberies, random attacks on public transport, group intimidation in ordinary places. These are not war zones or failed states. They are malls, trains, sidewalks, and parking lots. The common thread is not criminal genius, but civilian unpreparedness.
America has drifted into what security professionals call Condition White: relaxed, distracted, and unaware. In an era when threats are opportunistic and often collective, that posture is no longer merely naïve. Instead, it is dangerous.
Situational Awareness Is Not Paranoia
The argument here is not for panic or permanent fear. There is a critical distinction between situational awareness and hypervigilance, and confusing the two has left many Americans untrained and exposed.
Situational awareness is a calm, teachable skill. It is the ability to notice what is normal in an environment and recognize when something deviates from that baseline. It is relaxed alertness: heads up, eyes open, mind engaged. It is the same mental posture we use when driving: aware of surroundings, ready to respond, but not consumed by fear.
Hypervigilance, by contrast, is a trauma state. It assumes danger everywhere, exhausts the nervous system, and is unsustainable for ordinary life. No one is advocating that.
What America needs is a cultural reset toward Condition Yellow: alert, observant, and prepared to act early before a situation escalates.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Yes, he did. A long time ago, sometime back in the early 1990s, when Democrats were falling all over themselves crafting anti-crime legislation in the wake of the crack cocaine fueled violence, and Mrs. Clinton’s “super-predators” descriptors.
I’m reasonably certain Action Jackson has probably apologized profusely since that time for his hateful, ill-advised statements. He couldn’t get away with saying anything like that today in any event.
Situational Awareness is always necessary.
Yup—situational awareness requires you tell yourself the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
No virtue signaling is allowed.
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People are taught to loathe themselves for having situational awareness insights, because those insights are "racist".
Jesse Jackson really did say it.
Even leftist quora confirms it:
Goodreads confirms:
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5978-there-is-nothing-more-painful-to-me-at-this-stage
Baltimore Sun:
https://www.baltimoresun.com/1993/12/03/jesse-jacksons-message-is-too-advanced-for-most/
More detail on the original source:
Remarks at a meeting of Operation PUSH in Chicago (27 November 1993). Quoted in “Crime: New Frontier – Jesse Jackson Calls It Top Civil-Rights Issue” by Mary A. Johnson, 29 November 1993, Chicago Sun-Times (ellipsis in original). Partially quoted in US News & World Report (10 March 1996)
I will make a significant down size of the situational awareness concept. All old people must consciously develop continuous awareness of the immediate situation.
Falls are a persistant reality for old people. Many other accidents that endanger well being also prevail. The reason for all is an immediate failure to grasp the present situation.
A very minor lapse in concentration can allow conditions precipitating some accidental event. That is especially true of falls.
The very first question on the PCP Medicare interview invariably is “have you had any falls in the last 6 months?”
Because, we’re told repeatedly by our “betters” that Noticing is Racist.
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Checking out the exits is important. Also, the individual must train himself/herself to think independently, and should a threat manifest itself, leave immediately instead of passively watching the trouble unfold. I.e., when a fire breaks out in a crowded concert hall, people have been recorded to watch the fire spreading, instead of immediately exiting. Seconds in a case like this is important.
Good example.
Another one is the pit bull.
There are many pit bulls that will walk up to strangers and lick their face—every time during their lifetime.
That fact is stunningly irrelevant for situational awareness.
There’s a difference between discussing and making broad brush statements.
And as far as being situationally aware - that’s good advice.
Situational awareness is impossible when you are staring at an iPhone all the time.
Part of the problem..
I grew up near the hood and where there were a fair number of halfway houses. IOW the inner city.
Somehow you know if someone could be trouble and it’s not always skin color or age…sometimes it could be a young White man following you around, sometimes he’s Black.
When I go into the suburbs I don’t feel this. I can’t really say how I know who’s going to be trouble or why a neighborhood is good or bad, I just get this feeling.
I do the same thing. And I always keep an eye on the door.
L
The data is the data.
People use statistics to make their case. Often the statistics lead to further questions.
Be situationally aware wherever you ar.
The broad brush statements, the memes, etc are not really ways to welcome black Americans to FR.
I believe there’s a well documented case of single parent households often leading to poor outcomes for children in the areas of education, civic behavior, etc. I don’t know how you fix that.
” They look like Mormon missionaries.
Hahahahahah. Like that happened NEVER.”
I saw that.
After a while it becomes natural and automatic. Whenever I’m out with my wife I am always walking ahead or behind her-she walks with a cane waiting on her knee surgery, and she is particularly vulnerable. I keep my eyes peeled in grocery store parking lots especially. Head on a swivel, always.
The entire first paragraph of this article presents a false premise. I’ve had my head on a swivel my entire adult life, as has everybody with reasonable intelligence. I learned to do this when my cousin was killed in a robbery by a savage black man in 1979.
Black people are very aware—and often joke about—how dangerous many blacks are.
One funny story—I was researching a real estate deal and talking to a local black woman about it and she said “I would never walk by there. The black people there are crazy.”
It is only white people that are terrified of being called bad names and whisper in fear.
There are lots of ways to fix the problem.
Neither liberals or conservatives have the courage to tell the truth about all the related issues.
If you cannot even talk about the problem you have zero chance of developing proposals to address it.
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