break-in(?)

What we 'see' is heavily filtered by mental set. There's a huge amount of prejudice affecting cyclists, and lots of those with the prejudice 'see' RLJers, but don't 'see' the cars jumping reds, or driving whilst on their mobiles, or whateverthefuck.

Due to skin colour being the only salient thing that was 'seen' in the context of a possible crime, plenty of people will have their racist inferences bolstered.

If you think racism sucks – it does, doesn't it? – why give ammunition to the racists, closet or otherwise?

People will be racist regardless of what ammunition they choose to see/use or not. I'm not going to try and measure what I say in order to preempt whether or not those listening are racist. And whether or not they 'might' use this ammunition to fuel their own racist tendencies. I'm not responsible for how others 'use' what I say.

However, for example, if at the point of mentioning that the intruder had a shaved head 1 gold stud earring and was black someone listening made a racist or dodgy comment then they'd get pulled up on it. If they 'thought' something racist or the man's colour wasn't mentioned and they thought 'I bet he was black' even though say for arguments sake in this instance the intruder was white.Then that's their sad little world and they're welcome to it.