First off, I want to thank you for your honest reaction.

As far as the incident that occurred... I don't even remember if I mentioned the guy's race to my friends when I told them what happened. I thought his behavior was bizarre, and that was what they were responding to. His BEHAVIOR, not his race.

They told me that muggers were using the tactic of asking for directions to get close to victims and in fact a couple of people told me that they'd been mugged by people who had done that exact thing! I thought this was remarkable, hence the story.

If he had been a tall blond man or a Sikh or a man with a limp, I would have described him in that way. Black is just a descriptor. Since it seems to be problematic, I will remove it. I want the focus of the story to be on what I considered a curious occurrence, not on anyone’s race.