Yep, I'm betting that Penny would have been less forceful with a woman too. Most men are very well socialised to be less forceful with women. But I don't think so with a white man. I've been in a few fights in my time, and believe me, the last thing on my mind was the colour of the person who was trying to punch me on the face.

I don't think applying broad racial cliches to this individual case is very helpful.

Again, we're talking about a fairly extreme situation here. A man starts shouting about how he's going to kill people in an enclosed space where, at least when he started shouting, they couldn't escape.

I'm also the kind of person who has gotten involved several times. And strongly suspect I would have done here too. It would be the farthest thing from my intentions to kill anybody, but fights are unpredictable. Really, the tragedy here is that someone who was obviously unstable and in need of help was out on the streets.