[Grammar] Just because you see a black man driving in a nice car does not mean it's stolen.

[sky3120]

(When the agent got arrested by the cops in Man in Black 3)

A : Just because you see a black man driving in a nice car does not mean it's stolen.

I saw the sentence in the movie. I think that in this case, driving in a nice car modifies a black man as an adjective like "black" modifies "man" in "a black man". What do you experts think about it?

Thank you so much as usual.

 

[MartinEnglish]

It's elipsis - "Just because you see a black man (WHO IS) driving in a nice car...etc

I feel racist just writing that - could you not find a better example?

 

[Chicken Sandwich]

NOT A TEACHER

I feel racist just writing that - could you not find a better example?

I don't want to derail this thread, but since you bring this up, I feel compelled to respond.

You may feel that way, but the purpose of sky3120's question was to inquire about the linguistic aspects of this sentence, which is what this forum is for. The bottom line is that it's a movie quote and it should be treated as such.

 

[sky3120]

Thank you and I did not mean to insult anyone but I am sorry. Also I agree with your way of interpretation but is it possible to interpret the sentence similarly to the way of interpreting these sentence, 'I saw her dancing', 'I saw Tom driving', etc? I think although the appearance is the same, we should interpret those sentences differently considering context. What do you think? Thank you so much.