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A video posted to YouTube yesterday, called “My Tram Experience,” shows a British woman going off on a two-and-half-minute racist rant to a crowded tram filled with shocked and outraged passengers. I don’t know what’s more disturbing: the fact that she is so incredibly offensive or the fact that she shouts out these racial slurs with a child sitting on her lap.
“You ain’t English – you’re black,” she tells one woman, then starts cursing at entire tram filled with passengers – many of them visible ethnic minorities. All the while, her child appears unfazed as he plays with a plastic action figure. When one passenger asks her to mind her language, pointing out that there are little kids on the tram, she shouts, “Go back to where you come from! Go back to fucking Nigrafrica. Just fucking go back!”
Another passenger intervenes, saying, “I am English, what have you got to say to me?” On and on it goes and, let me tell you, it is highly disturbing. I feel sick for the people who had to endure her tirade, and I mostly feel sad for her child.
Fortunately, more than 124,000 people have viewed the video since it went up on YouTube late Sunday, including the police, who have since arrested the 34-year-old woman on suspicious of a racially-aggravated offense. Police are investigating.
(Photo: Youtube.com)
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70 days ago
[...] shows 34-year-old British mother Emma West abusing fellow passengers with a two-and-a-half-minute racist rant as a small child sits quietly on her [...]
71 days ago
[...] strongly suspect from the adults in their lives. I recently watched one video where a mom of an infant went on a racial rant in public. If this mom says those kids of things in public imagine what she says on the privacy [...]
Go to You Tube and search “My Tram Experience in France”. Identical situation except a black man hurling insults and wanting to kill all white people. No one says anything to him, but sit quietly by like scared sheep. Many of the people commenting here on this site would probably be cheering him on for his “kill whitey” message. We white people are the most brainwashed fools on the planet. We cheer our own demise and defend those that hate us with” look at all that we have done to them in the past” excuses. Do you think that all other racial groups are as dis-united as we are? Absolutely not! You all do nothing but bring contempt upon yourselves from other racial groups when you take their side against one of your own. They see you as fools. And they are right! We will find out one day that our embracing the deception of multiculturalism and diversity will be our undoing.
She put herself in serious danger alone with her child. It’s amazing that she did not get assaulted with her in your face anger. She had racism for Polish, Blacks and people of darker skin. Wow – this could have turned out real bad for her. She did not even look around as to who was at her back. She iis delusional and I feel sorry for the child.
This poor lady is being propelled into the media and used as a political tool. What viewers don`t realise is that she was mentally unstable at the time having just experienced significant trauma in her life and had found refuge in alcohol while suffering from paranoid thoughts. She is not a racist person and has black friends. She is normally a responsible and loving mother who is now terrified because her family has received multiple death threats. We need to show some understanding here.
Did some KKK website link to this article or something?
I wonder if she is on medication and somehow stopped taking it? Or is she mentally ill? As a white person I’ve been called racist names and it is such a relief and I love it! All the so called political correctness feels much like a straightjacket it is so ridiculous. A person whoes ego is so delicate they allow something an ill or foolish woman has to say bother them, then that is their own problem I say. Everyone needs to relax about the multi cultural reality. Would it be any different for me if I went to a country where everyone is black/brown/grey/green? Not a chance, they would not be cutting me any slack. We are all in this culturally blended rat race together and so what if some of us get pissed off because it is bloody tiring dealing with so many freaking accents, religions, attitudes, cultures, wars, body odours and rituals on the GD train. Sometimes you just want to know what the frack someone is actually saying without having to burn calories to do so. That is all.
…..your comment is the most ignorant of any post here. You try to justify this woman’s actions and words by your stance against multiculturalism and or political correctness? You are a fool!!! No person should have to accept abuse from an idiot who feels that it is cool to sling racial slurs around, and if you really think that it is cool to say as you please, including racial slurs, then you should also think that it is cool to have your face bashed in, after you insult someone by calling him or her a n!gger!
So, Joey, does that mean you advocate violence as a way to solve issues with someone says something that you don’t like? If your wife said something insulting to someone, would you still say that she should “have her face bashed in?”
Come on. Let’s not go to extremes, here.
Wow. Just wow.
Why does this make me think of Baraka’s Dutchman?
She has said what most, if not all white people think and say behind closed doors.
The only difference is that the educated / enlightened ones know how to hide behide policies and procedures.
look around you, there are racists whereever you go.
It ios not in the nature of white people to accept anything different from themselves. PERIOD!!!
I was not surprised at the video, just surprised that someone managed to record this.
I AM VERY PROUD OF THE BLACKS IN THE TRAM FOR NOT RISING TO SUCH.
It was interesting to see the woman behind her give the black man a hug. A small sign of humanity. I am convinced that the woman doing the racist ranting was drunk. She sounded drunk and had no concern for her own physical safety. There are two things that saved her on that tram. One was the fact that she had a child on her lap. The other was the overall decency of the other passengers. You can see some of them restraining people who are about to attack her. What is the saddest thing in the entire video is the lack of surprise in the little boys face. It is almost like he is used to it.
The thing is as much as this woman’s behavior is shocking and highly offensive don’t you think the way she speaks, the slurring, the head twitches and unfinished sentences lead you to believe that the woman has a mental illness. Id like to know if they mention that later in the papers and also what happens to that poor child.
play her off Keyboard Cat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv-gpP71ET0
Hannah – it IS a tram so don’t jump to conclusions that you are right because where you’re from in the UK they don’t use them anymore.
Where i’m from that ugly bitch would catch a beating worse than rodney king.
Multiculturalism is the ethnic cleansing of all white countries. All this talk about ethnic minorites, we are the minority! when will whites wake up and vote into power a government that represents your people and not those that only care about appeasing ethnics.
The subway in the United States is not a place for ¨free-speech.¨ In a nutshell, you are trapped in the subway and can’t really walk away from whatever someone is saying, if you can’t walk away then it’s not protected.
I hope the police in the UK took notice that this woman seems to be under the heavy influence of alcohol or drugs while taking care of her child and I hope that counts towards the investigation and not really about the things that she said. Yes, it was hurtful, but that child´s well-being is more important than our feelings.
i feel sorry for her kid. she’s most likely brainwashing him with all that hate.
omg she makes me sick.doesnt she know what peace is. im so furious. she wasnt just racist to black people she even included brown people too.. its not nice because she judges people by there skin tone. its just wrong. if i was there i wouldve probably not control myself
she even badmouthed white polish people, which work shitty jobs just to make a living so that british single mothers on benefits can have a nice life. omg.
Here is a reply to the racist tram lady.
Enjoy the read and share the link.
currystainedchips.blogspot.com
Actually, her speech is protected in the US under the First Amendment. Unless what she says rises to the level of inciting violence she is free to say racists things. So, in the US, she can’t be punished by the Government for her racist tirade. She can and is, however, judged in light of her comments as all speech in the US is judged. Listening to her and watching her clearly communicates to everyone that she is an idiot, a racist, and that whatever views she is espousing are the wrong ones. I applaude those who responded to her and denounced her views. I applaude the fact no violence occurred. Free Speech is sometimes painful but in the end this woman probably helped convince a lot of people that racism is stupid, the exact opposite of what she intended.
It depends. The bus might not count as a *public* space in which case this kind of speech wouldn’t be protected. If it is a private line they have every right to tell her she can’t speak like that and if she refuses to desist or gives them more trouble she could go to jail for her *actions*. In addition, CPS might become involved in a case like this because she comes off as mentally disturbed and as someone who might not be able to properly care for her child. That wouldn’t be a constitutional violation.
That being said, Europe obviously has different rules regarding free speech so the point about what the US would or would not do is moot. I openly admit I don’t know enough about British Law to comment on the legality (or lack thereof) of this arrest. I can only say this woman is despicable.
You didn’t read the entire story. This is/was not in the United States. It was in the UK. UNLIKE the United States… United Kingdom citizens have a negative right to freedom of expression under the common law, which means you DO NOT have freedom to say what you wish in that manner.
The British constitution has no resemblance to the US constitution. In SOME European countries, she could be beheaded.
She’s from Britain. Don’t be so Amerocentric.
She isn’t IN the US, she is in the UK, so Amendment have nothing to do with it. (oh, and its a TUBE train, not a “tram”, we haven’t had trams here since I don’t know when). Oh, and we don’t have a “constitution”, we have STATUTE.
Her bahaviour is actually legislated against, and rightly so. The offence is created by section 5 of the Public Order Act 1986:
“(1) A person is guilty of an offence if he:
(a) uses threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or disorderly behaviour, or
(b) displays any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,
within the hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment, alarm or distress thereby.”
This offence has the following statutory defences:
(a) The defendant had no reason to believe that there was any person within hearing or sight who was likely to be alarmed or distressed by his action.
(b) The defendant was in a dwelling and had no reason to believe that his behaviour would be seen or heard by any person outside any dwelling.
(c) The conduct was reasonable.
AND it is teh aggravated offence “racially aggravated” as per the under the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, eg
Racially aggravated offences are offences where the offender shows or is driven by racial hostility. They are offences where:
At the time of committing the offence, or immediately before or after doing so, the offender demonstrates hostility towards the victim based on the victim’s membership (or presumed membership) of a racial group;
Or the offence is motivated (wholly or partly) by hostility towards members of a racial group based on their membership of that group.
and sorry for typos/errors in cut/paste. This kind of behaviour leaves me VERY angry and excusing it under “free speech” makes me angrier, and treating the UK like an extension of the US, well, there’s the cherry on top of the angry cake right there.
She would be protected under the First Amendment… if this incident happened in America. Unless I missed the memo saying that the United Kingdom is now the 51st state, the United States Constitution does not apply to British people living in Britain.
@andrea freedom of speech does not cover hate speech or hate crimes.
It kinda depends. It would actually have to qualify as hate speech, not sure where this sort of vitriol would fall in US law. After all, Westboro is allowed to preach all sorts of intolerance and it falls within protected speech rights. Hate speech would have to be proven to incite violence or fear of violence towards or from a protected group.
Hate speech is not the same as hate crimes. And in the US hate speech laws are unconstitutional unless it is obscenity, defamation, incitement to riot or “fighting words”. And there was a trial here in the US regarding some Jehovah’s witness where the courts determined that being offensive is not fighting words.
So if this were to happen in the US, it would be protected under the 1st Amendment. HOWEVER, there might be the argument that the tram (or I guess it would be subway here) is not really a public space and therefore not subjected to 1st Amendment rules. I’m not sure about that. And if a physical fight broke out (which I am pretty certain that here in the US it would have), it could be argued that she was inciting a riot and therefore would not be protected. But my point in my earlier post was more general than specific to this situation at any rate. And it was to point out that if we want free speech rights, then we have to be prepared to deal with what that would entail. And not let it be free speech, “as long as it doesn’t offend”. That’s a slippery slope.
Still this happened in England, and I have NO idea what the free speech laws are over there.
I have not seen the video but based on what the article says I would suspect this woman is mentally ill. I have a lot of experience in mental health and I would be really surprised if this woman was not suffering from a mental illness.
I think she’s drunk or on drugs. The way she kept moving her mouth when not speaking? Looks drunk to me. And I cannot really be sure because of the accent, but she sounds like she is slurring as well.
no-one should be spoken to like that,
bob telkman you’re a moron
Why, exactly, is he a moron?
What ever happened to freedom of speech? oh yeah I forgot, thats not something they have there over in europe. Who cares if she hurt some peoples precious little feelings, the right to express yourself trumps people pathetic “right” to not be offended.
@bobtelkman point taken. however this is not a case of being “offended” as much as it is a case of a woman who has taken liberties by expressing her culturally insensitive POV at the expense of another human being. Just to be clear, you are aware who the “victim” is in this little tirade, aren’t you?
nobody is arguing whether you have a “right” to express yourself, at issue is what that expression *does* to another human being. in other words, if your chosen words are hurtful and hateful, and diminish another human being in the process, there is no winner. in essence the expression of your so-called freedom has denied mine. and that’s not cool. like evah.
comprendez?
@xobolaji: I don’t know how it works in England, but the American freedom of speech means you cannot pick and choose. If you are going to say, sure you can say whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t “hurt” me, then it’s not freedom at all is it?
In other words, while I may disagree with her opinions, I will always defend her right to state them. And the other people arguing with her have just as much right to state their opinions as her. If we are going to start preventing people from freedom of speech because it is offensive, then we are not staying true to freedom of speech. Who will get to determine what is offensive and what isn’t?
When some “body” of regulation determines what can and cannot be said (regardless of the reason), it begets censorship and a police state.
Well, she was agressively yelling obscenities at innocent people, with several children present, including her own. That trumps “freedom of speech” here in the U.S. as well. She’d have been arrested in New York or Chicago or Fargo, ND just the same as “over in europe.”
She’s being charged with “suspicion of a racially aggravated public order offense” (http://www.cps.gov.uk/news/fact_sheets/racially_aggravated_offences/). In the UK there are restrictions to the Freedom of Speech such as incitement to racial hatred and incitement to religious hatred. I actually wish some of these restrictions are enforced here in the U.S.
She could be charged with disturbing the peace in the US, right? Because things really could have escalated.
whoa. can i just say that i TOTALLY respect you for not airing the video as much as i’m curious as to what the tirade actually sounds and looks like!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i47HoiM0Au8