 "A woman went viral for her racist rant against an Indian American family. Instagram/ptaufiqphotography")
An Indian American man, who along with his family was subjected to a racist attack from a fellow United Airlines passenger, is mulling to press charges. A video shared by Pervez Taufiq, a 50-year-old wedding photographer from Massachusetts, showed a woman making racist remarks against him.
She can be heard calling Taufiq and his family “not American" in the clip that went viral on social media recently. The video, posted on November 24, has sparked huge outrage toward the woman.
Let’s take a look at what happened.
Indian American family face racist abuse
Pervez Taufiq was travelling from Mexico’s Cancun to Los Angeles, United States, with his wife and three young children when they were subjected to a racist rant by a fellow passenger on a United Airlines shuttle bus last month.
“Your family is from India. You have no respect, you have no rules, you think you can push everyone, push, push, push,” the woman can be heard in the video shared by Taufiq on his Instagram.
“That’s what you think you are. You guys are f****** crazy.”
As per an Independent report, the incident began on the flight itself when Taufiq’s 11-year-old son was seated in the same row as the woman.
“She was making comments to him on the flight,” Taufiq told Independent. “She was saying, ‘Are you Indian?’ He’s 11, so he was like, ‘Yeah, I’m Indian.’”
Taufiq said the woman went on to ask his son if he was from New Delhi, to which his son replied: “No, my family’s from Bombay”.
“Then she said, ‘Oh, I gotta talk to your parents.’”
According to Taufiq, he and his family ran into the woman after the plane landed and they boarded the shuttle bus on the tarmac.
The photographer said that he started recording the video when the woman told his other son, who is four-year-old, to “shut up.”
“She’s yelling at him, the four-year-old, and says ‘shut up, just shut up’. And I snapped, and I said, ‘don’t you ever speak to my son that way. You have no right’”, he was quoted as saying by CBS News.
Speaking to Independent, Taufiq said this is when the woman’s husband got up and “literally got into my face, as if he’s going to hit me”.
The video posted by the photographer starts after this and the woman can be seen flashing her middle fingers at the family. She can be heard yelling racist slurs at Taufiq and his family, using derogatory terms like “tandoori” and “stinky” for them. “I’m going to record your f****** tandoori a**,” she said in the clip taking out her phone.
At one point, Taufiq says he is American, but the woman hurls back, “You are not American…You are from…India.”
“That’s brutal to have someone tell you that because you don’t look like them, you’re not American,” Taufiq told WBZ-TV.
The video shows United Airlines staff later intervening. As per CBS News, Taufiq said the airline officials asked his family if they would like to leave the bus, but he asked them to remove the woman.
The clip shows the woman getting off the bus to talk to staff members and as per Taufiq, she did not return.
“She was incredibly, incredibly abusive,” Taufiq said in the video. “Her husband got in my face … United handled [it] like a champ and basically is going to put her on the no-fly list,” he told Independent.
It is not yet confirmed whether the woman has been placed on a no-fly list.
Pervez Taufiq to press charges
Pervez Taufiq has decided to file a police report after getting to know the attacker’s identity, reported NBC News. “What was most disappointing is that there’s no level of contrition, no level of remorse,” he said.
“We’re going to press charges…We’re heavily considering pushing it forward. We have legal people who have consulted with us and told us as much that it would be the smart move and to not let this just die into the night,” Taufiq told PTI in an interview recently.
According to Taufiq, the woman has been identified as Arlene Consuela, whose name is of Mexican descent. He said this is the “irony of it all” that “one immigrant is telling another immigrant that they are not American.”
Expressing gratitude to the man who eventually spoke up for his family on the bus, Taufiq said, “I’m so grateful for that one gentleman who did stand by us. But I wish there were more. And going forward, I’m going to make a personal note – if I see something like this, I’m going to personally get involved. I won’t let them (be) isolated.”
He said that the fact that no one on the bus supported his family when they were being racially harassed “was jarring to us”, reported PTI.
Taufiq told NBC News that he felt sorry for the woman but would go on to press charges as she did not seem remorseful. He said he wanted to make it clear that her behaviour was not acceptable.
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Woman blames Indian American family
In an interview with LA Fox News affiliate Fox 11 last week, the woman claimed she was provoked by Taufiq and his wife.
She attributed her behaviour to a previous brain injury.
“Most people know me as a very kind, calm person, but since the brain injury I get agitated very easily,” she said.
The woman also accused the photographer of verbally attacking her first by using a derogatory term for white people.
Taufiq has denied using any hateful terms.
With inputs from agencies