A 27-year-old black was racially abused by a white man on the London Underground after he made monkey noises and to rub more salt to the wound, monkey gestures at him in the full glare of other passengers. According to The Evening Standard, the incident occurred on the Northern line near Kennington station on Friday.
The victim, Mohammed Dirir, who later shared a video of the incident on his Instagram page, described how a group of men entered the train with one of them making monkey chants and movements unprovoked.
He added that he realized he was the target when he made eye contact with the man and he gave him a thumbs up.
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“One of the guys, he gave me a thumbs up and when he gave me the thumbs up basically I’ve realised that [he] wanted me, that I was being targeted,” Dirir said.
“I asked him ‘are you good mate’ and as you can clearly see in the video he’s said to his friend ‘oh he’s dumb he didn’t get it’.”
Dirir said he subsequently asked the man mimic the monkey gestures again so he could share on Instagram to which he surprisingly complied and even got so aggressively close to him in the video while in the act.
Refusing to confront the white man, Dirir said it would rather be a case of “responding hate with hate, (adding) fuel to the fire.”
“I was raised to show love rather than hate. I had to set an example, I had to show class,” he said.
“We need to stop the hatred around the world, it’s nonsense, we’re all the same, we’re one colour, one love there’s no difference when it comes to colours.
“But ignorant people like that need to be guided and I pray to God that he guides them.”
The Director of Policing for Transport for London (TfL), Siwan Hayward, in statement, condemned the incident.
“We do not tolerate any acts of racist behaviour on our network and take all reports like this extremely seriously. We urge anyone who witnessed this shocking and appalling incident to contact the BTP and make an official report.”
The British Transport Police also confirmed the incident and called for leads to apprehend the perpetrator.
Dirir was, however, not too shaken by the insensitive act as the video he shared on Instagram had an optimistic and motivational caption while also raising awareness on racism.
“Racism is still alive, to all my people of color around the world stay strong! Let’s end this epidemic once & for all!,” he wrote.
Take a look at the video below:
