Muslim Women Thank Conductor Who Told The Bigoted Train Passenger Harassing Them, 'Look At Me, Never Board My Train Again'
People are calling out the importance of speaking up when you see something inappropriate go down in public.
@mrwa043 / TikTok A Connecticut train conductor is being applauded online for the way he handled a bigoted train passenger who harassed two Muslim women in hijabs sitting near her.
When several other passengers reported the woman, the conductor sprang into action to put her in her place, and it has people calling for others to make a commitment to call out bigotry and hate crimes when they bear witness to them.
The two Muslim women began filming the bigoted train passenger across from them when she began making Islamophobic, racist and xenophobic comments.
The comments the Muslim women reported hearing are truly shocking, and though most of them occurred before they began filming, the vitriol the woman spewed at them on camera was not only vile, but at times downright bizarre, seeming to stem from many of the right-wing's favorite conspiracy theories
"It smells like feces eaters, doesn't it?" the woman is heard saying at the beginning of TikToker @mrwa043's video, before out of nowhere parroting accusations of pedophilia conservatives often level at LGBTQ people with increasing frequency.
It almost seems as if the woman ran out of insults and just began pulling out hate speech against other minority groups instead. But the woman who posted the video wrote in her caption that prior to beginning to film, the woman had hit all the usual Islamophobic and xenophobic bases.
"As she took her seat, she looked at us and started shouting how Obama’s to blame for letting foreign exchange students into this country," the woman wrote. She went on to comment on immigrants "overstaying their visas" and "blamed law enforcement for not checking up on the status of 'these illegal people,'"
The woman then began going off on a tangent about female genital mutilation and "the sexualization of children" and becoming "increasingly belligerent," which led the to "record her as we feared for our safety."
The train conductor then intervened, firmly warning the bigoted train passenger to never board his train again, which shut her up immediately.
The TikToker wrote in her caption that "several passengers defended us" and told the woman to stop making comments, with some even getting off the train to inform staff. None of it worked, though, until the conductor decided to deal with the situation.
"Get off the train," he firmly told her. She then refused and claimed she hadn't said a word to her seatmates, and the conductor was having none of it. "Every person in this car said that you were talking to them that way. You need to get off of the train."
When the woman continued refusing, the conductor leveled with her in a way that instantly changed her demeanor. "All right. Look at me," he said. "You will never ride my train again. I will look at you and tell you can't ride. Do you understand that?"
Photo: TikTok / @mrwa043
He went on to say, "I can't physically remove you, but I can stop you from getting on... Get off in Hartford and do not get back on my train ever again. You see me, you walk away. Okay?" The woman immediately shut her mouth and stared out the window in silence.
Hate crimes have been steadily rising for years in America and Islamophobia is on the rise worldwide, showing just how necessary the train conductor's response was.
Data from the FBI shows that 2021, the most recent year for which analysis is complete, saw hate crimes rise nearly 12% to the highest level since the Bureau began gathering data on hate crimes in the 1990s — and those numbers are almost certainly incomplete due to state-level underreporting.
When it comes to Islamophobia, specifically, however, things have actually been improving in recent years in the US — the Southern Poverty Law Center found small decreases in 2022 in Islamophobic sentiments and hate crimes, even as Islamophobia has been surging in Europe in countries such as France.
Even amidst that good news, the bigoted train passenger's vile verbal attacks and unhinged conspiracy theories show just how deep the problem of hate speech, bigotry and harassment against racial and religious minorities and the LGBTQ community goes, and how vitally necessary responses like this train conductor's are.
The bigoted train passenger's surprise at being checked for her behavior says it all — she genuinely seems to have thought she'd get away with it. As one TikTok commenter put it, "Someone find this man. You truly don’t come across ppl like this anymore willing to stand up and defend."
Let's hope his example helps that change, as soon as possible.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.