Update (October 22, 2018): Delsie Gayle, a Black woman who suffered a racist tirade on a Ryanair flight, told ITV News she was left shocked and saddened by the experience.
A member of the Windrush generation, Gayle said she's never experienced the sort of racism seen in the video either at home in the U.K. or abroad.
"I travel a lot, and … nobody [has] ever said those words to me." Gayle said. "No one has ever said that word to me."
A widow in her 70s, who was the victim of a racist tirade on a Ryanair flight, has told ITV News how the incident has left her in shock and unable to eat and sleep. Read more: https://t.co/5JFhtGq7HT
pic.twitter.com/D0DqooV3em— ITV News (@itvnews) October 22, 2018
"I feel very low that he paid his fare to go on holiday and I paid mine, so why does he abuse me for that due to the color of my skin?" she asked.
Gayle says she's not heard from Ryanair following the incident. She added she fears the man and other racists will be emboldened, given he faced no immediate consequences for his vitriol.
"He do it with me and he gets away; he'll do it to somebody else," the 77-year-old said.
Original: Video footage of a white passenger on the European airline Ryanair going on a racist rant against an elderly Black woman has incited outrage across the internet.
Cell phone footage captured by London musician David Lawrence shows a white man calling his fellow passenger an "ugly Black bastard" and refusing to sit next to her. But to compound the disturbingly blatant racism seen in the video, the flight attendant ultimately accommodated his bigotry.
The woman, who has been identified by her daughter as Mrs. Gayle, is a Windrush generation Jamaican migrant who was returning from a holiday to mark the anniversary of her husband’s death. Her daughter took her on vacation in hopes of cheering her up.
“She’s been feeling really down and depressed, so I thought the trip would raise her spirits," Mrs. Gayle's daughter said. “The underlying reason behind the man’s abusive behavior comes down to the fact that my mum is a Black woman, and he didn’t want her sitting next to him – he says it in the video.”
The bigot has yet to be identified.
The FR9015 flight was scheduled to leave from Barcelona to London on Friday afternoon. The man's apparent frustration with the 77-year-old began when she took some time to get up from her aisle seat due to her arthritis, delaying his access to his window seat. Boo hoo. He threatened to push her into a different one if she remained next to him.
When she spoke up in her Jamaican accent, he replied, “Don’t talk to me in a f**king foreign language, you stupid, ugly cow.”
"If that was another situation where that was a Black man doing that to an elderly white woman, they would have escorted him off the flight," Lawrence said. "He probably would have ended up in a Spanish jail even today."
She was eventually asked to move, and she requested to sit by her daughter. The white man, of course, remained in his seat and assured anyone worried about his well being that he was “alright, now she’s gone.”
When Mrs. Gayle's 53-year-old daughter complained at the end of the flight, flight attendants allegedly denied hearing any racial slurs during the argument.
“This is Black History Month! My mother has worked her all of her life, paid her taxes and her dues,” her daughter said. “Why should she have to go through all of this?”
The airline released a statement Sunday:
Statement: We are aware of this video and have reported this matter to Essex Police
— Ryanair (@Ryanair) October 21, 2018
While the mother and daughter duo have said they will never fly Ryanair again, many are calling for a boycott of the airline altogether.
Ok boycott @Ryanair if they think it’s ok for a racist man to abuse an elderly black woman and remain on the plane. It’s 63 years since Rosa Parks said “No “ to sitting on the back of the Bus and we ain’t going back. https://t.co/IYczabgjMJ
— David Lammy (@DavidLammy) October 21, 2018
.@Ryanair have failed spectacularly here. Suspect the pressure to turn this aircraft around quickly and get it airborne meant that they have allowed this alleged offender to remain on the aircraft. He may now get away with it. https://t.co/zEnCtCcz17
— Karl Turner MP (@KarlTurnerMP) October 21, 2018
If this is @Ryanair, they need to explain how this man's disgusting racial abuse of the black lady in the seat next to him ends up with HER being asked to move. It is beyond beliefhttps://t.co/OhBfpXHaNG
— Jeremy Vine (@theJeremyVine) October 20, 2018
"I have witnessed firsthand this type of racism here in Europe for years, there was no way of us sharing that with the world," Lawrence said. "Here I am, now, in this time, where I do have technology, and I'm able to use it in order to show people proof."
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