Twitter CORNERS Tube Racists

Some of the Whitey Power brains trust are yet to discover the power of social media in exposing their unreconstructed bigotry. Two of them will discover it when they rock up at their workplaces tomorrow. They may also find themselves assisting the Drug Squad with their enquiries. And the BTP, given their lapse occurred on a Northern Line Tube train.

Julia Ogiehor ...

As the Guardian has told, Julia Ogiehor, who is a Lib Dem Councillor representing Muswell Hill on Haringey Council, was racially abused and harassed during her journey home by two men who boarded at Camden Town. “One of them called me uneducated, and looked like I didn’t go to university”. She has a Masters degree in Law.

... and the two foolish Gammons sitting opposite her

But what also happened during that journey was that Ms Ogiehor took two photos of the men harassing her, the first of which proved most revealing. “According to these vile pigs, I am not English or from this country and I am uneducated. This was literally unprovoked. I was minding my business listening to my music and just going home. But they really wanted to know where I was from and did not accept it when I said London” she told.

Look at the man on the right, and his right hand. See how the fingers are gathered. Then look closer at the top of the hand. There is a tell-tale white speck. That looks like he’s got a little Charlie which he is about to snort. And as for the one on the left, well.

It was soon deduced by others on Twitter that the logo on his shirt was that of South Herts Golf Club. The number of times the club’s Twitter feed has been tagged in the past 36 hours suggests the club knows about the incident. What those Twitter detectives also discovered was that he features in several photos taken at the club.

And, without naming him, we know that he was - until the weekend - employed by Virgin Media as a senior design manager. The company is aware of the incident. Ms Ogiehor, who found four of her fellow Tube passengers rallying round as the harassment unfolded, appeared surprised at the swift detective work. She was certainly grateful for it.

“Wow Twitterverse, you did your thing. Thank you for the deluge of supportive messages and the great detective work! The one positive from this is show of support and agreement that this type of thing is despicable and unacceptable in our society … From the show of support on the tube, that gave me confidence to stand up for myself, to the overwhelming support on Twitter, the message is clear: bigotry and racism is not welcome here”.

Dead right it isn’t. The sad thing is that rather a lot of people feel that it is OK to behave like that towards others, purely because of their skin colour, instead of doing as Ms Ogiehor does, celebrating that diversity. As she also saiid, “Anyway, am off to the launch of #WindrushDay2019 in Haringey to celebrate the richness that migrants bring to our city and country”. An enrichment that has been going on for hundreds of years.

All of which means someone is going to get an unexpected surprise when they rock up at their workplace tomorrow morning. And that someone won’t be Julia Ogiehor.

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