Jeremy Fernandez took to Twitter to share his anger about racism in Australia. Picture:
Twitter.
ABC newsreader Jeremy Fernandez.
ABC News presenter Jeremy Fernandez has described the moment
he was kicked off a Sydney bus after enduring verbal racial taunts.
After boarding a State Transit bus to drop his daughter off at
preschool on Friday, Fernandez was the victim of racist abuse
from a woman in her mid-30s with two young children of her own.
He said he endured 15 minutes of racial abuse - where the woman
claimed she would drag Mr Fernandez off the bus if he didn't get
off. But then it was the bus driver who eventually kicked
Mr Fernandez off, claiming it was his fault for the altercation.
“The bus driver stopped the bus and yelled to the back of the
bus, ‘you, get off or move’,” Mr Fernandez told news.com.au.
"She said, 'there’s no way I'm getting off the bus, he's filthy, this
black paedophile'."
But the driver was in fact referring to Mr Fernandez.
"He turned to me and told me to get off or move." "I craned
my head down the aisle and I said, ‘ I'm not going anywhere,
I have a right to be on this bus and on this seat'. I didn't want
to cower because of my colour, I’m staying here on principle."
The bus driver - whom Mr Fernandez describes as of Southern
European descent - then asked, ‘What do you want me to do,
stop the bus?’
It was then that Mr Fernandez exited the bus, but not before
his own stoush with the driver.
“As I got off I spoke to the driver, ‘ I've spent 15 minutes
copping the most severe racial abuse and you’ve done absolutely
nothing’," Mr Fernandez said.
"How can a migrant sit back as the captain of the bus when physical
threats are being made, when children are on the bus and not step in?
"He said, 'well, what are you going to do? Blame me for the abuse
are you?'
"I said, 'no, I’m not going to blame you, but you allowed it to happen'."
State Transit were this morning trying to get a hold of Mr Fernandez.
"State Transit has been in contact with the ABC to try to speak
with Jeremy about this incident and to get more details on where
this occurred and on what bus," a State Transit spokesperson told
news.com.au.
"Once we have those details we can assist him and the police, if
necessary, with any investigation. We obviously expect all
passengers to behave in a respectful manner to each other.
"We also expect our drivers to be courteous and respectful to
passengers. This is conveyed in bus driver training."
"If an incident of anti-social behaviour such as this occurs, the
bus driver may try to intervene and ask the passenger to leave
the bus. If required, the driver can contact a supervisor via radio
and organise for police to meet the bus."
Mr Fernandez said he told the driver he would not move because
he felt he had done nothing wrong, that the woman was obviously
unstable and that he deserved to be on the bus.
“He said, ‘mate, it’s your fault'.”
It all began when the daughter of the woman started "flicking
and pinching" Mr Fernandez's daughter on the arm and head.
"It was completely harmless stuff, but over time my daughter
started getting a bit uncomfortable, just recoiling away from the
pinching," he said. "She was visibly becoming quite uncomfortable, I put my arm around her."
It was then that the girl turned her attention to Mr Fernandez.
"I said darling that was my arm you just flicked."
It was at this point that the mother, who had been on her mobile
phone, turned around and asked what happened.
Mr Fernandez then explained the situation, which the woman
refuted, instead hurling accusations of paedophilia.
"She launched into this tirade that just came straight out of a
fiery belly, launched into telling me to turn the other way and
not talk to her.
"She said to me, ‘do you like five year olds do you? Because
you've been touching her'.
"She started telling the bus her daughter had been touched by a
black paedophile. She told me to go back to my own country, that
I should move or get off the bus, as she was holding her fist up to
my face."
Mr Fernandez said the woman proceeded to take her phone out
and take photographs of him, asking her children which relatives
should they round up and that they would come find me and teach
me a lesson.
Fernandez went into considerable detail through his Twitter account
this morning to describe the abuse he called his "own Rosa Parks
moment".
"I thought I could move and then I had a flashback to a very
famous case of a woman on a bus in the US, a black woman,
who was told to give up her seat," he told ABC radio.
"And I thought no, I'm having my own Rosa Parks moment, I'm
not moving from this seat because it has turned into a racial issue.
"I said I'm not going anywhere, I've just been called a black c-word, I am not going anywhere, I've not done anything wrong, I have a right to sit here, I'm going to stay here."
According to the ABC News journalist, his two-year-old daughter
who was travelling with him, heard the racist rant in full and had to
"hold his nerve" for the sake of the young girl.
"All I could think at the time was just hold your nerve, my little
girl is with me, she needs to see a strong father right now," he said.
He described having to restrain himself from punching the woman
in the face because he knew that "would not be the smart, nor the
right thing to do", instead, he had to "just sit here and cop it".
Racial abuse is "not uncommon" to Mr Fernandez, but he told
news.com.au he felt the need to tweet today's experience "to put
this on the record".
"People cop abuse like this all the time, they're not articulate like
me, they don't feel empowered to stand up. I wanted to put it on
the record for that reason and highlight it's still a problem.
"It’s appalling in so many ways, it's not about race, it's about
discrimination."
Fernandez's tweets combined had garnered more than 1500
retweets at the time of writing and an extra 500 followers since
the incident.
Rosa Parks was an African-American civil rights activist famous
for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in the coloured section to a
white passenger in 1955 on driver's orders.
Her defiance sparked the civil rights movement in the US and lead
to collaborations with fellow activists of time, including Martin
Luther King, Jr and Edgar Nixon. This week marks the 100th
anniversary of her birth.
Fernandez's began his career in Perth after studying at Curtin
University and the WA Academy of Performing Arts.
He was a voice-over artist with Channel 7 before becoming a
producer for ABC radio in Albany.
If you saw the racist attack on Jeremy Fernandez, contact Matt
Young via Twitter @the_mattyoung
