IT was something of an irony that on Monday as the front page of this newspaper declared ‘Race-hate crime “massively under-reported” in Jersey’, the national media was leading on a story about a pensioner being racially abused on a Ryanair flight.
The national story centered on a video that has been watched millions of times and shows a man calling the elderly black woman in the plane seat next to him names referring to the colour of her skin and shouting ‘don’t talk to me in a foreign language you stupid ugly cow’.
It was recorded by a fellow passenger on 19 October on Ryanair flight FR015 from Barcelona to London Stansted and then posted on social media.
The airline itself has faced criticism for failing to ‘deplane the alleged racist offender’, with concerns raised that as the aircraft was allowed to leave Spain with him onboard it was unlikely he would be prosecuted.
Authorities in the UK, however, have confirmed that they are investigating the matter.
It is a sad indictment of today’s society that this kind of thing still goes on and in such an aggressive, public and brazen manner and that those around were unable – or chose not – to do anything about it.
In fact, the actions of the man holding the camera have perhaps been the most impactful, and his decision to post it online shows both the power of social media but also the downside of the smartphone generation – we are quick to hit record but not necessarily to help our fellow man or woman there and then with words and actions.
A few days after the incident the woman, Delsie Gayle, spoke out about the experience and said it had left her stunned and depressed.
And of the other passengers who did not intervene she said: ‘And because I’m black, I’m sad to say that they didn’t want to get involved with me.’
Meanwhile in Jersey, 34-year-old mother of two Wioleta Barker, who was born in Poland, spoke out about her experience of ‘disgusting’ levels of racist discrimination in Jersey.
Some of her experiences include vicious verbal attacks citing her nationality, like the man in a van the other week who hurled racist abuse at her after a near miss between their cars.
Other experiences are less obvious, but Wioleta still feels discriminated against because of where she comes from, even down to the way people react when they hear her ‘foreign’ accent.
That anyone in our community is made to feel this way is simply unacceptable. In so many ways Jersey is a loving, caring and welcoming society that I’m proud to be a part of.
But there are still scarily high levels of prejudice, especially towards our minority communities.
In a recent interview Deputy Carina Alves – the Island’s first Portuguese States Member – made a point of saying that despite many of the Portuguese community now being second and third generation, they are still looked down upon by some people.
It was sad that she had to point out that not all Portuguese people work on farms or clean for a living – not that there is anything wrong with that whatever your nationality – and that there are some ‘highly qualified’ members of the community, including, she said, dentists and nurses.
No matter what their background or whether they chose to describe themselves as Jersey, Portuguese, Madeiran, both, we are all part of the same wider community and no one should ever be made to feel any less so, especially because of where they or even their families come from.
Jersey was slow to introduce antidiscrimination legislation, but race was the first characteristic to be added.
And it is not good enough that where it does still occur it is being so underreported.
We all must start taking this seriously, including those of us who simply have never had any reason to think that Jersey has a problem with racism.
There’s practical things we can all do too. We can engage with the government consultation due to be launched soon about whether specific hate crime legislation is required in Jersey.
We can report hate crime, of all kinds, and encourage others to do the same.
Children must be taught about hate crime and the many positive messages about other cultures and nationalities, not just by schools but at home by parents too.
And we all need to be that bit braver and stand up for each other when required.
It’s not easy, and sometimes it means putting yourself in the firing line.
But ultimately we’d want others to step up if we were in that position, so we should too.
