Monday, June 04, 2012

UK jails woman for racist rant

AP reports:
LONDON—A British judge has jailed a woman whose racist tirade toward fellow subway riders went viral on YouTube.
Jacqueline Woodhouse, 42, boarded the subway drunk on the evening of Jan. 23 and began berating her fellow passengers with a profanity-filled, racist verbal assault.
A seven-minute video of it was uploaded to YouTube and viewed more than 200,000 times.
Judge Michael Snow sentenced Woodhouse to 21 weeks in jail on Tuesday in London, saying that anyone hearing her "grossly offensive" language would feel a "deep sense of shame."
Woodhouse — who had turned herself in to police after the footage began to circulate — had pleaded guilty to one count of causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by using threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior.
She is sitting on a seat holding a 3yo boy the whole time. I bet they threatened to take her boy away, unless she pled guilty and attended re-education classes.

The most offensive things she says are, "F*** you", "Go back to where you come from", and "You ain't British, you're black."

It is obvious from the video that no one is threatened by her in the slightest. It is just a typical drunk argument. It is also not harassment or abuse. The others were arguing with her. She is just an obnoxious passenger, that's all.

I am wondering how the judge could say that any listener would feel a "deep sense of shame." Really? Maybe I am an insensitive clod, but I did not feel any shame listening to the video and I do not that the other passengers did either, whether they were black, Polish, British immigrants, or whatever. They did disagree, but there is no law saying that you have to keep your opinions to yourself on the subway, as far as I know. (BTW, I call it a "subway", but I think they call it a tram or a tube over there.)

The video is not too offensive for Google. For an example of what is too offensive in California, Google censored a video that opposes teaching homosexuality in the California schools. I did not get what was so offensive about that. You can watch it here. The most offensive thing I saw was that Harvey Milk liked teenaged boys, but that is what his biography says, so I don't see why that should be a problem.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, clod, you're once again ignoring the facts of the case to promote your cockamamie agenda. the charge was "causing racially aggravated harassment, alarm or distress by using threatening, abusive *or* insulting words or behavior." OK, she may not be threatening, but can you honestly say she wasn't abusive *or* insulting? Clearly you haven't thought this one through.

George said...

If you agree with this court action, then please explain. Do you think that it ought to be illegal to have a political argument in a subway? Why would listeners feel shame? What exactly did she say that was so abusive?