A Muslim mother was left reeling after witnessing a woman spit in the face of her young son after the perpetrator had earlier racially abused her and her five children when out at the Trafford Centre in Manchester on November 10.
The woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, remained calm in the face of a torrent of unprovoked racial abuse from a woman described as being white and middle-aged, and with a young child, had singled out the family for their racial and religious identity. She shouted, ‘black scumbag,’ ‘people like you shouldn’t be here,’ and ‘look at you with that thing on,’ which was a reference to her headscarf.
Having remained calm, the mother took her children to other shops, determined to carry on their day. The perpetrator soon followed the family, shouting more abuse before spitting in the face of the woman’s young son. Before the assault took place, the mother calmly asked her, ‘why are you shouting at my child?’.
The mother then screamed for help given the populated location of the incident and even approached a security guard at a nearby shop but the response, was, in the words of the woman, slow or non-existent.
Once the police had arrived to take a statement, the perpetrator had left the premises or entered a much larger shop, and was untraceable at the point of the report.
The racial abuse has traumatised her children, who, given their respective young ages, had yet to conceptualise the idea of race. She described her children as ‘innocent’ to such issues before the incident took place. Now they question what happened on that day.
Tell MAMA is liaising with Greater Manchester Police on her behalf and will raise a complaint with the Trafford Centre.
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