Filed under: News, Race and Civil Rights
When Mohammed Ali (pictured left) spotted cameraman Marcel Bailey outside of an Oxford courtroom preparing to film footage of a woman that his brother, Feizal Ali, allegedly raped, he intimidated Bailey to the point of needing counseling.What could Ali have said to send Bailey into a mental tailspin?
He called him a "slave."
According to Bailey, who has been a cameraman with the BBC for two years, Ali stepped in front of his camera and immediately became racially abusive.
"He said I was a slave when I told him I was there to do my job," said Bailey.
"He said that I was a slave because white people saw me as a slave and I had no backbone, or something to that effect. He carried on saying stuff like black people will never be respected by white people because you have no backbone and you will always be slaves."
District Judge Tim Pattinson found Ali guilty of a "racially aggravated public order offense," and though he ordered him to pay £130 pounds ($209.41), he verbally expressed his frustration at not being able to do more.
"You behaved in an appalling way toward a BBC cameraman, you threatened him and abused him," the judge said.
"This BBC cameraman, Mr. Bailey, was doing no more than his job in a professional manner. What you did was cause a great amount of distress to this man and it has had long-term consequences."
"It is March now," Pattinson continues, "and he still reflects on it and has counseling for what you did in September." As Ali shook his head, laughed and criticized the judge's decision, Pattinson threatened to hold him in contempt of court.
Bailey, either sheltered from the harsh reality of racial hatred or experienced in the art of feigning victimization, claims he was "extremely shocked, horrified and scared."
"I didn't know how to respond," he said. "The only retaliation I could gather was me walking away, looking down."
As Bailey continued speaking, he seems to remember more racial slurs that he "believes" Ali hurled at him. Ranging from "ni***r" to telling him to "go back to the plantation," the cameraman claims that he can't remember exactly what was said because he was so traumatized.
Ali, who is unemployed, disputes Bailey's accusations, claiming that it was he who suffered the emotional abuse.
"He said, 'Get out of the way, what the f*ck do you think you're doing?' " said Ali.
"He was very aggressive, he was a lot bigger than me, I felt quite threatened and I think he said something like 'Muslims are all bad people,' apart from the fact he asked me to move, and I didn't recognize his authority."
As cliché as it is, Ali claims that he can't be racist, because he has "loads of black friends," and his son was "half white." He repeatedly asked the judge, "why do you treat us differently," then left the courtroom shouting "Islam forever."
First and foremost, I don't believe for one moment that Bailey is so distraught over being called a slave that he has been forced to seek counseling. Maybe, if he could remember exactly what was said to him, instead of throwing out every racially insightful statement he could think of other than "black people love fried chicken and watermelon," he might be believable.
Ali, on the other hand, seems to be pulling his race card as well. Evoking anti-Muslim sentiment in a society that has been conditioned to not fall victim to Islamophobia was a stroke of brilliance that may have worked if his plot had not been overshadowed by his ignorance.
I was taught that there are three sides to every story: this side, that side and the truth.
Both of these men are guilty of crying victim of racism and attempting to manipulate the emotions of the judge and media for their own personal agendas. The irony of a Muslim saying the judicial system is "treating him differently" than a black man is not lost on me; however, that should not translate into two adult men using their race and religion to garner sympathy.
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