An Indian-American photographer, whose work has been featured in Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, says he is “mortified” after a woman allegedly harassed his family on a United Airlines flight in late November.
Pervez Taufiq shared a video of the woman on his Instagram account, which has 145,000 followers, on Nov. 24. In the video, the woman can be heard calling Taufiq slurs related to his ethnicity.
“Your family is Indian. You have no respect. You have no rules,” she said, as seen in the video, while taking a shuttle with Taufiq and other passengers after the plane landed in Los Angeles. “You think you can push everyone. Push, push, push.”
In the caption of the video, Taufiq alleged that the woman had been “harassing” his son on the flight and “asking him if he was Indian and making comments.”
After deboarding and getting onto a transfer bus, Taufiq also alleged the woman told his son to “shut up.” Taufiq told the woman not to speak to his son that way, then the woman’s husband “got in my face,” he said, “trying to tell me not to speak to his wife.”
This video contains explicit language.
United airlines staff reportedly ended up intervening, The Independent notes. The video showed a staff member stepping onto the shuttle to speak to the woman. The woman eventually gets off the shuttle and speaks to other airline and airport staff. A passenger can be seen coming forward in the video, telling staff that Taufiq and his family did nothing wrong.
Taufiq, his wife, Nicole, and their three children are from Massachusetts, CBS News reported. Both Taufiq and his wife are wedding photographers who travel often for work.
They were flying to California after a trip to Cancun, according to the New York Post. He told the publication that his 11-year-old son was seated in the same row as the woman during the flight, several seats away from Taufiq and the rest of the family. After the flight, Taufiq alleged, he found out the woman had been asking his son inappropriate questions related to his race.
“That’s brutal to have someone tell you that because you don’t look like them, you’re not American,” he said, per CBS News.
His wife told CBS News that despite the family visiting 34 countries, she has never had to explain what racism is to her children. That changed last week for her 11-year-old son.
“He’s dealing with it in different ways. Like, everyday is a new question, a new angle. I think he’s still trying to process this whole experience in his own way, and I think that’s just hard to watch,” she said, CBS reported.
At the end of the video, Taufiq said that United handled the situation “like a champ.”
Taufiq said he was “thankful” that United Airlines ended up removing the woman from the bus after other passengers stood up for him in his Instagram caption. He added that he was “blown away these types of people still exist.”
It is not known if the woman was arrested, however, Taufiq said at the end of the video that the airline was going to put her on a no-fly list.
United Airlines told the National Post that they did not have a comment about the incident.
Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.