White man shouts 'go back to Lebanon' to Sikh-American girl

March 25, 2017 12:03

A Sikh-American girl was harassed on a subway train in New York when a white man, mistaking her to be from the Middle East, allegedly shouted "go back to Lebanon" and "you don't belong in this country," the latest in a series of hate crimes against people of South-Asian origin.

Rajpreet Heir was taking the subway train to a friend's birthday party in Manhattan this month when the white man began shouting at her, according to a report in the New York Times.

Heir recounted the ordeal in a video for a Times section called 'This Week in Hate', which highlights hate crimes and harassment around the country since the election of US President Donald Trump.

Heir said she was looking at her phone when the white man shouted at her saying, "Do you even know what a Marine looks like? Do you know what they have to see? What they do for this country? Because of people like you."

He told Heir he hoped she was sent "back to Lebanon" and using expletives said, "You don't belong in this country," before he left the subway.

Heir said as the man left the train, she saw a young white woman in the train staring at her "with tears in her eyes."

"What had just happened provided evidence of what I had sensed beneath the surface for a long time - racism that can turn violent and lately does," she said.

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