- Saturday, April 20, 2024
By: Shubham Ghosh
An 11-year-old Australian boy has won praise for intervening after an Indian-origin bus driver on a trip from Swansea to Newcastle, located north of the New South Wales Central Coast, faced racial abuse from a woman passenger.
According to 9 News, Brock Keena, who was sitting on the front seat of a bus driven by Sanjay Patel, comforted the latter who was shaken after the woman, who got into the bus with a small child, started screaming about how she thought somebody was smoking on board.
The incident happened in April.
The woman even asked Patel whether he came from Africa and asked him to go back.
“She got to her stop, got off and as she got off she said… ‘Why don’t you go back to where you came from, Africa?'” Patel was quoted as saying by 9 News.
He said the boy came up to me a few stops later and comforted him saying, “You shouldn’t be treated like that, I hope you’re OK.”
Patel also said that nobody said that to him whenever he has been racially abused in Australia, where he went as a refugee when he was around Brock’s age. He has spent most of his life in Western Sydney.
Transport for New South Wales shared a CCTV footage of the incident, showing Brock talking to Patel and offering him a handshake.
Brock told the news outlet that the interaction with Patel saw a special friendship.
“I just went up and asked him how he was feeling, because I felt bad about the way he was being treated,” he was quoted as saying.
“He didn’t deserve anything like that.”
Brock’s mother Melissa and father Adam were proud for their son and said it was beautiful to hear him take a stand and check with the bus driver.
Local bus drivers and Brock’s school also praised the boy and hoped his act would set up an example for others to follow.
New south Wales premier Chris Minns also praised Brock. He said in a tweet along with a clip of the incident, “This sort of behaviour is never ok, but I’m so glad Brock was there. Showing everyone how far a little kindness can go in turning someone’s day around.”
A bus driver from Newcastle was racially abused and shaken, until 11yr old Brock stepped in.
This sort of behaviour is never ok, but I'm so glad Brock was there.
Showing everyone how far a little kindness can go in turning someone's day around. pic.twitter.com/1fsG40mfUd
— Chris Minns (@ChrisMinnsMP) April 27, 2023
Transport for New South Wales said such incidents are not isolated with several hundred of cases of drivers facing abuses reported across the Australian state’s bus network over the last one year.
Mark Hutchings, acting chief operating officer at Transport for New South Wales, said the government department was looking to take more matters to the law-keepers. He said such incidents should not happen once and no one should be racially vilified for just trying to do their job, the 9 News report added.
