Picture: Uditi Shane and Paul O'Connor/Facebook
Picture: Uditi Shane and Paul O'Connor/Facebook

Reports of racist attacks have increased in recent weeks. Many people when witnessing this sort of thing can feel frozen to the ground, unsure how to react and whether or not to intervene.

But now, a Facebook post offering advice on what to do in that very situation has been shared thousands of times.

The original post came from Uditi Shane, who included the words alongside a link to a video of racist abuse which took place on a tram in Manchester. Shane's advice was plain and simple.

NEVER engage the perpetrator. He (and it is usually he) is looking for confrontation. Instead speak to the person he is abusing. Say hello. Introduce yourself. Shake his or her hand. And just stand with them. Keep talking.

Shane went on to say more about how effective this can be, and how important it is to reassure the person that the abuser is harassing.

Form a group of people with and around them if you can. Don’t tell them they are not alone. Just don’t let them be alone. I speak from experience. Once, I encountered a young girl wearing a hijab being abused as a terrorist by a drunk man on a train. I just went and sat beside her and started a conversation with her. After a while, the dude lost interest.

The post was then copied by Paul O'Connor, who credited Uditi. O'Connor's post was shared over 28,000 times. This popularity was down to the quality of advice, but it also might have been because O'Connor had added his own heading:

Good advice on what to do when you find yourself near a racist mouthy tw*t who is spouting out their crap at some unfortunate person.

Catchy, no?

Here's the wonderful advice originally posted by Shane.

Picture: Uditi Shane/Facebook

The main take away from this advice is to engage with the person being abused, and ignore the abuser. The sort of person who is going to be racist in public, won't be talked down by your anti-racism. They're probably spoiling for an argument, so don't give them one.

And you can always report them to police too.

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