‘Can You Delete the Video?’: White Man Tries to Film Black Mom Nursing Baby, Gets Thrown Off Bus By Driver and Passengers
Anyone who photographs or films a woman breastfeeding without consent in the UK faces being put on a sex offender register and jailed for up to two years. But that didn’t stop one older white man from brazenly filming a Black mother and her infant daughter while on a public bus near Manchester.
For any new mother, an outing with a newborn can be stressful, but having your breasts photographed mid-feed takes the stress to a whole new level.
A series of TikTok videos posted by the outraged woman that have now gone viral show the offender ignoring her pleas to delete the video.
“Can you delete the video, please? Can you delete the video?” the mom asks.
The man flips her the bird and tells a Black male passenger to “f**k off” when he tries to intervene. Despite several strangers coming to her defense, the obstinate senior refused to delete his illegal video, even when confronted by the bus driver, who stopped the bus and pulled over to investigate the ruckus.
In a bit of sweet justice, the man was eventually kicked off the bus and followed by two helpful young men when he tried to make a run for it. His location was forwarded to the police.
“I was on the bus going home then my baby started crying. I pick her up to breastfeed her, then someone called my attention that a man was videoing me and zooming on my bre$t,” read the caption on @amormimi2’s first video. Viewers can see the offender dismissively waving off a Black man who stepped up to help, telling the good Samaritan to “f**k off. You don’t get to see my phone.”
A second video picks up moments later, after the man allegedly said he had the right to film the young Black mother because he is white. “So you think you have the right to film me while I’m breastfeeding my baby. That’s so sad, mate,” the mother exclaimed, all while juggling her baby and her phone to film the bizarre encounter. “Seriously, that’s really sad, and I think about [posting] you.”
“I don’t care,” he shot back before giving the mom the middle finger and telling her to “f**k off.” There’s always the possibility that a situation like this would be ignored or laughed off by strangers, but several passengers on UK Bus 219 jumped in to express their outrage.
“Thank God for these people on the bus. I have hope in humanity,” one wrote in the comments section of @amormimi2’s video.
Unfortunately, it took extreme action for this particular voyeur to stop. In the third video, the bus driver suddenly appeared on camera and heatedly confronted the man, blocking him from exiting while threatening to call the police.
“Why would you do certain things?” he repeatedly demanded as the white man made a sudden move toward him and yelled “f**k off!” yet again.
According to the audio, the passengers said the man cited his race as an excuse for violating the mother’s privacy, but he denied it in the video.
“He said because he’s English, he has the right to do it,” the mom can be heard saying.
“You’re letting down our side,” quipped the white bus driver as he checked the phone’s camera roll to ensure the video was deleted. “Manchester bus drivers don’t mess about… fair play to all the good people on the bus,” read one of hundreds of comments on TikTok. “People who find breastfeeding odd really concern me! They have sexualized breastfeeding, it’s terrible,” wrote another.
In the U.S., a mother’s right to breastfeed anywhere in public or private is protected under the law. And thanks to Obama’s 2010 Affordable Care Act, every employer must provide a “reasonable break time for an employee to express breast milk.” But when it comes to women being photographed without their consent while breastfeeding, that’s another story. Unfortunately, there’s no federal law prohibiting it.