After a drunk racist man screamed slurs on the New York City subway, he was
thrown off the train after getting a face-full of hot soup. Hi, I'm Adam
Bozarth and welcome back to What's Trending. Be sure to LIKE and SUBSCRIBE
for more of what's going viral around the web. On Saturday, a man drinking a Lime-
a-rita while riding the subway started using racial slurs, shouting them at a
group of teenagers, and then he just kept ranting. Joshua R. Pyne, who shot the
video, tells Gothamist that after the man had a "spat about personal space" with a
group of young black man, he shouted "stupid [n-word]" at the group as they got
off the train. And at that point, Josh started filming.
You see, you can tell he
went to NYU Law because he's drinking on the Subway, which is totally illegal. And
in true New York fashion, everybody gave this loudmouth bigot a chance to shut up,
which he declined.
The passengers did their best to ice the man out, one man
literally blocking the guy's face as dumb words fell out of it.
I see. So, this "legal scholar" thinks that the First Amendment gives him the right
to scream racist slurs in public, but he also thinks it's close-minded to be
offended when a drunk screams racist slurs in public. Okay, but
you don't need a law degree to know that if you act like an asshole people will
treat you like an asshole. The tone changes when the passengers all decide
to push this man and his stuff out onto the platform.
And when the doors open, the man is forcibly removed from the train.
And after throwing his Lime-a-rita at the crowd, he gets a face full of hot
soup. Ouch! The soup was thrown by Bronx-based rapper, Princess Nokia, and she recounts
her side of the story on Twitter. She writes that after the man called the
group of teenage boys the n-word, she stood up and slapped him. She said,
"Everybody on the train backed me up. When I slapped him he called me the n-word, and
when I did all my brothers on the train came to my side and held my hand and
comforted me. Although painful and humiliating, we stood together and kicked
this disgusting racist off the train so we could ride in peace away from him." She
added, "And yes I threw hot soup in this man's face and kicked him off the train,
and kicked him in the face. Any other racist wanna try us again?" And Princess
Nokia got a lot of response on Twitter because of this story. Kimya Dawson
replies, "I love you and I love New York." @artangel says, "This empowered me.
Black women and women of color physically fighting against the violence
of white supremacy and patriarchy is completely called for." New York Magazine
music critic, Craig Jenkins, tweets, "I nominate princess Nokia's slapping out
of the racists on the train for best rap activism of the week." Yes, but I think
it's also tied with Eminem's appearance on the BET Hip Hop Awards.
After the fight, witnesses said that the event took an emotional toll on the
passengers. She and the larger gentleman in black embraced and there was a good
sense that social justice had been served. The videographer told Gothamist,
"We, the handful of folks that had witnessed the entire event from the
start, wished the man [dressed in black] well and hoped he'd had a better weekend,
as the woman got off at Lorimer, and was gone before things settled. The whole
thing happened really fast." And the drunk man has identified himself on some now-
deleted posts on Facebook. Initially, Paul Lawson seemed remorseful writing, "I'm
getting help and I really don't know how it came up in the first place; and if it
makes you feel any better I had my head broke open the next day so there's that..."
Not really. I wish you just would have stopped yelling at people on the train.
But then he began arguing with commenters saying, "I'm not that sorry,"
adding, "I was making a point, lots of comedians do that. It's the first f*cking
amendment and look at the liberal mob beating up the peaceful protester now
losers." Okay, so Paul was asserting that he was
peacefully protesting, but protesting what exactly? You started shouting racial
slurs at a group of teenagers because they were in your personal space? So what
were you protesting? And secondly, you weren't peaceful at all. In fact, you were asking
people to beat you up.
And, Paul has been caught antagonizing people on the subway
before. In May, Paul was berating a passenger on the subway for about 20
minutes, according to one witness. Paul used racial and homosexual slurs in his
tirade, until finally the man pushed Paul out of the train and punched him as he
tried to get back on board.
Paul thinks that the First Amendment gives him the right to speak like this
in public, and it does. It's not illegal to say dumb and hateful things, however,
that doesn't mean you're free from the consequences of what you say. If you
scream racial slurs in public, people are gonna want to punch you or slap you or
throw hot soup in your face!
So what do you think of this footage? What would you do if you were caught in
this situation? Let us know what you think in the COMMENTS section below. So
it seems like Paul thinks people react violently to him because they're being
closed-minded.
But it's incredibly small-minded to think that you can go
onto a subway and say the worst words that you can imagine, and nobody's gonna
say anything to you, nobody's gonna tell you to be quiet, or nobody's gonna get
mad. But perhaps Paul knows that already. An anonymous tipster tells Gothamist
that Paul is an NYU graduate, but not of the law school. They say, "he thrives on
confrontation... although he will never take the first punch, he loves getting
people to fight him." They continue, "He was actually a normal human being at one
point, who had a good, well-paying job, but he degenerated into what you saw in
the video after years of alcohol and drug abuse. He's a skateboarder, and he's
been knocked out, [and] not surprisingly many times. He often begs people to hit
him." So there is a disturbed person out there who needs help. What resources does
a person like Paul have? What are we supposed to do when somebody just snaps?
So, what do you think of this story? How do you stop a disturbed person on the
subway? Let us know what you think in the COMMENTS. For more stories go to whatstrending.com.