Man’s astonishing rant over woman’s shirt
A man’s astonishing tantrum over a woman’s shirt, which carried a message about genocide against Indigenous Australians, has been captured on camera, with passengers defending the woman as he calls the garment was “offensive”.
Footage uploaded to TikTok on Australia Day shows the man accosting the woman and her friends on a Melbourne tram.
The woman told her followers he came up to the group and began complaining about how her outfit was “offensive”.
“My shirt read: ‘Just a reminder, we don’t celebrate genocide’,” the video’s description reads.
“Apparently he (the man) has an issue with that.”
The woman says the man asked her why she would wear “such a provocative T-shirt” and said there was never any genocide in Australia.
“You denigrate Australia by wearing T-shirts like that,” the man can be heard saying to the woman as the clip rolls.
When told the group is not speaking to him, the man says: “Yes you are! You’re wearing a T-shirt that I can see!”
“I find it offensive! You’re a disgrace … spoiled brat generation,” he says as other passengers begin to defend the woman.
One can be heard telling the man not to use that language on the tram as he continues complaining.
“You need to take action to remove yourself,” the passenger says.
As the passenger points out the shirt is simply an Aboriginal message, the woman is heard laughing and acknowledging “there’s nothing wrong with it”.
Another man boarding the tram tells the woman: “I love your T-shirt”.
The complaining man can then be seen exiting as the footage ends.
“It’s hard to know what to say sometimes. This video is for all those who think that racism doesn't exist in this country,” the woman says in the video description.
Researchers at the University of Newcastle have spent years charting massacres of Indigenous Australians as far back as the Frontier Wars in 18th-century Australia.
They estimate more than 10,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives were lost in more than 400 massacres.
University of Newcastle historian Emeritus Professor Lyndall Ryan said the research showed massacres intensified, particularly after 1860.
“More massacres happened in the period 1860 to 1930 than in the period 1788 to 1860,” Professor Ryan said in 2022.
“We find that the massacres are becoming better organised and there seems to be a more ruthless approach on the part of the perpetrators to the massacring of Aboriginal people.”
The footage emerged amid spates of protests on Australia Day across the country, which included huge rallies in Sydney and Brisbane.
Protesters clashed outside the Gabba during day two of the second Test, with one person managing to storm the field and shut down the match.
