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Maine woman repeatedly screams N-word at Black person in viral clip

Hamdia Ahmed intervened and said, ‘Please be nice.’

Photo of Samira Sadeque

Samira Sadeque

A white woman is seen in two screengrabs, pointing towards a group of people, and showing her finger to the woman recording her

A white woman was caught in a video repeatedly screaming the N-word toward at least one Black person who tried to intervene in an apparent scuffle. 

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Twitter user Hamdia Ahmed shared the video on Tuesday of the altercation. According to her tweet, it took place in Portland, Maine. 

Ahmed, whose bio says she is a model and social justice activist, did not respond to repeated requests for comments. 

https://twitter.com/hamdia_ahmed/status/1158901894296821760?s=20

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The video begins with unclear screaming from the white woman, who is seen walking across the street from the camera. 

As the woman wearing a picnic hat and pink shorts walks and screams at people who are not within the frame, Ahmed shouts to her, “Hey that’s not nice.”

“Yea why don’t you tell her n****r,” the woman screams back, raising her middle finger at Ahmed. “Fuck you! Fuck you.”

“Tell your goddamn n****r friend,” the woman continues. “She ain’t fucking nice.” 

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“Please be nice you don’t have to use that word,” says Ahmed before the video ends. 

According to follow-up tweets by Ahmed, she had stepped outside a store to check the situation after she heard someone screaming the N-word.

“Then I saw that this [woman] was yelling at a group of people,” she said in the tweet. “I told her to be kind …  she told me ‘ get your n***** friends.’”

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She said she took her original video down because she’s traumatized. But posting it back on Twitter inspired others to share their experiences on social media, too.

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https://twitter.com/XQueen_FresaX/status/1158913317240483840?s=20

Some people applauded her for maintaining her grace during the confrontation.

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https://twitter.com/CynthiaEriVo/status/1158916664051798016?s=20

https://twitter.com/willjouko/status/1158904413983051776?s=20

https://twitter.com/Suz7272/status/1158911209153781760?s=20

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While some criticized her for being too generous toward the woman using racist language, others pointed out why as a Black Muslim woman in a hijab, it could get complicated for her to intervene in any other way. 

“A Black Muslim woman putting her hands on a white woman….in MAINE? Alone? You did the right thing to speak up & expose her. If someone else wanted to do more, they can,” a Twitter user replied.

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Ahmed also said later that she was alone addressing the situation.

“Their [sic] were many white peoples driving and walking by,” she wrote in another follow-up tweet. “No one said anything except me.”

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According to an open letter she wrote to Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) in July, Ahmed grew up in the same refugee camp as the congresswoman, before moving to America with her family.

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The Daily Dot