By Bradford Mason
In yet another incident of hate in the Garden State, a viral video shows a white woman yelling racial slurs at a Black woman in Bayonne.
The incident occurred on the morning of Jan. 4 when Tameka Bordeaux, 40, was walking near 17th Street when 60-year-old Claudia Emanuele reportedly approached her and began yelling racial slurs at her.
Emanuele can be heard on the video calling Bordeaux the N-word and other expletives following Bordeaux as she walked away.
Bordeaux posted three videos of the incident on her Facebook page. On Jan. 6, Bayonne police reported that they arrested Emanuele and charged her with bias Intimidation and harassment.
WARNING: VIDEOS CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE
“The Bayonne Police Department would like to extend thanks to the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office for their guidance and cooperation,” Capt. Eric Amato said in a published interview. “A special thanks is also extended to the concerned citizens that aided the victim during this horrible ordeal.”
In a statement, Assemblywoman Angela McKnight said she was “outraged and disgusted” by the video. McKnight added that Bayonne has a history of racial issues and was appalled at the comments on social media by whites who were defending the white woman’s behavior.
“This is a racist act,” McKnight said. “There is nothing to debate in social media here. At the end of the day what she did was totally wrong, disrespectful and unacceptable. We have to make people accountable for themselves. If people are sick, then we have to get them help. But we cannot excuse racism, ever.”
In July, the picture of a body hanging from a tree in a private Facebook group titled “Bayonne Talks Freely” prompted officials in the city to call for an investigation over fears that Black citizens could be in danger.
City Board of Education trustee Michael Alonso was criticized a month earlier over racist social media post about the police killing of George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. Last summer, Neo-Nazi spray painted swastikas in public spaces including a park.
Bayonne has a large immigrant community with residents from a number of countries. The city is nearly 70% white and only 9% Black.