An Ottawa bus driver has become an overnight celebrity for speaking up and defending a student wearing a niqab after another passenger yelled Islamophobic taunts at her.
Hailey DeJong converted to Islam three years ago and began wearing a niqab this past fall. Earlier this month, she was spending her afternoon like many young women do: at the mall. But her otherwise normal afternoon went south after she sat down and was verbally attacked by another passenger.
“He was making comments like, ‘Oh, she could be a bank robber and we don’t even know’,” said DeJong to CBC Radio’s Ottawa Morning.
“At that point, I was tired of the attention and I turned around and I said to him, ‘If you have something to say, don’t say it to the other passengers, say it right to me’.”
But the man was persistent and refused to stop.
DeJong recalled the man began to call her a terrorist and a freak, and even shouted that she should assimilate.
“I was angry, but you can’t respond to hate with more hate, so I tried to keep it cool and just to explain to him. Other passengers at that point had started to speak up as well,” she said.
But luckily for DeJong, there was someone else in her corner.
Almost immediately, the bus pulled to the side of the road and came to a stop. OC Transpo bus driver Alain Charette quickly came to DeJong’s defence and told the ignorant man that he had called the authorities.
DeJong was so grateful for Charette’s kindness that she stopped to take a selfie with him before exiting the bus. She later wrote a letter praising him, which was published by Muslim Link.
In an open post on Facebook, Charette said it was his duty to speak up. “Happy to have been able to make a difference when life was challenging me to do it,” he wrote.
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