A woman who was targeted on the Long Island Rail Road in a vile racist tirade which went viral has spoken out about the verbal attack which she said made her feel ‘disgusting’.
Soraya Orelien, 25, was riding the train home from the college she attends in Manhattan on April 19 when she was attacked by a man on the train.
He was angry that she was on the phone to a friend despite the fact that he was wearing headphones.
It was around 10pm and she was on her way home to Lynbrook from Manhattan on the LIRR Long Beach train after completing a day’s shift at her job and attending college in the evening.
In a shocking outburst, the man called her a ‘m*********** black’. Another passenger filmed his abuse and posted it on Facebook.
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Soraya Orelien, 25, was the victim of a shocking racist tirade on the LIRR last month
Now Orelien has told ABC News how the man called her a ‘monkey’ and made animal noises in her face.
‘He made me feel disgusting. He made me feel less than what I am. And I’m not the only one who has experienced this.
‘He was so angry that you saw the veins pop out of his neck,’ she said.
‘I just think back to Rosa Parks. When she was tired, got on the bus and sat in the front and did not move.
‘That was me. I was tired. I work from 8 to 5 and then I go to school from 5.30 until 9 o’clock.
‘I’m tired. I graduate May 30, I am [in] the last few weeks of school, finals are approaching. I’m tired.
‘So when I come on the train, I am sitting down to relax until I get off at my stop.
The man has not been named since the video of him calling Orelien a ‘f****** black monkey’ surfaced last month. The MTA is looking for him
‘This is public transportation. If I’m on the phone having a low conversation to where nobody else could hear me but you and you’re wearing headphones listening to music, why is that so bothersome to you?
‘How am I bothering you to where you’re telling me that I am a black monkey and that I don’t know my mom and my dad?
That you will smack me and I am a woman. I am a woman! How dare you speak to a ‘woman like that,’ she said.
The video captured the pair screaming at each other as he said: ‘I am sick of listening to you’.
It was filmed by Aneesa Janat Rafeek who posted it on Facebook and tagged the LIRR to demand that the man face discipline.
When she posted it last month, she too said that the man got out of his seat afterwards and approached the woman to carry on the abuse.
Orelian said she felt ‘disgusting’ when the man was screaming at her. She now wants him to be arrested
‘He came to my face and was like, “Ooh ooh ahh ahh, you monkey,” and I just sat there. I just sat there, and I didn’t say anything. I just said, “You need to leave. Leave me alone. Please just walk away,”” Orelien said on Friday.
‘That is an angry man. He is a hateful man and he took out his anger towards me. He wanted a reaction out of me that I did not give him, which made him even more angry,’ she said.
Orelin now wants to find the man so that she can press charges against him.
‘He needs to get prosecuted,’ she said.
Fellow passenger Aneesa Janat Rafeek shared the video on Facebook last month
She has since seen the man again on the same train but they have not had any interaction.
‘Actually I saw him again last night on the train. We ride the same train line to Long Beach.
‘I hope that he understands you cannot speak to people like that regardless of how you feel. Regardless of your racial… I don’t even care. You keep that to yourself,’ she added.
The MTA said it is investigating the footage and hopes to identify the man.
He was not named by ABC News despite its reporters going to his house where they said he yelled at them from the porch.