A woman on a public bus was captured on video playing monkey videos on her phone and angling the screen toward a Black passenger.
While many details about the disturbing incident remain unclear — including when and exactly where it occurred — one U.S. public health specialist saw it as an opportunity for a conversation that couldn’t wait.
Dr. Michael Forde, a motivational speaker and author, shared the video on Instagram with a simple yet powerful message about what this type of “everyday racism” means and why it’s so damaging. The clip is now circulating on social media, gaining hundreds of thousands of views.
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“What you’re watching is not random. It’s a modern version of a very old script,” he said in his Jan. 31 reel. “For centuries, Black people have been compared to animals to justify harm. In the 1700s and 1800s, European scientists published books claiming Africans were closer to apes than to humans. Those lies became fuel for slavery, colonization, and segregation.”
“That history didn’t disappear. It just learned how to hide in plain sight. This woman didn’t shout, she didn’t swing. She didn’t need to. She used a screen. But the message is the same: you are not fully human, and you do not belong here,” he continues. “Because it’s quiet, because it’s wrapped in a smirk instead of a slur, it becomes easier for bystanders to miss. Easier to dismiss. Easier to let slide. That’s how everyday racism survives.”
This black man is minding his own business traveling on a bus and this racist white woman starts playing videos of Monkeys so he can see and hear them on her phone! What a disgusting creature she is! 🤬 pic.twitter.com/mGNjyGqeDM
— Suzie rizzio (@Suzierizzo1) February 22, 2026
The response from viewers has been immediate. As one person on Instagram put it, echoing hundreds of comments: “Disgusting. Absolutely appalling behavior.”
Over on X, many commenters are voicing their contempt and giving the woman some of her own medicine, so to speak. A few have posted screenshots of her face next to the very primates she was displaying: “TBF she looks a bit like the picture on her phone. Not sure she realized that,” wrote one.
“Her actually resembling a monkey is making this hilarious,” another quipped, followed by more substantial attacks on her character and obvious poor choices: “Imagine being so intellectually bankrupt that your only argument is animal noises, evolutionary failure in real time,” wrote one.
Another person stated, “I would have grabbed her phone and thrown it out the window.”
While the video is infuriating to watch, the people resharing it — including Dr. Forde — hope it sparks reflection beyond just the racist woman and her target on the bus. The video serves as an important reminder. As Forde put it, “This isn’t about one bus. It’s about how history shows up in ordinary spaces. It’s about how the past reaches forward through screens, through smiles, and through silence. It’s about recognizing that dehumanization doesn’t always announce itself.”
