Defence or unwanted interference?

I agree with the comments that follow the article - I think the writer of the article is inherently racist herself.
She doesn't say that the racist abuser on the train shouldn't have been challenged - she says that the challenger shouldn't have spoken up because she was white.
Since when did doing the right thing depend on the colour of your skin?
What if another Muslim person had videoed the whole thing and included white people not doing something? Couldn't white people standing back and not saying anything have made them complicit in the abuse?
I hope in that situation I would have had the courage to intervene.
I don't think I'd have had the presence of mind to video it, but if I did, I think I would have just handed my phone to the police rather than broadcasting it on Twitter or FB.
And I would have tried to meet violent words with calm ones.

Sometimes when good people do something harms happens!

I'd intervene if I saw a woman being threatened by a man. In the case of a racist attack I would wait to see how the recipient managed the situation themselves before I did anything.

I felt like intervening a few weeks ago when I saw a couple of policemen searching a young man's car in a heavy handed humiliating way.

I did once intervene re a couple in the street. I felt I had to pointedly ask the woman if she was OK. A stranger doing that seemed to shake the intimidating man enough to stop what he was doing an allow the woman to get away. I don't know the rights and wrongs of it but felt I couldn't walk on by

I think videoing bad behaviour on tube trains and the like has sometimes helped police find the perpetrators of crimes. That seems a good reason to do it and perhaps, just perhaps, that was this woman's initial motive. I'm willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. When good people do nothing harm happens.

Apparently the couple have thanked her but yes, her behaviour does seem self-aggrandising on one level, and I think that was the point of the article (which helped her aggrandisement too!), but it begs the question of when we should 'interfere' in order to help people who are being abused racially or otherwise.

Apparently, she shouted over the man, who was trying to speak. It's a bit like dragging someone across the road, rather than asking if they would like help to cross. According to the article, she also filmed her own actions and then posted the video on the internet. If this is the case, I wonder why she felt the need to do that?