Taxi Cab Racism
I know the pain, rage and embarrassment that shook actor Danny Glover when
five cab drivers recently refused to pick him up on a New York city street. A
couple of years ago my wife, I and another African-American couple stood
fuming on a mid-Manhattan street on a cold, windy evening in December as we
watched empty cab after empty cab sail leisurely by ignoring our increasingly
frantic signals for them pick us up. One cab driver glanced at us, waved us
off, and then stopped a few feet in front of us to pick up a white couple.
Finally out of desperation we asked our wives to stand on the corner while we
ducked behind a corner building. They continued to furiously wave at cabs to
stop. They had no better luck than we had. After nearly an hour futilely
trying to get a driver's attention we trudged a few blocks through the cold
and caught a bus. The other couple with us, both native New Yorkers, just
shrugged and said that's the way it is with cabs here.
Thankfully Glover didn't shrug off taxicab racism. He filed a complaint and
held a press conference to loudly protest his treatment. Glover's action once
more tossed the ugly spotlight on cab driver racism as a big sorespot for
thousands of blacks. New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and police officials
immediately vowed to crack down on cab drivers that refuse to pick up blacks.
The instant they put the heat on, the drivers were on their best behavior.
But why did it take officials so long to do something about cabby racism? And
will it always take the racial mistreatment by cabbies of a black celebrity
for officials to take action? The last time cab driver racism stirred any
kind of response from officials was when former New York Mayor David Dinkins
complained that cabs refused to pick him up. Even before Dinkins's public
outcry made brief news, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, that
regulates they city's cabs, to launch its own sting operation. The commission
fingered a score of drivers who blatantly passed up black passengers to pick
up whites.
Many cab drivers claim that screaming racism is to simple. They tell horror
stories of drivers being beaten, robbed, assaulted and even murdered by
passengers or thugs lurking in alleyways in black neighborhoods. While some
drivers exaggerate or flat out lie about the danger to their physical safety
as a cover to practice discrimination, their fears of violence are real and
shouldn't be ignored.
But this is no excuse for not picking up black passengers simply because they
are black. Cab drivers have been preyed on by thugs of all colors, including
whites. These assaults can and do occur in any and every part of a city. Yet
cab drivers don't routinely refuse to pick up non-blacks on sight. Also what
are the odds of a cab driver being mugged or murdered by an African-American
dressed in a business suit or a tailored outfit and carrying an attaché case?
Yet many cab drivers routinely refuse to pick up nattily dressed black
professionals on sight. A friend who briefly drove a cab in Los Angeles
bitterly told me that everybody he knew in the business did everything they
could not to pick up black guys.
Glover's experience along with mine and countless other African-Americans who
are victimized by the racist practices of some taxi drivers, suggest there is
much truth to his claim. Then those cab drivers are guilty of imposing a
vicious system of on-the-street redlining that penalizes and criminalizes all
African-Americans. They also deny the thousands of African-Americans who
depend on cab service to get them to entertainment activities, airports,
business engagements, or simply to get to their homes a crucial public
transportation resource.
Cab driver associations say the answer to discrimination is better driver
etiquette training. Glover says the answer is more multicultural diversity
training. I say the answer is to keep doing what Giuliani did and nail
cabbies who discriminate with tough penalties. The pity though is that it
took a celebrity for that to happen.
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