- FrontPage Magazine -
http://www.frontpagemag.com -
Black Cab Drivers Accused of Being Racist Against Black Passengers
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On November 8, 2014 @ 11:23 am In The Point | 15 Comments
It’s the same old story. Complaints about cab drivers refusing to pick up black men in New York. The problem? Only 6 percent of New York cabbies are even white.
The rest are a variety of things. Often Muslim.
So when Leon and other blacks are not getting picked up, the drivers passing them by are not white racists. They are mostly Indian and/or Pakistani men (and a very few women) — men of color. What gives.
Racial solidarity is a liberal myth. Solidarity among people of color is an even bigger myth. Black people know it. White liberals don’t.
People of color is a term that white libs and minority activists find useful. It just means “other”. There are a million gradations within it based on culture, religion, national origin and a thousand other things.
That very afternoon, I happened to be in a cab driven by a black man from Senegal. I told him about Leon’s dilemma, and this cabbie went off on his own racist rant about the difference between American blacks and those from other countries. He claimed he could tell from half a block away whether someone was an American black or not, and he said he made it a point to try never to pick up American blacks.
“But why not?” I asked. “You’re black as well.”
“Me and other drivers talk, and we all have the same experience,” he said.
He told me of a specific example where he picked up an American black man in Manhattan and took him up to Jerome Avenue in the Bronx. “He ran away without paying, and what am I supposed to do? I can’t chase him,” he said.
He wrote it off as lost income but promised himself not to pick up any more American blacks. He didn’t see the irony of his logic: If he were trying to hail a cab, he’d likely get passed by himself. It didn’t matter; he told me he was soon going to be driving for Uber, and his problems with people hailing from the street would be a thing of the past.
So the white, fast-talking, cigar-chomping New York City taxi driver may be extinct, but, sadly, racism is not.
But what is racism exactly when African Muslim cabbies (Senegal is a Muslim country) refuse to pick up black passengers? Racist or not they’re engaging in a calculation that a particular behavior will make it more likely that they’ll get paid.
Are new immigrants who barely speak English and arrive here as adults with a full panoply of experiences really subject to some sort of false consciousness in an ultra-liberal city in a liberal society that obsessively preaches anti-racism?
It’s more likely that there’s an older pattern playing out here and it has to do with how Africans see Black Americans and how Black American looking for rides to Harlem see cabbies. But that’s one of those conversations we just can’t have. It’s easier to rant about white people.
For those who do come to New York City, my advice is to avoid the cab Jihad, you’ll be overcharged and underserved, and call a limo or car service company. The nicer ones have GPS, Lincolns with large back seats and cost less money and have safer and friendlier drivers.
They also tend to be owned and run by Latinos or Israelis. I can’t speak for their racial politics, but they work a lot better than the taxis which mainly exist to fleece tourists and feed money to the city through the sale of taxi medallions.
Article printed from FrontPage Magazine:
http://www.frontpagemag.comURL to article:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/dgreenfield/black-cab-drivers-accused-of-being-racist-against-black-passengers/
