04/24/2008
Re: The Fulford File, By James Fulford: Civil Rights Law Doesn’t Care If You Die
An Anonymous Reader Writes:
Good column. If a lot of blond haired, blue eyed men were robbing/killing cab drivers, I would be frustrated, but totally understanding if I couldn’t get a cab.
By the way, do you think elderly black women have trouble getting cabs? I doubt it. So it’s smart profiling, not racism.
But any ideas on how to protect cab drivers and help non-felonious black men to get cabs? Some sort of special ID perhaps?
By James Fulford writes: Thanks for the kind words. D’souza’s original story, to which I referred, said that all the cab drivers he talked to "ridiculed the notion that cabdrivers pass up black women."
Dr. Thomas Sowell wrote in 1999 during the Giuliani crackdown that when he went to New York where these robberies were taking place, he would either rent a car or insist on someone driving him, since while he had no trouble getting a cab during the day, at night it was a different story.
And obviously there’s no way an African-American can get special ID that says he’s not a felon, (wearing a suit and tie helps — so does getting elected Senator from Illinois). But booking a cab over the phone and using a credit card would probably help prove his bona fides, the credit card being evidence of fixed address. And African-Americans who want to encourage cabbies to pick them up might consider tipping better.
On a non-racial note, taxi-drivers would be safer — and readier to carry possibly hazardous passengers — it (a) they are allowed to carry guns; and (b) if anyone who murdered them was executed by the State of New York.
But on the subjects of gun control and capital punishment, as in civil rights law, the State of New York doesn’t care if you die.
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