Re: Black People
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1) Well dressed black professional cannot get a taxi to stop for him.
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That reminds me of an experience I had with a cab driver in Manhattan about 10 years ago.
The Cabby was African; he had just moved to the United States about 2 years earlier. We started talking about driving a cab for a living, and I asked him if he ever got stiffed by passengers. He replied that yes he does, but that only by a certain profile of potential passenger, and that now he profiles his "pick ups" to avoid that certain type of person. So naturally I asked him what this profile was and he replied "Black People." It was stunning because he himself was black. He went on to tell me that he has not had a good experience with "American Black" people since moving to the U.S. He described how in his first job working in a factory he was pressured by his "American Black" co-workers to "slow down" the pace at which he was working, since he was making them "look bad." And how eventually they turned on him and got him fired.
It's a good example supporting the argument that perceived racial differences are really cultural differences and have very little to do with the obvious superficiality of skin color.
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