You Are A Racist

You are a racist.I drive a cab, (Yes, still.)

I’ll keep this short, in the interest of turning a fare.

You are a racist.

I drove you, on Inauguration Day 2016. In the unusual pouring down rain that day in San Francisco, in morning rush hour. Omar, you told me how he’d be a fresh change to all the bullshit that’d been pouring down from the politicians in D.C. throughout your lifetime. You expounded on this before I dropped you off downtown, at 1st and Mission, at your day trader job. Before next getting flagged by an undocumented Mexican, a 22-year-old woman headed to her nursing shift at St. Luke’s in the Mission.

Then, I drove you one and a half years later. I curiously asked you about how you feel now.

“I don’t like some of the tweets. But I still support his policies.”

Driver, “Are you worried he’ll appoint a Supreme Court judge who’ll overturn Roe v. Wade?”

“HA! No WAY!”

After a short bout of uncomfortable silence, “Besides, if a woman gets pregnant, she WANTED to! If she didn’t WANT to get pregnant, she shouldn’t have had SEX!”

Before, “NONE of us know what the TRUTH is, anyway! I mean, how do you KNOW what THEY’RE telling us is… REAL??”

Oh, and, “He just tells it like it is.”

You weren’t the first supporter I drove. Even early on, right after he debuted with Mexicans are criminals and rapists, I’d already driven a few nascent supporters. Anything from the likes of that black Financial admin who had previously worked the phones for Obama, to the white middle-aged east bay professional woman who was worried about the taxes on her vacation home. Jane tepidly adding how he, “Really does speak for me.”

At first, I was naive. I thought you were all stupid. That, before later coming to the conclusion that you were all racist. But I’ve since come to realize that none of this is your fault: It’s just that you’re too stupid to REALIZE you’re racist. (Yes, that’s how you spell “you’re” in this case.)

It is a matter of empathy.

I was naive here, too.

I just recently drove you, Ethan, from your condo up in Diamond Heights out to SFO. You, that rare 30-something professional who “still supports cabs,” lives in what has been indexed as the most expensive city in the world – given the two-hour commute to any sane rent, as exuding an admirably calm, open, as well, rational demeanor. And you are educated.

You knew that the undocumented are a net plus to the American tax base – as they don’t get refunds, just as you endorsed the left’s pragmatic policy that the undocumented should have driver’s licenses – so they can get insurance. And so, when you went on to drop that you grew up down in San Diego, on the border, I shut up.

Aside: Although, I would guesstimate that 5% of my rides in San Francisco are driving the undocumented to a kitchen job, or to the outskirts to clean some wealthy suburban-style home, or nanny their kids. Or, riding their own American-born kids to school, running late for the bell. (That’s how you spell “their” in this case.)

“What America is just waking up to now, and the left is surprised by, is just how serious a problem our immigration policies have been… for years.”

Driver, “It’s true. I just drove a guy who was in town from Wisconsin, for business. He was complaining about all the Mexicans taking away people’s jobs back there. Said he’d been hearing about it, a lot.”

Ethan, continuing, “I grew up in San Diego. Went to UC there for college, too. As a kid growing up on the border, you’d watch as all these Mexicans would run across the highways, indiscriminately. All around the city. My dad would complain about it, a lot. Even as a kid, you just KNEW there was something ‘off’ about the whole thing. Even as a kid! And you couldn’t go to the Barrio at night. No WAY. I mean, in the day, the food was really great. But at night, you’d be risking your life. And driving around without uninsured motorist protection? Forget about it.”

…

Driver, “Wow… But, um, can I ask you? What run-ins have you had, in your own life, personally, with immigration being a problem?”

(Crickets.)

Above the economy, nuclear weapons, global warming, a level of income inequality we haven’t seen since the Industrial Revolution, institutional racism, the minority incarceration rate, our incarceration rate, period! Above our worldwide military presence; corporate dominance over our political, commercial, legislative, regulatory and informational governance, above health care; WHY is immigration, an issue of which you cannot cite one SINGLE example of financial, professional, educational or physical harm to you personally, throughout your ENTIRE life, your PRIMARY reason for voting for, and continuing to support (okay, barring the tweets) HIM??

Your meter is running. And I am waiting with baited breath…

To you FOX-propaganda watching, xenophobic, Orwellian haters of truth, justice and the American way (post-1964 Civil Rights Act): the next time I contemplate you, whether it’s over our next ride to the airport, or it’s me headed back east, flying over your state (yes, “your”), I will admit aloud that which you will not, albeit under my breath, perhaps as I’m gazing out my fuzzy oval window down at your crop circles, with an overpriced Southwest Bloody Mary spilling over my liberal hands…

 I will admit that I, too (spelling correct), am a bigot.

                                         San Francisco TAXI Series

A 1st Week in the ZEN Life... (Book 1) & Life in the Merge Lane... (Book 2)