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« Why Religious Conservatives and South Park Republicans Have a Tenuous Alliance | Main | Look At The Man In The Middle » April 18, 2004
A Tale of Two Cab Drivers, Part Two: A Little Surprise
Posted by Bill So I had a bad run-in with a cabbie last week, which is rare. Ninety-five percent of all cabbies in DC present themselves as pretty hardworking, efficient folks that get you to point B with little hassle. The worst that usually happens is that they talk your ear off or try and screw you out of a bit of extra fare (DC cabs don't have meters, rather, fare is determined by "zones" traveled). But during the course of speaking to a cop about my bad experience, he presented the stereotypes that African-immigrant cabbies anger easily and can be "scary" but are "usually harmless," whereas Middle Eastern cabbies can be scary and "will fuckin' kill you." (direct quote) Does this stereotype hold up? I don't know. I've only had one memorable experience with a cabbie from the Middle East, a Lebanese guy. It was about 6 months after I had moved to DC for a job, and it was after a very bad day: my company had gone through some financial trouble and liquidated my entire department. I guess it was pretty obvious from my thousand-yard stare, because the cabbie asked me what was wrong. I told him that I'd been laid off. I told him that I'd just moved here. I talked to him about how tight the job market was, and the fact that layoffs were becoming commonplace among people that I knew. We chatted all the way back to my home, which was a nice rowehouse, located in a nice neighborhood in Glover Park. I reached into my jacket pocket, and he told me to wait. "It's ok. You need the money, it's on me." I was pretty dumbfounded. Here I was, this guy in a suit, getting dropped off in a nice neighborhood, and this cabbie gave me a ride home during rush hour traffic without charging me? Simply amazing. After getting over my initial shock, I thanked him profusely and paid. So what's the lesson that I drew from this? Nothing about ethnic origin, I can tell you. But random acts of kindness are so rare that they can be a pretty powerful thing. It certainly made a bad day a little bit better. Posted by Bill at April 18, 2004 06:56 PM | TrackBack (0) CommentsHe was Lebanese, Bill. They're the poets of the Arab world. They feel your pain, and want nothing but the best for everyone. If he'd been Tunisian on the other hand... All sarcasm aside, I have a hard time assigning personality characteristics to countries, races, religions, etc. There are an awful lot of nice people in this world, and you can find them just about anywhere. Posted by: Boyd at April 18, 2004 10:41 PM True, very true, though the odds of a cabbie giving you a free fare is like the same odds for winning the Powerball. And the cop seemed rather adamant about the idea that arab cab drivers will cut your head off. It was kind of amusing/shocking, actually. Posted by: Bill from INDC at April 18, 2004 10:58 PM Hey, have been reading ur blog and really enjoyed it and thought I'd add my tuppence's worth. In London we have an awful lot of unlicenced mini-cabs who the police and regular cabbies all warn you off but I've had nothing but greatness from these guys. One guy in a souped up Mitsubishi really did think he was the driver from 'Taxi' and sprinted us out of city centre in no time! Drunkenly friends have left bags with lots of stuff in them and the next day get a call from the un-licensed unknown cabbie telling us they're safe and sound and to pick 'em up. Deffo are nice peeps everywhere if u look...(Unfortuately if *that's* true then the opposite presumably is) Posted by: M@ at April 19, 2004 10:24 AM I have had run ins with two arab cabbies, one Egyptian and one Algerian, the Egyptian pre 911, the Algerian post. The Egyptian confined himself to assuring me ernestly that my civilisation was going to be destroyed by god for allowing homosexuals. No I am not joking nor exaggerating. Why he wasn't living in his own wonderful, homosexual-free country I don't know. The Algerian glowered angrly at me while demanding to know what i thought of these peace protesters. I obviously gave the wrong answer because he started yelling and ranting. As i left he was yelling "Shame shame shame!" Because my white skin meant I was a "genetic opressor", I couldn't help it. I am not making this up. His other contention was that the muslims had never, ever hurt anyone unlike the demonic whites. Bear in mind this is a guy from Algeria, the ancient Arab slave-trading hub. Both were bigots and absolute fucking assholes. Add them to the myriad drunken, violent lebanese scumbags who infest the nightclubs here in sydney, all with the identicle screwtop hairdos like they're in a cult, and I can safely say I have never met an Arab that didn't give me an upfront personal reason to despise thim. This is why the Middle East's problems are no mystery to me. Multiply these assholes by a hundred million or so and Bob's your uncle. Posted by: Amos at April 22, 2004 08:26 PM Amos - that was supposed to be a happy post ... happy post ... happy ... I'd be careful about letting your experiences cause you to make blanket assumptions ... though drawing no conclusions from a mass of experience is kind of dumb as well. Posted by: Bill from INDC at April 22, 2004 10:22 PM |
