More Racism blogging!

Well, so far this blog has mentioned many big names, Kayne West, Mike Myers, George Bush,a. But this one will have the biggest name in history; Henry Louis Gates Jr. Can people complain about something in their daily lives and force the establishment to make a large change? Apparently. What happened was a Californian came out to visit his daughters in New York and call for a can. Many New York cabbies are extremely racist. (He is black) It took him over an hour of watching taxis go by before he got fed up and walked. Ford states, "Racist taxi drivers are a fact of life in New York... but this man wasn't a New Yorker... he simply wanted to publicize the problem and prompt modest reform" (Ford 60-61). As per usual, an ethnic person makes a small comment, and a huge name backs them up attempting to change the entire system to make it unequal the other way. It worked for colleges, so why shouldn't it work for the cab system? Ford recalls Harvard's Henry Louis Gates Jr.'s words, "African American who tries to function every day in a still very racist America. In the face of an critique of "black essentialism"(Ford 60). There are a few things wrong with that comment. America is not racist, its stereotypical. How many people do you know (besides the obvious teens wanting to be funny and get attention) that actually go out and say "white supremacy!" or KKK, or anything publicly? That's what I thought.
The fact of the cab driver case is, the majority of cab drivers are ethnic. Many people are so quick to point out the one or two white racists that they desire to change the system, not realizing that the people they are hurting are of a minority. Ford writes, "Black-on-black discrimination is far form unheard of, but it did cast the problem in a somewhat different light" (Ford 67). It is a loophole in logic. A minority can claim discrimination of a different race and get national attention, but what happens when its the same race? Maybe its not racism at all. An unnamed cab driver had this to say, Ford writes, "...middle-aged black people are the best tippers of all. But I won't pick anybody at all up in certain neighborhoods, I don't care what color they are" (Ford 68). This was a statement that proves the stereotype theory. Black people are compelled to live in a bad neighborhood because that is where the others of their race live. And since the majority of the people of the neighborhood are colored, if a cab drives by without picking up any of them, it is "racist". Open racism plays but a minor role in society today.