Head Of NY Taxi Union Tells Drivers To Racial Profile...

Fernando Mateo, president of the New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers, is telling cab drivers that for their own protection they should profile potential passengers who are black and Latino.

Mateo, who identifies himself as both black and Hispanic, made his comments this week after a livery cab driver was shot several times by a man police describe as Hispanic. The suspect was wearing a hooded sweatshirt, which Mateo has said is a red flag.

The private cab driver was fighting for his life after being shot at least four times by a robber who ended up getting less than $100.

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As usual, the cries of racism followed shortly after this man suggested drivers racially profile.

If a taxi driver thinks someone looks suspicious, they should have every right to not stop for whatever reason they choose.

Profiling people is a legitimate means to protect yourself and your assets, in my opinion. If you are a taxi-driver and you pick up a passenger who is all gangstered out, you probably have a better chance of being robbed or killed, than you would by picking up, say, an oriental customer in an expensive business suit. The line between racially profiling and culturally profiling is very slim and often confused.

I don't know about you, but I culurally profile all of the time. In fact, we all do. How many times do you pass a nicely dressed person in a cowboy hat and lock your doors? The point is that you evaluate a situation based on the environment variables. It's common sense and all of this political correctness is absurd. People lock their doors when they pass a thug dressed in baggy pants and hoodies, not a black or hispanic person dressed in a suit.


--airspoon

I saw this on the news the other night and was shocked that they showed him saying it and that there wasn't a single comment afterward about it being wrong.

Perhaps, because the speaker claims he's black and hispanic, he's getting leeway but it's a horrific thing to say nonetheless.

There are more appropriate ways to tell your drivers how to avoid the folks who they feel might be dangerous, such as "if you don't like the way they look, don't pick them up."

Violent crime stats show that blacks are exponentially more likely to commit a violent crime than any other race.

It may be ugly, but thats just the way things are.

For anyone who deems what this man said as racist, please honestly answer the following question:

If you were a taxi driver and had a choice, who would you pick up: A nicely dressed white couple, or 2 gangsta'd out black guys?

I'm amazed he said it in public..................but then again political correctness could potentially get more drivers killed. Good for him, it's nice to see him on the side of his people rather than taking the easy road.

I don't really know why he needed to say it, I can't imagine that there was a single Taxi driver that wasn't doing this already of their own volition.

reply to post by BigTimeCheater


well said Fernando Mateo
and about time
except he left out muslims

reply to post by AmericanDaughter


I might be wrong here but muslims might be the least likely to commit a violent crime in a taxi.

reply to post by airspoon


I think your post can be summed up in a song!

reply to post by airspoon

Profiling people is a legitimate means to protect yourself and your assets, in my opinion. If you are a taxi-driver and you pick up a passenger who is all gangstered out, you probably have a better chance of being robbed or killed, than you would by picking up, say, an oriental customer in an expensive business suit. The line between racially profiling and culturally profiling is very slim and often confused.

Heh heh, yea. So that muslim taxi driver that stabbed multiple times by the white guy was profiling for the wrong people! So screw it, let everyone profile, yea! Muslim taxi drivers should no longer pick up white people.. for the fears of them getting stabbed to death

I don't know about you, but I culurally profile all of the time. In fact, we all do.

Don't try and apply what you do to everyone else. I don't culturally profile, because it's stupid. If you actually tried to interact with those of different backgrounds then you would realize that all cultures have the good the bad and the ugly, and looking at how someone dresses is by no means an accurate way to tell.

It's common sense and all of this political correctness is absurd. People lock their doors when they pass a thug dressed in baggy pants and hoodies, not a black or hispanic person dressed in a suit.

Go ahead and continue judging by appearance. So when the guys in suits rob you blind, you can at least say they dressed nicely


You know what, it's always all good when your not the one gettin kicked in the teeth.

The Truth About Black Crime
by: R Jeneen Jones

Early last year, I wrote an article entitled "Who's Afraid of Black Men?",
which raised the issue of how society views black men as criminals,
regardless of their true nature. After posting the feature, I received tons
of email. While most African Americans praised my comments, many non-blacks
agreed that black men are generally violent and aggressive law breakers.
After all, one just has to look at the statistics. In all fairness, I decided
to do just that and discovered some very interesting details:

Among men, blacks (28.5%) are about six times more likely than whites (4.4%)
to be admitted to prison during their life. Among women, 3.6% of blacks and
0.5% of whites will enter prison at least once. (U.S. Department of Justice)
Based on current rates of incarceration, an estimated 7.9% of black males
compared to 0.7% of white males will enter State of Federal prison by the
time they are age 20 and 21.4% of black males versus 1.4% of white males will
be incarcerated by age 30. (U.S. Department of Justice)
Some have noted that more black men are in prison in America than are in
college. (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128)

Statistics on black crime are, on the surface, very bleak. There are,
however, some very important factors that help to influence the numbers.
Consider those and a strong case for a much different view unfolds. Since 62%
of persons admitted to Federal prison and 31.1% of those admitted to State
prison for the first time were sentenced because of drug offenses, let us
first take a look at the racial disparity in the war on drugs:

The National Institute of Drug Abuse estimated that while 12 percent of drug
users are black, they make up nearly 50 percent of all drug possession
arrests in the U.S. (The Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128)
According to the National Drug Strategy Network, although African Americans
make up less than one-third of the population in Georgia, the black arrest
rate for drugs is five times greater than the white arrest rate. In addition,
since 1990, African Americans have accounted for more than 75% of persons
incarcerated for drug offenses in Georgia and make up 97.7% of the people in
that state who are given life sentences for drug offenses.

In six California counties independently surveyed in 1995, 100% of those
individuals sent to trial on drug charges were minorities, while the
drug-using population in those same counties was more than 60% white. (The
Black and White of Justice, Freedom Magazine, Volume 128)
A CNN article in 1996 sited U.S. government figures that show more than 90
percent of all federal prosecutions for crack coc aine in 1995 were of African
American defendants. In addition, unlike convictions for powered coc aine and
other drugs (which wealthy, Caucasian defendants are more likely to use), a
conviction for selling crack coc aine can carry a lengthy prison term without
benefit of parole.

I know some people might think that African Americans are arrested so often
for drug offenses because police officers target drug dealers and most blacks
fit that profile. If that is indeed the case, why did an analysis by the
Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles find that 77% of the offenses
leading to the first conviction and 79% of the offenses leading to a second
drug conviction involved less than one gram of a controlled substance. In
addition, that same study found that 60% of the cases involved drug values of
less than $50. I'm sure Georgia isn't the only state in which such statistics
hold true.

What about figures for other types of crimes? According to the U.S.
Department on Justice, property and drug offenses account for 76.4 % and
56.4% respectively of crimes by individuals admitted to Federal and State
prison for the first time. Most criminal convictions are, therefore, not for
violent crimes. Even still, there is evidence to suggest that race also plays
a factor in those types of cases:

In 1997, the American Bar Association observed that quite often public
defenders, who are most likely to be assigned to poor and largely minority
defendants, are inexperienced, underpaid, overworked, and largely indifferent
to their client's plight. (Philadelphia Bar Association Calls for Moratorium
on Death, A-Infos News Service, 12/19/97)
Even though it is illegal, throughout the nation, there are incidents of
local officials influencing jury selection to include mostly white males.
This is done mainly because local police and law officials are afraid that
randomly selected jurors will be more liberal and less likely to convict
defendants. (Prosecutors Object to New Method of Jury Selection, St.
Petersburg Times, 12/28/98 and The Race of Decision Makers, RSTL Study)
A 1990 study by The U.S. General Accounting Office, indicated that racial
bias has influenced prosecutors' decisions to charge a defendant with a
capital offense and/or to proceed to trial rather than plea bargain. (U.S.
General Accounting Office Report, Death Penalty Sentencing, 1990)

What do all of these findings suggest? For starters, we cannot conclude how
many African Americans or black males are actually guilty of committing
crimes. We can only obtain data on the number of black males who are arrested
for and convicted of a crime. While arrest rates are highly subjective, one
could argue that a conviction is a guilty sentence in the eyes of the law.
Though that is true, given the racial undertones and biases still present in
the American judicial system, it seems highly unjust to assume that black
crime statistics are a valid indication of the state of the entire community
of African American males.

Am I implying that African American males do not commit crimes? Not at all.
In my opinion, there is an equal distribution of criminals (and law abiding
citizens) among all racial and ethnic groups and blacks are no more likely to
be criminals than are whites. The data shows, however, that African Americans
more likely than others to be arrested and convicted. It is for that reason
that I propose we use our intelligence and humanity to look beyond the
numbers. Even though it has been shown time and time again that racial
discrimination still exists in almost every segment of our society, (Driving
While Black, Police & Civil Rights Leaders Sit Down to Build Bridges,
Painting Insanity Black, Avis Charged with Discrimination, The New Face of
Racism, Race & The Death Penalty, Bell Atlantic Sued for Discrimination,
Judge OKs Boeing Bias Settlement, Black Customers Sue Denny's) why do some
people find it impossible to consider that it also exists in our judicial
process?

Will we ever be able to agree on the truth about black crime (or know the
real story on white crime) in this nation? I doubt it. I do hope we will
open the lines of communication and learn to discuss all of the facts. Only
then will we be able to make changes and overcome the tremendous effect that
race continues to have on the perception of black males in America.


source: www.peace.ca...



Any questions?

reply to post by Crakeur

I kind of agree with you, especially since many of them are taxi drivers (at least around here) but I still do not trust them and would profile them; it would be easy to leave a bomb/whatever in the vehicle.
They brought it on themselves imo.

Originally posted by AmericanDaughter
reply to post by BigTimeCheater

 

well said Fernando Mateo
and about time
except he left out muslims

I'm glad you saw the opening to throw in your bigotry. I'm not a muslim or a proponent of political correctness but its comments like this that makes me realize that there needs to be measures taken to prevent people such as yourself from doing and saying whatever you want.

Originally posted by BigTimeCheater

For anyone who deems what this man said as racist, please honestly answer the following question:

If you were a taxi driver and had a choice, who would you pick up: A nicely dressed white couple, or 2 gangsta'd out black guys?

Why would that be the two choices??? How about a choice between a nicely dresses black couple or 2 "gangsta'd out" white guys????

Or are white guys never "gangsta'd out" in your narrow mind????

reply to post by endlessknowledge


He obviously was trying to set a hypothetical situation, why did you have to bastardize the scenario? Unable to conjure up a thought to address the issue? ( or possible issue )

Originally posted by Whereweheaded
reply to post by endlessknowledge

 

He obviously was trying to set a hypothetical situation, why did you have to bastardize the scenario? Unable to conjure up a thought to address the issue? ( or possible issue )

Well obviously it wasn't so obvious to me....

reply to post by endlessknowledge


And be that it may, that's our problem how?

reply to post by cenpuppie


I don't think anyone is saying that all black people will commit acts of violence while white people won't. In fact, I was saying nothing of the sort, not even remotely close. What I was saying, is the cultural profiling is often confused with racial profiling.

Take for instance a family who is driving around town. They aren't necessarily going to lock their doors when they see a black person, so much as they would when they see a thug. In fact, I highly doubt that this hypothetical family would lock their doors if they saw a black person in a conservative business suit, while they probably would if they saw a white person dressed like a gangster.

If I was a cop and I saw a "low-rider" (do they even have those anymore?), packed with guys wearing hats cocked to the side, "bling" and baggie clothes, I would be more apt to stop this vehicle than if I saw a family in a mini-van. Why? Not necessarily because the low-rider is filled with black people so much as it is filled with thuggish looking people and chances are that this "low-rider" would be up to no good more than the family in the mini-van. It's just common sense.

Many people might see this as racial profiling, in fact they often do. However, while it is profiling, it isn;t really racial profiling because I'm sure the same results would occur if the family in the mini-van was black and the thugs in the "low-rider" were white. However, it just so happens that this isn't usually the case and instead the races are reversed. That's just common sense.

Now don't get me wrong, that scenario was just a hypothetical and I don't support the police pulling anyone over for no other reason than their appearence. Instead, I just cite that scenario to underscore my point. People make judgements based on knowledge at hand, mental statistics, past experiences and environment variables. When you foolishly limit yourself to political correctness, you basically have to throw those decision making tools out of the window, all in some hypocritical, lame and pointless effort to stay politically correct.


--airspoon

reply to post by airspoon


Don't even waste your time AS, your points were very well presented and thought out. But you're always going to have those that don't have the same view, and there only sole basis of argument is misconstruing someones statements to fit their own.

Because this person wasn't able to conjure up any meaningful thoughts or views, they had to rely on 1 or 2 sentences to pick apart and " label ", if you will, your comments.

Originally posted by endlessknowledge

I'm glad you saw the opening to throw in your bigotry. I'm not a muslim or a proponent of political correctness but its comments like this that makes me realize that there needs to be measures taken to prevent people such as yourself from doing and saying whatever you want.

So you want to silence and censor people you disagree with?


Wow.