Confronting Prejudices: a taxi driver and The Daily Mail

When my train to London was late yesterday, unusually for me, I took a taxi to get to my appointment. Perhaps my mistake was asking to be taken to Westminster, but instantly the taxi driver began a rant that gradually descended into racism. At times I wondered if I was in an Ali G spin-off and being taken for a ride in both senses - that pendant hanging from the mirror - did it have a concealed TV camera?  Stephen Lawrence, he told me, must have said something to the people who killed him (though he agreed that wouldn't have justified murder) - his evidence: apparently Lawrence is giving the black power closed fist salute in all the photographs of him (this from someone who declared he doesn't read the newspapers or watch TV - so where does he see these photographs?) 'Why does one murder get all the attention' People are killed all the time.' (I tried rather feebly to point out that a racist murder has a symbolic value as well as the tragedy that it is for the individual and those he left behind).

In the course of a 15 minute ride he made comments about how he believed that black lesbians get preferential treatment when it comes to doing 'the knowledge', Eastern Europeans are the ones who rob cabbies at knife or gunpoint (no, it had never happened to him), and so on. He was a cheerful, friendly sort of man, and my attempts to stop the flow of racism by engaging him in a discussion of his prejudices were pathetic. I felt sullied by the whole experience, caught off-guard and weak at not confronting him more robustly...and possibly just getting him to stop the cab and get out. What really annoys me is that when I jumped out in heavy traffic I instinctively left a tip, despite my disgust at his views and disappointment about him matching up to the worst stereotypes of a London cabby - almost to the point of caricature (he even used the classic phrase 'what's it all about then?')...I'm still not absolutely sure I wasn't the victim of some kind of performance artist or reality TV stunt.

And then, again very unusually for me, I read Monday's The Daily Mail which was lying around at home (it was free at the gym) and while it's coverage of some topics fitted by stereotypical view of that newspaper, I was blown away by the leading letter to the editor: it was about Sartre's existentialism! Andew J. Smith from Roehampton University had written a clear response to a review of a prurient book about Sartre's and de Beauvoir's supposedly 'essential' relationship..He points out that, "far from being the 'bible or our licentious times'...existentialism is a philosophy which demands that all of us ask ourselves a very personal question: what gives my life meaning?" I don't  agree with this as an encapsulation of Sartre's existentialism (since he answers that question rather than invites us to ask it - Sartre's answer is  the choices I make, the sum of what I actually do). But how prejudiced of me not to expect to find existentialism being discussed in the letters page of the Daily Mail...

Comments

[Justin R. M.]

In cases like that where I'm made uncomfortable by comments—notably racist ones—from others around me most of the time all you can do is laugh it off. If it's really offensive I'll say, “Well, I admire your honesty.” Asking probing philosophical questions is surely useful at times, but some people are impervious to that kind of approach. Also, it's not so clear that wasting your time like that would be of any use anyhow. It's tantamount to debating religious people: You're not going to change their mind and they aren't going to change yours. Shrug your shoulders and wonder how it is this species hasn't gone extinct yet.

[Bob]

Comedian Stewart Lee tells a story about a cab driver who expressed his slight homophobia ("I think all homosexuals should be killed").
See this youtube video - especially the cab driver's brilliant retort.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n-UGQcG3Jw

[Ophelia Benson]

That does sound very surreal. I would have been not suspicious but firmly convinced I was in some 'Blokes Behaving Badly' or 'Cabbies Say the Funniest Things' episode or other. That's all the more true because there actually is a US tv show in which a New York cab turns out to be a tv quiz - the driver asks the passenger(s) questions and awards them money unless they get three wrong, all on camera. It's only a matter of time before 'Racist Cab Driver' does become a reality show.

[amanda]

"Some of my best friends are Daily Mail readers" (but only if it was free at the gym!)

[Thomas]

Thanks for having the guts to share this uncomfortable incident. We've all had moments where the tug between good manners and good morals leave us afterward wondering whether we shouldn't have been more assertive. (The right answer is always so context-dependant that ethical rules offer us little help.) But with the opportunity to imagine these kinds scenarios in advance, we're a bit more likely to respond in ways we can be proud of when they confront us in real life. By sharing your unease, you're alerted your readers to think through how they'll choose to handle themselves in similar situations.

[Pauline Kiernan]

When I took a degree course in what was then called Communication Studies at what became the University of Westminster(and a fantastic one)in the early 70s, we were required to read every national newspaper, and particularly the Mail, Express, Sun and Mirror every day. Groups rotated to post cuttings on the notice boards in the central area so that we could quickly compare coverage of stories - just as important, which papers placed their ads in.

It was one of the most valuable exercises I ever learnt. I still read these papers now and again, and I always make a point of reading the Mail regularly. At the risk of sounding a touch fey (and mixing my metaphors) I think anything that can stop me slumbering in my liberal-minded cocoon and destabilise my footing on the moral high ground is a good thing. I need to know what people who don't feel the same way as me think about things. My son is appalled when he finds these papers in the house. But I just tell him you gotta broaden your understanding of what's going on out there.

[mark adams]

It doesn't take a letter on Sartre to establish that you are prejudiced about The Daily Mail. You seem to associate the cabbie's critique of Stephen Lawrence with a presumed racism in The Mail. If you saw the Mail's coverage of that murder and it's aftermath, you'd see an extraordinary and aggressive sympathy for Lawrence and antipathy for his suspected killers.

My prejudice is that your prejudice is a typical case of social liberals projecting their own bugbears onto conservative media in order to de-legitimize them in polite society.