First, You Can Never Be Surprised When Trouble Enters Your Cab
The following paragraphs were inspired by yet another conversation with the same former Seattle Yellow cabbie I featured last week, this time telling me how he was robbed at gunpoint, shot but luckily, not killed. His story is an almost step-by-step textbook on how NOT to respond when trouble approaches your cab. And this is the major lesson here: you have to know, understand what kind of person is entering your cab, making it far too late once you have started off, and suddenly, all hell! is breaking out, and find yourself in deep trouble.
As I have said in past blog posts, the awake cabbie must first be a psychologist when assessing your passengers. Any and all behaviors should be expected. Thugs, crooks and ruffians are too obvious in their behaviors to not notice these guys are potential trouble. My most helpful piece of advise is, upon sensing that something is wrong, is to give voice to your suspicions. If you think they are dangerous, tell them that. If you think they might rob or assault you, don't be shy or overly polite, tell them straight out what you suspect while adding it would be a great mistake if they tried to hurt you. You are the boss in the cab, not the passenger. Demand up front payment, and if refused, its the end of the ride. Remember, you can't negotiate when your life is on the line. Have no doubt whatsoever, people will kill you minus a second thought. That is the cold reality of being a cab driver. Back in the mid-1980s, 50 cabbies a year on average were murdered in New York City. Playing games with a thug could mean you might die. It's as simple as that.
His story is that he took a call late in the West Seattle during a time when crack cocaine usage was epidemic, at an intersection near the then notorious High Point neighborhood, an area I even avoided due to its well deserved bad reputation. His first mistake was letting the two guys into his cab instead of locking his doors while interviewing them through a cracked window. Then, after letting them enter the cab, he followed their directions to a darkened, dead end street. Again, as I have warned previously, NEVER, EVER with questionable passengers, drive to a street with no escape route.
It was then the gun was placed against his head, and after giving the robbers $200.00 he ran, only to be shot in the head, thankfully the bullet only grazing him. Making this far worse, the Seattle Police officers he later dealt with were dismissive, allowing the assailants never to be charged, even though one of the suspects were known to them. Yes, armed robbery and attempted murder wasn't enough for SPD to make an arrest. This is also another unfortunate part of the Seattle taxicab story known too well to those of us working beneath the toplight. Seattle cops, they hated us. Why, I don't know but from my many negative interactions with Seattle's finest, it is damn well true, you could not trust or rely upon Seattle's Blue.
The Port of Seattle Once Again Shows How It Truly Feels About Cab Drivers
Sea-Tac was pressuring owner operators to put on wheelchair vans but even after the extra expense, having no intention of allowing those operators to now work seven days a week at the airport. This new initiative also caught the attention of the guys currently driving Yellow's WAT vans, with a friend of mine expressing his official displeasure on behalf of his fellow WAT associates. But all this ruckus was for naught, the Port withdrawing its offer, showing once again their unconcealed disrespect for the cabbies working Sea-Tac. Uber and Lyft, they can work at the airport 24/7. Not so the cabbies.
Trouble in Nigeria
You might have heard about the cult in Nigeria, where a pastor told his followers that in order to enter heaven and see Jesus, they must starve themselves to death, in this way reaching the promised land. Hundreds have died. What most don't know is that before preaching death as the guaranteed path to salvation, Paul McKenzie Nhenge was a cab driver. Vladimir Putin also once drove a cab in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Is there some kind of pattern in play here? But the Nigerian is amateurish in comparison, Putin responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and counting. The big different is that Nhenge is under arrest. But with Putin, nothing will occur, incurring no accountability whatsoever.
Is Anyone Working in Seattle Really a Free Human Being?
The answer to that question might be yes, yes if you are making $100.00 plus per hour but less than that, you are probably struggling. Recent headlines have screamed the news that to afford an one bedroom Seattle apartment, it's necessary to earn $40.38 per hour. To live in in a two bedroom apartment, $47.21 per hour is required. To rent an one bedroom apartment you will be paying on average $2,335.00. For that 2 bedroom, you are looking at $3,132.00. I see this as a new kind of slavery, wage slavery keeping your nose, as they say, to the grindstone. Today we were told Seattle's annual inflation rate is 18%, basically the highest in the nation, and scary, nearly equal to San Francisco. Wasn't the 13th Amendment to the American Constitution passed on December 6th, 1865? Maybe not.
Monday was Juneteenth Day
For those who don't know, June 19th, 1865 is commemorated because it is the day black slaves in Texas were told they were free, this 2 1/2 years after Lincoln's January 1st, 1863 Emancipation Proclamation freeing all the slaves. To that point, in 1865, slaves in Texas didn't know they had been freed. The 13th Amendment further ratified Lincoln's intentions stated back in 1863. That American blacks are still fighting for equal protections under American law speaks sadly to our nation's legacy of forced enslavement. Every black immigrant cabbie in Seattle and elsewhere in the United States will tell you that their personal fight for equality is something they encounter each and everyday in the cab.
When my friend Pavel was still driving a cab, he was followed onto the West Seattle Bridge by a WSP officer and ticketed. Why was he stopped? For not wearing a seatbelt, the sole reason why the officer risked his own life on the ever precarious West Seattle Bridge, because, more than simply issuing a citation, he was making a statement. Pavel certainly heard it. It was because he was black. There was no other rationale. It was because Pavel was free and not a slave, feeling entitled to make his own decisions.
To this day, many still object that blacks are free---can live where they want, work where they want, marry who they want. Racism is still very much alive in our country, with many still not interested in hearing Lincoln's words written and spoken back in 1863, saying, without equivocation, that all Americans, regardless of their color, are forever freed, never again to be enslaved.
That's why this holiday is utterly important for you and me and everyone, never wishing to be enslaved anytime in the future. Though believe me, many, if given the opportunity, would return us to the America that existed before 1861, and be glad of it. One thing I have learned these 69 years being alive is that some people never learn the lessons history has to teach---ignorance their mouths, foolishness their tongues.
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