People were shocked to hear that Sen. Barack Obama - a black man who speaks so well…he's such a good speaker - said that he had trouble getting cabs on 60 Minutes. How could a senator and a presidential candidate possibly face discrimination from taxi drivers? But it's a tale as old as rhyme for most black men in this country. I work and live in New York City, and the sight of an empty cab sailing past my outstretched arm is a common occurrence.

Thank God New York is truly a 24-hour metropolis. Trains run well into the wee hours of the morning, and even though you may have to wait a half-hour for a train, you'll hardly ever be stranded in the armpit of the City for long. Not so for London. London tubes stop running around 12:30 and 1 am, leaving bar stragglers and late-night party goers lining up for black cabs. When I was in London last week, I spent an evening with friends in Soho and missed my window for the tube back to my hotel in Earl's Court. I was forced to brave the onslaught of cabs outside of Piccadilly Circus.

The next 20 minutes or so I spent were both familiar and frustrating. I stood alongside Shaftesbury Avenue with my arm extended nearly vertically, standing on my tip-toes just to make sure the cabbies saw me. But empty cab after empty cab sped past. I saw other people, all of them Caucasian, having better luck with cabs down the street, so I rushed in to claim their spots. However, the same thing continued to happen. One cab driver slowed up, glowered at me, and planted his foot on the gas as I approached the car. It was an act that left me both insulted and bewildered, as I questioned why the driver would do something like that. Was it how I was dressed? I didn't know. I was close to returning to my friend's apartment and just crashing there until the tube starting running again, but finally, a cab driver, a white man, pulled up alongside me.

He rolled down his window and cried out, "What didn't that guy stop for you?" I shook my head. "You should report him, mate. He's f*cking racist!" As he drove me to Earl's Court, he explained that many drivers were too scared to pick up black male passengers after all of the "black-on-black" gang killings in South London. The face of Billy Cox, a 15-year-old fatally shot in Clapham, had, quite rightfully, forced Robbie Williams off the tabloid papers for much of the week I was there. His tragic slaying coincided with the release of a UNICEF report that put the UK dead-last in child welfare amongst all industrialized nations, right below the U.S. In the States, it's easy to pin the blame on society's ills on "Others," and it happens in the UK as well. It's not American, it's global. White people can kill and rob each other until Doomsday, but generalizations will continue to be thrown at minorities because of the actions of a few.

  
http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/23/anglophenia.jsp?bc_id=086