Posts
The Daily Mail reports with some glee that BBC radio presenter Sam Mason has been sacked after calling a taxi for her 14-year-old daughter one afternoon and requesting a non-Asian driver. The conversation was recorded and passed to The Sun. Mason apparently says, "A guy with a turban is going to freak her out. She's not used to Asians." When told that it would not be possible to service her request, she the apparently retorted: "You've managed it before."
Why am I commenting on this story? Well, some of the comments left on the Daily Mail's web page covering the story are interesting to say the least. Here's an example:
"Dont blame her,but in PC UK you have no freedoms any more."
...while having the freedom to say so, it seems. This correspondent's idea of freedom is about the race of the driver not the quality of service he offers.
"More selective discrimination PC rubbish. Bet there wouldn't be this fuss if she'd specifically asked for a female driver."
True, requesting a female driver could be about real fear, whereas this is about the race of the driver. So, why didn't Ms Mason simply ask if a female driver was available? Given that it's just a taxi ride and that the driver is immaterial, how can it be that someone in a turban will "freak out" a 14-year-old in this day and age? Clearly Ms Mason has no qualms about letting her daughter ride with an unknown male taxi driver - just not an "Asian" one.
"If it were me I wouldn't care if it had two heads," Mason is alleged to have said, "but it's my little girl we are talking about."
Black American comedian Reginald D Hunter once said that there are two kinds of racism. There's the racism that's just ignorance and doesn't really affect anyone, and there's the racism has consequences. It stops people getting housing, jobs and so on. She may not realise it, but by denying a fare to a perfectly good taxi driver on grounds of his race (or more accurately, religion), Ms Mason falls (perhaps unwittingly, but very definitely) into the second category. I think, however, I'll leave the last word on this to a twistedly self-rigteous comment left on the Daily Mail web site by someone calling himself "Peter". See if you can guess which of Hunter's categories he's in from what he says:
"What the PC brigade have done and are doing to this country is frightening. You'll find Ms.Harman and her troop at the root of much of it. We all have prejudices and that does not make us racist. Simply she didn't want a chap in a turban for her daughter."
