by Steve Hanamura
One would think that catching a taxi in front of a hotel would be an easy task … but not always. While on a recent visit to Portland, OR my colleague, Mary-Frances Winters, invited me to meet her for lunch. We enjoyed our meal together, caught up on one another’s lives and talked about our diversity work. When lunch was completed Mary-Frances walked me to the front of the hotel to catch a taxi. There were four cabs lined up so I approached the first cab and asked the driver if he took credit cards. He shook his head “no” so we walked to the second cab and asked the same question. That driver also shook his head. What ensued next was a rather animated conversation by all four cab drivers in a language neither Mary-Frances nor I understood; so we stood off to the side trying to figure out what was happening.
Finally one of the drivers said he would take me. When I got into the cab the story began to unfold. All four of the drivers were from Eastern European countries where it is very uncommon to see a person with a disability (I am blind) out and about. Two of the drivers were older and afraid I couldn’t sign for the credit card. The younger man who agreed to drive me did not have the same concerns.
As soon as I got home I called Mary-Frances and told her what I’d learned. We had a good laugh, but also saw the complexities of diversity in action. Many years ago it was standard procedure for cabbies to by-pass anyone who was holding a white cane or who had a guide dog. Although we’ve still got a long way to go in the United States, we are farther along than some other countries when it comes to people with disabilities. I thought of the great Cornell West who tells of trying to catch a cab on an evening when he and his wife were celebrating their anniversary. Not a single cab stopped.
Sadly, our approach to diversity is still often driven by fear rather than discovery. I’m grateful for the cab driver that chose discovery.
