Frozen by ideology

There was an interesting exchange between the head of the NYC livery/cab drivers union and the leading civil rights leaders in the city after he called for "racial profiling" on the people getting into cabs. This after a cab driver was shot by a robber.

What's fascinating to me is that instead of hearing the message this guy was trying to deliver, the Al Sharptons and such cannot get past this guy's communication problem and so can only respond in the cliche rhetoric of calling him a racist.

This is funny as the guy is both a Hispanic and (part)black. Apparently he has also done quite a bit trying to help poor people in his community.

Here are some of the articles, especially here where he tries to clarify what he is saying...

And what he is saying is basically - in bad neighborhoods, don't pick up guys that are wearing hoodies where you can't see their face. Don't pick up guys that look suspicious or like they may not be the most upstanding members of society. Err on the side of caution. The race point he makes actually doesn't make sense except to say that many people that live in poor, black neighborhoods are black or Hispanic. So, frankly, the profiling can't really be race based anyway...