On June 30th, 2015, members of the City Council Transportation Committee introduced a bill that would limit for-hire vehicle companies with over 500 cars, such as Uber, to only being able to increase its amount by 1% annually.

The program would only be for one year as the city does a survey on the effects of for-hire vehicle companies on traffic congestion. That would mean Uber could only add 201 drivers next year, a nearly debilitating dropoff for a company that has doubled its number of new drivers signing up every six months from 2012 to 2014.

Uber has staged protests outside of New York City Hall and created a fake De Blasio tab in its app. The New York Times reported de Blasio’s press secretary, Karen Hinton sent emails to reporters of the news of an administrative judge in California recommending Uber be suspended. Former Obama adviser, and current Uber strategic adviser, David Plouffe is calling the survey a farce, claiming the bill is “less about traffic congestion than it is about political contributions.”

So, like in any political fight, Uber made a smear campaign ad:

I had maybe two bad experiences out of hundreds, but I learned a lot during that year. Though I admittedly stopped picking up groups of more than two male (often black) passengers after those two bad experiences.

I was able to kick dope and return to my career, but I got more education out of “hacking” in Baltimore than I ever did in college. I once even picked up a woman who was sexually assaulted and brought her to the police station for help. The vast majority of my African American passengers were only forced to choose an unregulated and unsafe jitney cab because they could not access other options. Kind of reminds me of the retail banking industry in a way.

The reader follows up:

I also want to mention that I grew up quite poor, but I learned that growing up poor and white is much less of a handicap than growing up poor and black in America. I could always blend through my own force of will and by imitating the mannerisms of “betters,” but I would guess that to be much harder were I to stand out due to my melanin content.

I’ve also reattained employment in my field despite having a criminal record. I can’t think that would also be more difficult had I been born black. I can explain away my issues as youthful indiscretions, even though they lasted into my thirties. Yet an African American friend of mine with similar qualifications and much more educated parents (wealthier parents too) has a much harder time with doing the same.

Those immigrant taxi drivers he’s talking about are immigrants because very few born-and-bred Americans will take a job so bad. About 30-40 percent of the Chicago taxi drivers he’s talking about make less than minimum wage, and $12-13 an hour is high wages, for a Chicago driver. [CB note: a bigger followup study counters those minimum wage figures and found that the average income of Chicago cabbies is $12/hour average … and one-sixth of them actually lose money every day.]

What hard data there is shows that black people tip less in almost all situations, even when adjusting for income. See this 2006 study from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. The same paper notes that in what taxi-specific data there is, black people tip less and are four times more likely not to tip at all. Taking fares from black people means, for taxi drivers, significantly less money. There’s no statistically plausible way it couldn’t.

That Cornell study isn’t the most relevant for this topic, since it addresses restaurant tipping, but this one is: a 2005 study of 1,000 cab rides in New Haven, Connecticut, published in the Yale Law Journal. (Update: The reader points out that “the Cornell study had that taxi data in it, but it was buried pretty far down in the study.”) One of the study’s authors from Yale, Ian Ayres, summarized the findings on the Freakonomics blog:

1. African-American cab drivers, on average, were tipped approximately one-third less than white cab drivers.

2. African-American and Hispanic passengers tipped approximately one-half the amount white passengers tipped.

African-American passengers also seemed to participate in the racial discrimination against African-American drivers. While African-American passengers generally tipped less, on average they also tipped black drivers approximately one-third less than they tipped white drivers.

Passenger discrimination against African-American drivers was not subtle: African-American drivers were 80 percent more likely to be stiffed than white drivers (28.3 percent vs. 15.7 percent).

Back to our reader, who ventures into fraught territory:

About danger: Did you know taxi driving is the occupation with the highest on-the-job murder rates in the U.S.? It’s over twice as bad as the next closest job: being a cop.

This is a map of the racial breakdown of Chicago. This is a map of crime density in Chicago. They are nearly identical. The black areas are the high-crime areas, more or less, and also the low-income areas. Taking more fares from black passengers means going to more dangerous places. There’s no statistically plausible way it couldn’t. It also very likely means less return fares, which means less money for increased danger.

We can and must talk about how there’s a lot of history behind why those maps look like that. We can and must talk about policies that feed that problem and prolong it. We have to talk about why a lot of black men and women are denied jobs and opportunity. We even have to go all the way down the line and talk about people who are racist but don’t have a lot of control or money—taxi drivers, for instance.

What we can’t do, though, is ignore what having that conversation means. The studies that exist suggest that to a taxi driver, that tip money and those return trips mean the difference between not making the rent and making a just-barely-living wage. The murder statistics suggest that a taxi driver is more than anyone else in America justified in worrying about driving into high-crime areas.

Does every black person live in a dangerous neighborhood and refuse to tip? No. But statistically, the likelihood is increased.

Glanville calls these men racist, and he’s right. Nothing can justify that and make racism positive. But every relevant piece of data we have shows that that racism might mean the difference between barely scraping by and getting evicted, of being able to do a dangerous job in slightly less dangerous places or not. There’s a difference between a rich man in a safe place being racist and what Glanville is talking about.

What do you think?

This notion that the rest of the world is a racism-free oasis, and that people come to this country and pick up racism, like some virus, is so much nonsense. Try getting a cab in Asia, the Middle East, and large swaths of Europe. For that matter, try talking to a black African about African Americans.

Another reader nods along:

I agree, especially because the author mentions that the cab driver was Asian. I’ve been to China—everyone’s racist there, even against their own kind (China is BIG, with a lot of different ethnicities), and especially against black people, whom they openly detest. For example, this Beijing shop had a sign out front saying This shop does not receive, Japanese, Philippines, Vietnamese, and dogs. And it’s not unique; I’ve seen several similar examples.

The cab driver didn’t pick up this attitude in the U.S.; he brought it with him.

Based on Glanville’s embrace of Uber, a reader sees an opening for an ideological lesson:

Problem: It’s hard for black men to get a taxi.

Leftist solution: Sue the taxi company, thereby raising rates for everyone. Talk incessantly about institutional racism. Hijack college curriculums so every student at America’s universities gets indoctrinated. Start protest movements that fail to improve the lot of black people in America but succeed at vilifying police, resulting in a violent crime spike throughout America. Cobble together a trillion dollar set of government programs that don't fix anything, but do create a permanent underclass of dependent recipients. Talk and talk and talk some more about the problem with anyone who will listen, and get angry at white people who don't have time to listen to you because they, you know, have a job and a family. Play this game for decades, creating permanent division between the races in America, then stand outside in New York and get angry that even after all that, a black man still can’t get a cab.

Capitalist solution: Invent Uber. Problem solved.

But this reader is far more skeptical of the app-based service:

Uber drivers are just as racist and discriminatory as traditional cabbies. Try sending an Uber ping with an “urban” name like “Dwayne” or “Latisha” (or worse, an Indian or Asian name) and see how long it takes for a pick-up compared to someone right next to you whose name is “Peter” or “Mary.”

Drop me an email if you have any particularly strong views here, especially ones based on personal experience. Update from a reader:

As a Black man living in Brooklyn for 20+ years who has traveled throughout the U.S. and to Europe, Asia and Africa, I read Glanville’s piece with some interest and some first-hand experience with the issues at hand. His was a nuanced piece and I congratulate him on that. However, I agree with most of the criticisms made regarding the assumption that immigrants “learn” racism once they arrive.  I think they DO learn the racial pecking order (long ago, Richard Pryor had a very bitter comedy routine regarding Vietnamese immigrants learning to properly say the word “n******r”) and I think they do employ the same heuristics regarding crime, race, gender and geography that many Americans do. All very nuanced and very difficult to grapple with.

That’s why I was disappointed in your decision to include the ideological nonsense from that one reader masquerading as a response. Not only does it haul out a tired (but all-too-often employed) distinction between “leftists” and “capitalists,” but it completely ignores the issue of why drivers would discriminate and in the process ignores one of the key attributes of the taxi industry that companies like Uber eschew—“compellability.” (For a good breakdown on that issue as it affects London, see this piece on London Connections.)

I greatly appreciate the absence of a comments section. But I recognize that it puts an editorial burden on you to read through, select, and publish certain opinions. Unless your goal was to provoke a less-than-thoughtful debate, I think you failed on this one. These are difficult issues, but they are manageable ones if we can avoid the partisan nonsense that works in electoral campaigns. On your blog, you have the opportunity and the responsibility to influence how these issues are dealt with.

As an aside, in NYC, you don’t “sue the taxi company” as a general response.  You take the driver to TLC Court. I’ve done it, twice. The specific driver faces fines (and potentially lost work time). To initiate the process you note license number (on the plate, on top of the cab and on your receipt) and dial 311.

That contested reader response was worth airing because, if nothing else, it prompted that far better followup email with those informative links.