The front-page story in the Tribune today – at least on the newsstand tab version – is a look at “high profile” attacks on cab drivers, with the implication throughout being that in these tough economic times, cabbies are at a higher risk of being mugged.
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But I couldn’t help but think of this, from Kari Lydersen’s October cover story in the Reader about Walid Ziada:
“People think the dangerous areas are where the black, Puerto Rican, Mexican people live,” says [United Taxidrivers Community Council organizer Peter] Enger. “But we suffer the most violence in the most highly trafficked areas. It’s the drunks and rowdies who perpetrate violence on the cabdrivers. Is it because [drivers] are immigrants, because of prejudice? We don’t know. But what we do know is they do it because they can.”
