I heard the most horrific story on the radio today. It is about a (white) man in who started his own business about a year ago, and was finally starting to reap the rewards of all his hard work. He was transporting children from schools. It took a long time to build up a rapport with the schools and parents, and to establish the infrastructure needed to fulfill his mandate to the schools and parents.

As he was doing his rounds, transporting children, he was pushed off the road by a number of taxis. They shoved a gun in his face, stating that if he continues to “steal their brother’s business” they will kill him. He explained that he is transporting children and is not competition for his brother, to which the gunmen replied “We don’t care. If we see you here again, we will kills you.”

The man went on to tell the talk show host that he had to cancel contracts with parents and schools and refund people their money due to this. It is logical – you can not run the risk of having someone’s children injured, or worse, killed, in performing your duty. Putting those children at risk is simply not a good option. In short, this person’s business was ruined from being profitable to nothing in a matter of a minute or two. He cannot operate anymore, in fear of getting killed, or getting his passengers killed.

He said that “I am too white to get employed, and too white to work for myself”. Due to the past of South Africa, there is definitely a strong shift towards employing previously disadvantaged individuals. I do not know much about this man’s history, his education or his skill sets, but I believe, based on the hosts’ talk on the radio, that he started this business because he could not get a job. This means that he is possibly uneducated or his skills are not in high demand. For a person such as this, finding his own employment is paramount to survival, and he had the guts to make the move and start something that was starting to bloom, only to have it taken away from him in a matter of minutes.

In South Africa, the taxi industry are primarily run by non-white people, and therefore may be the reason why he made the statement about his skin colour. I am not sure that it was the correct thing to say, as it puts a racial spin to his situation, however, it may well be true. Lots of callers, including black people, called in to say how appalled they were about his situation, and expressed their condemnation of what happened to him. Some people called in and said something to the lines of “All you have to do is get a black driver”. Really? Is that the solution? He runs his own one-man show. He drives his own vehicle.

With the recent history about how many children died in taxis over the last year or so due to negligent driving, how could he even consider that? Besides the fact that he was starting to become profitable, it does not mean he makes enough money to hire a driver. Have you seen the condition of some of the taxis on South African roads? Sometimes it is the owner’s fault, for not keeping it maintained, but generally the passengers and drivers and damaging it with their reckless driving and disrespect for other people’s property. Why on earth would he trust his own vehicle in the hands of another driver, regardless of the colour of the driver’s skin? “Get a black driver”. Seriously? Should this be necessary? can we not all just drive our vehicles on the common roads in this country without the risk of being intimidated like this? Wouldn’t that be super?

Until next time…