Sometimes you don’t know what a culture is until it’s gone. From Dr. Naomi Wolf at naomiwolf.substack.com:
Is Cynical Mass Illegal Immigration Being Deployed Against our National US Culture?
These days, I dread, under certain circumstances, getting into New York City taxis. Cultures around the world vary of course. (That should not be a taboo sentence.) And there are some cultures in this world in which women have no voice at all, and are treated with complete disrespect. I don’t wish to name that culture, as generalizations can indeed be racist or xenophobic.
I’ve lived for two decades in New York City, and usually my interactions with cab drivers are lovely.
But the new reality is inescapable: more often than not, when the driver of the taxi to which I am now doomed, is from a part of the world where these particular misogynist cultures exist, and if the driver is a recently arrived immigrant and male, I know that I will have a miserable argument before I can arrive at my destination.
“Sir, you are heading North — we are going to Brooklyn, which is South.”
“Lady, I know what I am doing.” Spat out between gritted teeth.
“I don’t mean to offend you, but we need to turn left and go down Seventh Avenue — we have gone eight blocks North now, out of our way.”
“Why are you telling me how to drive my cab?!?” (Voice rising.)
“I’d like you to turn left please at the next possible left turn, and head down Seventh.”
“Do you think I am stupid? Do you think I don’t know the best way to go? Do you want to keep telling me how to do my job?!” (Shouting angrily, waves of neon-red hostility filling the cab).
By the time I get to my destination, I am a wreck. No matter how calm and polite I have remained, I have infuriated my driver merely by being a woman giving him directions. The fact is that in this particular culture, women are not, apparently, supposed to direct men — under any circumstances at all. So in the cab, when I am, inevitably, forced to give some direction or else be stuck with, variously, heading literally the wrong way, getting stuck in horrible Midtown traffic, or taking a huge costly detour, this act on my part, as courteously as I can achieve it, seems to have the effect of a red rag on a bull.
“It’s 11:59 on Radio Free America; this is Uncle Sam, with music, and the truth until dawn. Right now I’ve got a few words for some of our brothers and sisters in the occupied zone: “the chair is against the wall, the chair is against the wall”, “John has a long mustache, John has a long mustache”. It’s twelve o’clock, American, another day closer to victory. And for all of you out there, on, or behind the line, this is your song.”
[The Battle Hymn of the Republic]