About Us

---

It took place last year in New York City at 40th and Avenue of the Americas (better known as 6th Avenue).  After walking many blocks I was tired and decided to catch a taxi to my hotel and there was a taxi standing near the corner so I walked up and said, "Taxi". The middle aged driver was white, rolled down his window on the passenger side and asked, "where are you going"? I bristled internally at the question and said, "Park Central Hotel". He said, "get in". 

As I was sitting in the back seat seething because my experience as a black woman  in New York (lived there 17 years in another season of my life) with taxi drivers had not always been positive. Aside from an overall rudeness masked as a New York state of mind, I have had taxi drivers pass me by to pick up someone who didn't look like me as they assumed I was going to Harlem pre-2000 (and so what if I were?)

Anyway, as we were about to pull off, a white woman knocked on the passenger side window rather aggressively and the driver rolled down the window.  She said to the taxi driver, "Why didn't you take me when I hailed you to go to Soho, but you picked her up?" (gestering to me sitting in the back seat).

The taxi driver replied, "because we're going in the same direction". 

I was floored by the incident because 1) my assumption that he was asking me where I was going because of the color of my skin was incorrect, and 2) he had turned down a white woman in favor of taking me, and 3) it was a simple, yet profound statement that resonated with me as a life lesson: going in the same direction has meaning. 

Later, it became a good platform for my interest in Diversity, Equity & Inclusion, and my journey thereof.