Yet another incident of racism appeared on Tuesday in America. The victim was from Nepal, Subhakar Khadka, 32, working as a Uber driver in the United States.
It was a normal day for him; Subhakar was driving his Uber ride. He stopped at San Bruno Avenue, San Francisco, to pick up three passengers – all of them were women. The incident started when he told a lady to wear a mask. However, instead of wearing the mask, the woman started to cough in a discourteous way and cursed him.
Khadka said the problems began when he pulled over his car when one of the passengers did not listen to his face covering request. Then, he drove the car to a petrol station to convince her to purchase a mask, yet all of them abused him on the way, Khadka said to the police officers.
Recently, Uber has revised its policy after Covid-19. It has a mandatory policy of “No mask. No ride“. The company tracks each driver with a mask verification process. “Mask Verification prompts to take a photo of themselves before they can begin driving, delivering, or riding, and it uses our technology to verify that they’re wearing a mask,” according to Uber. Because of this reason, Khadka was obliged to convince the women to wear a face covering. Moreover, he didn’t expect the incident to happen.
In an interview with a news channel, KPIX, Subhakar says, “I’ve never said anything bad to them, I never cursed, I was not raised that way.” He continues, “I don’t hit people… they were not getting out of my car, these guys are animals to treat a human being like this when a woman left the vehicle she pepper-sprayed from the passenger window.” The Uber driver had to leave his car because he couldn’t breathe.
Khadka believes that if he belonged to another race, he would not have been attacked. He says, “the moment when I opened my mouth to speak, they realized I was not one of them…”
The whole incident was filmed. We can see that the woman tears Khadka’s mask and spell racists words. One of the passengers grabs his cell phone without his permission. The case has been currently investigated by San Francisco police. Also, Uber has suspended the account of one female passenger.
Uber Driver Receives Funding
To fight a legal battle, Cyan Banister, an entrepreneur, is organizing a fundraiser on Subhakar Khadka. Currently, in gofundme.com, he has received a total of $53,695 despite the target was $20,000. More than 2 thousand people have donated for him.
The statement on the website says, “Uber failed to step up to take care of [Khadka] to help him with lost wages and to clean from having pepper spray chemicals sprayed into the fabric of his car. [Uber] instead began by only offering $20 in compensation for having pepper spray covering his interior fabric. They then [provided] $120 as compensation, but this does not come close to the expenses needed to have a professional car detailing to try and remove the strong chemicals of pepper spray and the lost wages from not working.”
Subhakar immigrated to the US eight years ago and is currently working hard to support his family in his home country, Nepal. He has been working as an Uber driver since August 2018.
