Uber Announces Race-Based Discount on Rides and Food Delivery
Uber is giving black-owned businesses a competitive advantage over everyone else, according to a new policy unveiled last week by its CEO.
In a statement posted on Twitter, CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced that Uber Eats will promote black-owned restaurants and that it will not charge delivery fees from those restaurants “for the remainder of the year.”
The app will initially take anyone who opens it to a list of black-owned restaurants, Yahoo News wrote in explaining how the new policy will work.
The statement said that next up will be “discounted rides to black-owned small businesses, who have been hit hard by COVID-19” from Uber. The statement did not provide details.
https://t.co/j2HXSHT2wX pic.twitter.com/3NlmgZeYa5
— Uber (@Uber) June 5, 2020
Lest anyone forget the reason for the policy, Khosrowshahi wrote that Uber identifies with those in the streets protesting after the death of George Floyd, the Minnesota man who died in police custody on May 25.
“I wish that the lives of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and countless others weren’t so violently cut short,” she wrote.
Arbery was killed in a Brunswick, Georgia, shooting on Feb. 23 for which three white men have been arrested. Taylor was killed March 13 in Louisville, Kentucky, by police during a search of her apartment. Police have said they were shot at before they opened fire, according to The Washington Post.
“I wish that institutional racism, and the police violence it gives rise to, didn’t cause their deaths,” Khosrowshahi wrote.
Khosrowshahi wrote that “Black Americans often don’t feel safe to move freely in many places around our country.”
The new Uber Eats app will be available in major cities in the U.S. and Canada.
The action was controversial.
Why this discrimination based on color of skin?
— Mama Africa (@Vicky_291989) June 4, 2020
I’m pretty sure this is illegal
Imagine doing this for white owned businesses
Hypocritical racist billion dollar companies virtue signaling through racism is incredibly insensitive
+ you’re violating discrimination laws in many states
Absolute bad move
— ELIJAH (@ElijahSchaffer) June 6, 2020
I’ve always eaten where I wanted, never once did it cross my mind to eat somewhere because the owner was white, black, asian, or any other background! I’m not starting now.
We are all Americans, I’m not choosing one race over another, Enough with the virtue signaling!— John Quinn?????? (@JohnQui52641772) June 5, 2020
The effort to support black-owned businesses responds to customer requests, the company said, according to The Daily Mail.
Uber did not ask for racial data when eating places registered. Its employees compiled the list of black-owned restaurants using publicly available sources and through local organizations and business associations.
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