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A New Yorker has described the “saddest moment” following a moving conversation he had with a Muslim taxi driver in New York following terror attacks in Paris.
Alex Malloy (pictured below), 23, described “one of the most heartbreaking moments I’ve ever experienced in my whole life” when he got into a Muslim taxi driver’s car only to find he was his first customer in two hours -- blaming the people of New York being too scared to get into his cab.
A conversation with a driver inspired him to speak out against Islamophobia, following the horrific attacks in French capital on Friday night that left 129 people dead.
“For 25 minutes I had to tell this stranger, this human being like you and I, that he was not part of what was happening.
“He cried the whole way to my apartment and it made me cry too. He kept saying, ‘Allah, my god, does not believe in this. People think I’m a part of this and I’m not’,” Malloy wrote on Twitter.
“My cab ride home, was the saddest moment I’ve experienced as apart of the human race. Please, stop generalising people,” he tweeted.
“Nobody wants to drive with me because they feel unsafe. I can’t even do my job,” he wrote. “These are not our enemies. These are our friends, neighbours and allies... And they deserve nothing more than our respect and attention.”
At least 129 people were killed and nearly 200 others injured in a series of attacks targeting young concert-goers, soccer fans and Parisians enjoying a Friday night out at popular restaurants, in the deadliest violence to strike France since World War II.