A Dominican taxi driver has been banned for wearing a swastika, according to the New York Daily News, and is now claiming that his "rights were violated" for adhering to "National Socialism."
Gabriel Diaz, 27, denies the Holocaust and wears a swastika. But he insists that he "doesn't hate Jews" (he is just "critical" of them), and claims that he is being persecuted for his political beliefs.
“If a Muslim can drive a cab wearing a turban, if a homosexual can walk around with a big rainbow flag, why can’t a person like me wear a Nazi armband?” Diaz asked Daily News reporters Friday.
He also addressed an irony that he still seems to have missed: as a black man, the Nazis would have persecuted him, as well.
“I know it’s very controversial that a non-white is wearing a Nazi armband,” he said. “Whoever said you had to be white to be a National Socialist?”
New York's Taxi and Limousine Commission cracked down on Diaz for wearing a Nazi armband in public, citing “acts against the best interest of the public” and banning him from picking up fares for 30 days.
Diaz, who says he's been told "lies about the Holocaust," insists that his rights have been violated - and is defiant against his critics.
“I’m going to wear it, but not while driving a cab because there’s a lot of crybabies out there in Manhattan, a lot of liberal crybabies, who cry every time they see a symbol of hate,” he sneered. “If I have to apologize, then a homosexual has to apologize for being a homosexual, for being open and gay."
Oddly enough, Diaz later insisted multiple times that he is "not anti-Semitic." According to the Daily Mail, he told a New York Post photographer wearing a yarmulke that he has "nothing against you people," adding "I’m not anti-Semitic. Why don’t you tolerate my views?"
He later repeated those claims to WCBS. "I don’t hate Jews. I’m critical of them, but I don’t hate them," he claimed. "That doesn’t mean that I’m anti-Semitic. That don’t make me a hater."