Bicycling and racism
Gwai
Epiphanies Host
in Epiphanies
Biking, at least in countries with poor biking support like mine may be one of the only times has to deal with being a minority. Some of the similarities between microaggressions one gets seem relevant:
Of course for those of us who are white and otherwise privileged, we can always just get off the bike while People of Color can't so easily avoid racism.
- The infrastructure is made for others and makes bikers less safe
- Conversations about jerk car drivers often turn into "but bikers are jerks too"
- Any obnoxious biker is taken as proof of both-sideism
- Aggressive and unsafe behaviors are sometimes a predictable coping mechanism for bikers
- In an accident people will tend to side with the driver
- Biking is much more dangerous than driving
Of course for those of us who are white and otherwise privileged, we can always just get off the bike while People of Color can't so easily avoid racism.
Comments
Yep. That just about sums it up. Outgrouping, projecting perceived faults of members of the group as a feature of the group, and so on.
We've recently had a couple of stories in the cycling press recently of drivers endangering young children by driving fast and close to them while they're cycling to school. In one case it was on a school street - a road where motor traffic is limited at school start and finish times for this very purpose.
Comments on the video on social media - condemnation of parents for letting children ride bikes to school and defence of the driver: "he didn't actually hit them did he?", "just a bloke trying to do his job" etc etc.
It may be a minority, but its a loud, vociferous and aggressive one. Like with other -isms.
I have never encountered a unicyclist causing trouble.
If this is a minority view, then the tendency is in fact not to side with the driver.
I don't see the point of the comparison between a prejudice against cyclists and systemic racism.
In fact I think the food delivery guys may be cut a bit more slack as they are perceived to be doing a tough job for little money, and the MAMILs are perceived to be entitled wankers ( especially when they congregate at the local caff for their skinny soy decaf lattes ( aka the Why bother?) & leave their velocipedes all over the footpath.
Well, every time cycling gets mentioned, someone will read a litany of offences attributed to cyclists, and this is deemed reason to dislike "cyclists" as a group. It happens across social media, it happens down the pub, it happens everywhere.
Which rather proves Gwai's point. Frankly I'm weary of it, having to defend one of my means of transport because someone saw someone else on a bike go through a red light. The attributes of some are spoken of as if they apply to all.
Oh come on Karl, re read my post.
Gwai did not make a point but suggested that racism might play a part in discrimination against cyclists. I don’t knowwhere in the US Gwai might live, and what the demographic of the local cyclists might be. Howeveras an elderly professional white pedestrianwoman in my patch I sure as hell know who is disliked ( ?discriminated against) bt motorist & pedestrian alike and it sure as well is not the multiracial couriers.
Except that's not what happened. Sojourner wrote about two groups of cyclists, and the one characterized negatively is a fairly particular group disliked because of social class perceptions.
I’m genuinely curious.
Note that I live in one of the few actually diverse neighborhoods in the city. Generally I see a significant number of Black or Latino guys cycling, almost always on the sidewalk. (Slowly, these are not the jerks who almost run you over generally.) Biking is definitely a racial justice issue here in that tons white bikers almost never get tickets and almost all the biking tickets are given out in neighborhoods where most people are Black .
This article Biking While Black is very worth reading both about the open police bias and why. Also generally bike lanes and other things that make biking safer are to be found in whiter neighborhoods.
While I prefer the previous article I like the quotes in this article too. which is from another article by a bigger paper
*That guy threatened to run me off the road and looked like he was considering making good on his threat.
I'm not an amateur demographer, but I've noticed folks of all kinds on bikes. I'm not sure people who bike as delivery guys are distinct to me as opposed to commuters or recreational riders, but it's a thing.
Our neighborhood is also intensely diverse, and pretty bicycle-friendly by Chicago standards, so that shouldn't be surprising.
The only time I've ever heard of anyone getting ticked for riding on the sidewalk, it was a black guy and a lot of folks felt that was profiling, since it's a law that is broken pretty often, usually to no injury.
Your being in a diverse neighbourhood in Chicago explains quite a bit.
I guess like here, the more suburban it becomes the fewer bikes.
But I'm not really getting the comparison of cycling itself to systemic racism. Maybe it's because I've spent a lot more of my non-car transportation time walking rather than cycling and 60% of the traffic deaths in my city last year were pedestrians. Maybe it's because there are so few commuting cyclists where I live -- a heck of a lot more people get to work here on foot or mass transit than by bicycle, and cycling is by and large a leisure activity for people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Maybe it's because the most avid cyclist I ever knew was a Black guy who rode an expensive bike entirely for fun and got pulled over by cops for driving while Black but not cycling while Black - I guess a Lycra outfit screams privilege in a way a Toyota 4-door sedan does not.
In other words, I think you have to have a particular experience of cycling for the comparison to systemic racism to have any resonance.
Because of the high-profile nature of these sporting events, the cyclists (some of them tourists) need to practise through the year and that is when they experience themselves as unusually vulnerable and unwelcome on off-road rides through mountain valleys, vineyards and small towns. There is limited mobile phone reception and competition for right of way along dirt roads or paths used by fruit harvesting trailers, farm vehicles (tractors) and 4x4 vehicles driven by young farmers, along with mountain bikes and motorbikers in groups. Not a good mix and some nasty accidents because most cyclists and drivers are used to getting their own way on the roads. The farm labourers driving tractors or trailers think of these rural roads as their territory and want interlopers in lycra out, will not yield or reverse on narrow roads because they are working and the visitors are just having fun. No traffic police and few ambulance services, almost no road signs and gates left open so livestock wander out and block lanes. Privileged leisure activities that can turn into blood sports.
He's from London, Ontario - my hometown - now living in Amsterdam.
Having bicycled in both cities (and many elsewheres including now where I live on the Costa since I don't own a car) - I feel like the man has a lot of sane observations and recommendations re: urban planning for less car-centric ways of getting from A to B.
https://www.youtube.com/@NotJustBikes
AFF