The arrival of dockless bikeshare in Greater Washington (especially in the District) has reignited my passion for biking--and talking about biking. The one thing holding me back? How to square this passion with a commitment to dismantling racism and working to promote justice.
Common ground certainly exists, like reducing reliance on fossil fuels, working towards improved air quality, providing affordable alternative transit options, and reducing pedestrian injuries. But anyone paying attention to racial politics in Washington, DC knows that "bike lanes" is a loaded term. In his last mayoral campaign, Mayor Adrian Fenty ignored the racial and class-based implications of these discussions and, as Derek Musgrove and Chris Myers Asch explain, lost as a result. In Sadie Dingfelder's mainly-humorous article about triathletes racing bikeshare cycles across DC, one cyclist literally got blindsided by a car. At the same time, I got blindsided by a comment in the discussion section of the article, which reads, in part: --- Blacks who live in the projects in Southwest (roughly south of M St and between the ballpark and 4th St) hammer the locks to destroy them, and then steal the bikes. I have seen them do this to Mobikes and other brands. I have seen them ride the stolen bikes along 4th St, near Safeway, and up to 600 Maryland Av SW. I have also seen damaged Spin bikes along P St SW. I emailed Spin to inform it of the bad neighborhood and received a reply that the company was glad to receive the information. I would recommend that the dockless bike companies routinely send their employees around this area to reclaim their respective bicycles. --- If I had any remaining illusions that I could talk about biking in DC without talking about race, the comment above certainly clears things up. So I'm going to continue with my plans to blog about biking in DC, but that also means I will necessarily need to blog about race. And class, and sex, and gender, and more. Of these, I have a feeling race will end up being the biggest elephant in the room. As a white male, I have many blind spots, so I'd better call them out from the start and then get to work trying to achieve better vision by educating myself, learning from peers and experts, and engaging in conversations that can focus attention on bias and injustice. Regarding the article comment, I would like to point out the danger of using anecdotal observations to make a broad statement about "blacks," "the projects," a "bad neighborhood," withdrawing services, and a company being "glad to receive the information." Robin DiAngelo calls this type of discourse "danger talk" because it feeds misinformation and leads to harmful policies that cause real injury to communities of color. We notice what we are conditioned to notice and filter out things that do not fit our preconceptions. A white person misusing a bike will not feed into a narrative of dangerous white people abusing property, but a black person commuting via bike (or riding for fitness, pleasure, or any other purpose) can all too easily be misperceived as a criminal riding a stolen bike. Even if the author of the comment personally observed a black person breaking a bike lock, is it really responsible to share the offender's race when describing the incident? Or to describe the incident in a public forum at all in a situation where readers can easily infer racial implications from the references to the neighborhood? Making public comments like these is irresponsible because it feeds stereotypes and leads to further misunderstandings. These things translate into policy decisions like withdrawing services from PoC neighborhoods while over-policing them. All of this feeds into a vicious cycle. And people of color get hurt. And sometimes killed. It is our responsibility to think critically about and resist these narratives so that we can generate real interracial understanding in Greater Washington. And, if we can help promote alternative transit and the expansion of bikeshare services while we're at it, even better. Comments are closed.
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