Jan Heine just mentioned a big deal: Cyclists are experiencing a Civil Rights fight. It was shocking to me to see it finally put that way. (He said he saw it somewhere earlier.)
It’s what I’ve been living almost my whole life. I wonder if PTSD even plays into it.
Think about it. Like thousands of other Americans, I’ve been biking a lot since the 70’s. I’d say that I’ve been assaulted on the road with a deadly weapon for no reason a few dozen times. I’ve had maybe a dozen people swing bats, boards and doors at me, pull their cars over and pile out swinging. I’ve had maybe 1000 drivers consider me non-human and drive past me just a few inches away.
Some close passes are intentional (which is shocking), but even the “I didn’t see him” reason behind so many accidents has a Civil Rights aspect to it (as with motorcycles, but they don’t get the hate/attacks). The Russian Roulette Close Call is kind of intense. Understatement, eh?
…All this has to have affected me/us. One effect is that I root for the underdog. Such violence has differing effects on people. And oppression is different from PTSD. Violent oppression probably combines the two, however. With some of it for me it has seemed to make me calm and helpful in emergencies: like someone with ER experience. But ER people aren’t also violently oppressed. Probably being told what to do (“Get off the road!”) by insane people for decades has made me more willing to question authority.
In the Civil Rights world we often hear that those who aren’t part of the oppressed can’t know what it’s like. And that’s true. Throw PTSD in there, too. …Try having people attack you with cars for decades. Or even once, if you’re not a biker. When I say it’s “shocking,” really, it’s traumatizing. Repeat traumas a hundred times and what do you get? …A kind of experience that those who haven’t been insanely attacked (for decades) can’t understand.
Now, other groups can’t change what makes them oppressed. Bikers could stop biking. But freedom, as we know, is a hard thing to give up. And so we don’t. In areas where it’s too bad many do give up, sensibly. It’s a common reason for mt-biking — people don’t want to deal with violence and risk on pavement with vehicle-driving “enemies.” Some places are unsafe apart from violence. We use common sense. But where it’s *possible* to be free, some will stick to it. They learn to ignore the hate and some attacks. But the crime is still there. As are its effects.
As a biker I get freely hated on by strangers for no reason other than the bike I ride. I’m the Other. Actually, I’m not “hated” on. Why not call it what it was/is? Hate crimes! “Fighting words” are real, right? Now have them hurled at you for no reason, for decades, just for who you are. Sound familiar?
My friends and I were biking on an empty city street recently. A bunch of us with baskets with flowers, straw hats, dresses and pinwheels. With a wide open other lane. And a car drove up to us, gunned its engine, swerved around, and cut back in close to us at high speed, nearly out of control. Violent intimidation for no reason. We made the powerful feel threatened so they attacked innocent defenseless people.
But it’s getting better. Bikers aren’t backing off. Cell phones have helped. The fact that biking is becoming more common is great. So we’re winning. And the public is losing one more dose of its evil. Great.
…But what do you call a generally violent attitude to innocent strangers? “War all the time.” It seems like we’re tolerating that less, too, as a society. Basically, awareness seems to be our best weapon. “This bike kills fascists.” Of course we still have a huge amount of tension and it breaks out all the time, including against those we do know. I suppose a big part of it is the needless competition we get suckered into. We forget community and think it’s possible to get ahead at someone else’s expense or that the burden we put on them “doesn’t matter.” …”Insurance will cover it.” Doh!
