There is this monthly bike ride in Seatle, (and other cities), and it’s been getting a lot of press coverage in our town lately. I’ve been riding it for years, and I think it’s great. It is Critical Mass.
Critical Mass is a decentralized, leaderless event. It has no executive director, and it has no 501c3 umbrella corporation. It has been going and growing for more than ten years now, and it is anarchist (with a lower-case ‘a’) in a way that makes press relations a real struggle. Who are reporters supposed to listen to if there is no spokesperson? They can’t go interview everybody.
In Seattle, Critical Mass has been in the spotlight for the last week. Some shit went down at the July 25th ride. There was a violent conflict between a car driver and some mass riders, there were arrests, there was headline news coverage, and there continue to be conflicting accounts of what really happened. I won’t recap here, but cyclist, driver, bystanders, and police all have something different to say.
There has been a mainstream media pile-on. I won’t recap this either, but it’s a fine example of why I don’t believe in reporting “objectively”. The reporters are obeying their own logic, however. It’s not news that an auto struck cyclists during Critical Mass. That happens every 2 or 3 months. The news is that some cyclists struck back.
I use my bicycle as my primary mode of transportation. It makes sense for my life. So this media storm has upset me a lot. It makes feel murderous. It makes me feel unsafe. But, most of all, it makes me say that violence is the wrong way to deal with conflict. Cyclists are constantly at risk on the road, while autos have been built more and more to insulate the driver from the outside world. This has very real effects. Car horns become louder and louder so that one SUV driver can hear another’s honk from inside their super-bubble. What does this mean for me? As a cyclist, the built environment has been changing to make me feel more at risk than ever before. I bet other bikers feel the same way, and it is not a great way to feel. Meanwhile, the price of gasoline has gone up 400%, and drivers are increasingly burdened with the knowledge that their action is contributing to global climate change. In the context of all the other fucked-up shit going on the the world right now, I think on-road conflicts are going to be getting more frequent, and we need to be ready.
There is something else that I’ve noticed in this conflict, and that’s who doesn’t make the story. In my South Seattle neighborhood, there are a lot of people riding bikes to work every morning, and some of them are spandex-wearing yuppies, and some of them are camo-wearing punx, but a lot of them are working-class people and recent immigrants. When Seattle public radio does hours of talk-radio with bicycle advocates, city planners, pissed off motorists, et al, there is a lot of discussion of lifestyle choices, and a lot of proposals for increased education, licensing, and regulation, but there are no representatives from this large population of bicyclists who might not have as much choice about their bicycle lifestyles, and might be more significantly affected by the myriad of solutions being tossed around.
So, what now, Critical Mass? Things are bad here in Babylon and it’s getting hard to hide from this fact. War, credit crunch, environmental collapse, housing market “adjustment”, and the list goes on. We, the people, are feeling it, and we are going to start showing it more frequently. And that means more conflict during Critical Mass, and that means more conflict on the road the other 29 days a month. Already, cyclists are being harassed in retaliation for Friday’s melee, and it’s not the spandex-wearing crowd or the manarchists who will bear the brunt of these attacks. We live in a country where a man was beaten to death in public because he looked like a Mexican immigrant (see story). Our reactions to the aggressive drivers and the slanderous press must remember this.
There is not a single solution to this conflict, and I am certainly not going to claim I have the perfect formula. But I do have one idea, and I’d like to ask for your help (and for that I need to ask for your money). This country has labyrinthine legal structures for dealing with conflict. They are biased and they are expensive. I think Critical Mass riders and fans, and other cyclists, and really anyone interested in peace and justice should contribute to a legal defense fund for cyclists in trouble. There were two arrests at the July 25 Critical Mass, and they were total bullshit, and it is probably going to cost thousands of dollars to convince judge and jury of this fact. What’s more, the city is not interested in investigating the guilt of the driver who sent several cyclists to the hospital in this incident. But our legal system has recourse for this also, if we have the money. Winning a civil suit would be justice. The injured cyclists would be compensated and the ruined bicycles would be replaced. It could also be a lesson to other road-ragers, that Seattle cyclists will not tolerate attacks. And, most importantly to Critical Mass, it would be proof that the legal system is not completely corrupt, that there is some justice for bikers, and that violent action does not need to be met with more violence.
Please send donations to The Bikery / 1122 E Pike #1200 / Seattle, WA 98122 or donate online. Please indicate that your donation is to “Seattle Bicycle Defense Fund”.
