I recently had a discussion with some friends about why we ride bikes. The answers were typical for persons in their mid-thirties to mid-forties: it keeps us healthier than we would otherwise be, we like the competitive aspects, we enjoy the camaraderie of racing and the community bikers we see around, etc. As I thought about it a little more though, I realized that I ride my bike because it puts me in the world in a way that a car cannot.
The immediate trigger for this line of thought was commuting to work on a bicycle. I enjoy my commute for many reasons. I love the way the air feels early in the morning. I love ticking out a rhythm on my ride in to work. The cadence of my pedaling can almost be musical, unifying mind and body. I enjoy looking around at the buildings and houses I pass, the people waiting for the bus, the athletes practicing on the fields. I cannot tell you how sublime it feels when I find myself riding along the lake front on one of those perfect days when the breeze pushes gently off the lake, driving away the summer heat, and the light causes the water to turn a mesmerizing cerulean hue.
I could go on and on about all the things I enjoy when I am commuting by bicycle; however, I realized that what drives all of these things, what makes commuting by bicycle different than commuting in a car or riding a bus, is that cycling puts you in the world. You are present in your community and almost by default have to engage it. When I come to a stop light and put my foot down while I wait for the light to change, I hear the people at the bus stop talking. I hear and feel the vibrations of the car engine next to me. I smell the exhaust. I look around and see what is there, my surroundings. Of course I am focused on the road, but I am also focused on the buildings and the people and the horizon, the clouds in the sky, the wind, the heat (or cold). I ride by a high school and see the boys preening for the girls and the girls laughing. I see a group of men under an awning awaiting the bus, commiserating. I see the city workers painting the lines. I hear the train rumble on the tracks as I cross one of the bridges and marvel that the cars seem to go on to infinity.
I tell pedestrians that I am passing on their left and they often acknowledge me and say 'thanks.' I always reply, 'you're welcome.' I meet other cyclists and sometimes we ride for a while together, chatting. I see many of the same riders passing me each morning and enjoy the sense of familiarity that this engenders. I see mothers running behind jog strollers containing their smiling or nodding toddlers. I see a father riding with his young daughter who pedals furiously to keep up. I see the young men and women at the Urban Ecology Center planting and clearing and making the river beautiful again. I pass walkers and runners and old women in scooters. Often we look at each other and smile or wave or say 'hello.'
I am in the world when I am on my bike. I hear the city and feel the city and smell the city and see the city in all of its brilliance and ugliness and the in between. The meat packing plant sometimes burns my nose with the ammoniac reek. I pass through places with torn sleeping bags and shredded cardboard that were somebody's home. I see placarded houses and empty storefronts. I see and feel and hear and smell everything. The lovely addition to our art museum with its brise soleil unfurled fills me with wonder. The fox crossing the bike path puts a smile on my face. The neighborhoods with old trees canopied over the streets and the families in front yards kicking a ball or riding bikes or chasing around fill me with hope. All of this is my city and I love being part of it.
When I ride I engage my surroundings. I am not averse to automobiles and like taking road trips, but in the city you miss so much when you drive. The radio is on or the air conditioner is on and the windows are shut and you look at the road and listen to the news or the music and pay little attention to anything not on the road. Sure, we all look around, but cars move fast and before you have time to think about what you see (and usually it is just see) you are already gone. On a bike I move slow enough to think about what I am experiencing, to pay attention to the world around me. While I move faster than a pedestrian, I am still slow enough to notice the world and pay attention to it. And I am able to cover much more ground than I could walking.
It is lovely to ride and feel and hear and smell and see the place where you live. It is lovely to be on a bicycle riding. That is why I ride.
Friday, September 27, 2013
Friday, September 13, 2013
Revisiting Race
Gary Gutting has an interesting piece in the New York Times online edition. In "Getting Past the Outrage on Race," Gutting contrasts the opposing and seemingly irreconcilable views that arose in the context of the Trayvon Martin killing. On the one side are those who consider the plight of young black men to be the result of prejudice, institutional and otherwise. On the opposite side are those who consider the plight of young black men to be the result of a lack of resolve and self-respect.
Please note the very word I used, "plight." This signifies something pernicious about the way a young black man is viewed by someone who is not black. I considered editing the word, but I think leaving it in is instructive because it demonstrates the unconscious infantilizing of young black men in which many white commentators engage. On average a young black man faces enormous challenges that on average most young white men do not; however, using the word "plight" paints too broad a stroke because it assumes that all young black men face an identical and intractable problem. While circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem that many young black men have, circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem for many persons of all races. Surely an upper class or upper middle class young black man faces issues of race that his white peers do not, yet the issues he faces are different from the issues a young black man growing up in extreme urban poverty faces. To discuss the "plight" of young black men does erases the quantitative and qualitative differences in the actual and potential experiences of discrimination across the gamut of young black men. In this way, "young black men" serves as a category bereft of individuality, positive capabilities, and humanity. Young black men become objects of pity and confusion for white commentators rather than persons living actual lives.
While I digress, I believe the digression is an important one to measure any comments that I (or anyone else for that matter) make against a backdrop of potential paternalism. While race in America is a significant issue that gives rise to significant problems, the permutations are myriad and do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all analysis or solution. Indeed, one of the great peculiarities of our discussions of race in America is the paucity of attention that is placed on the effects of racism on the white population. I don't mean this in the sense that white persons are subject to reverse discrimination or any such nonsense, but rather in the sense that a white person who engages in racist thought or behavior, even of the unconscious sort, must also be affected by racism.
Too often white commentators act as if they are at an objective remove from racism, neutral observers not subject to the affects of the racism about which they write and speak. It seems to me that nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I (and many others) have long believed that the reason the "southern strategy" works is that the last three decades have seen a significant diminution in the standard of living of middle and lower class white persons who do not possess college degrees and it is convenient for these persons to displace their anger and frustration onto African Americans; hence, the vitriol in discussions about affirmative action and any other legal apparatus that is perceived as disproportionately benefiting African Americans. This has led to enormous numbers of white persons who derive no benefit from conservative policies to vote for conservative politicians out of a racial bias (conscious or not), especially those conservative politicians who explicitly promise to gut affirmative action, welfare, and any other program perceived (rightly or wrongly) to favor African Americans. The impact of the racial bias on political choice has been severe: diminution of organized labor, diminution of the social safety net, an increase in regressive taxation schemes, etc. Ultimately the racism of many white persons has had a clear impact on the actual power this population wields and the prosperity available to them.
Back to Gutting's piece. His thesis is that "our continuing problems about race are essentially rooted in a fundamental injustice in our economic system." Gutting cites Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and notes that Dr. King's principal thesis was that African Americans were "not free" because they "live on a lonely island of poverty." The thrust then, of Gutting's critique is that persons who lack "basic goods" are at a staggering disadvantage in trying to advance their material prosperity when compared to those who do not have to compete for basic goods. Cass Sunstein has a fantastic piece on the deleterious effects of scarcity on the poor that effectively demonstrates Gutting's point. The unstated premise of Gutting's argument is that race will become less of an issue if African Americans are not disproportionately represented among the poor, with which I take some issue as noted in my digression above. Ultimately Gutting persuasively argues that the distribution of material wealth is unjust and that we need to examine whether this is an injustice subject to correction.
The primary benefit of Guttings' piece is to call attention to the fact that most of the platitudes and polemics about race in America fail to say anything intelligible about the actual causes and effects of racism. In this way, he presents an effective critique of the diametrically opposed responses to the Trayvon Martin killing as being unhelpful in advancing our understanding of race in America. While I believe that his contention that systemic economic injustice is the root cause of racial disparity is not entirely accurate, it is refreshing to see a point of view that looks below the surface and at least tries to get to the heart of the matter. And regardless of whether Gutting accurately diagnoses the reason that many young black men in America face long odds against success, he is most certainly right that:
Please note the very word I used, "plight." This signifies something pernicious about the way a young black man is viewed by someone who is not black. I considered editing the word, but I think leaving it in is instructive because it demonstrates the unconscious infantilizing of young black men in which many white commentators engage. On average a young black man faces enormous challenges that on average most young white men do not; however, using the word "plight" paints too broad a stroke because it assumes that all young black men face an identical and intractable problem. While circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem that many young black men have, circumstances of poverty make for an intractable problem for many persons of all races. Surely an upper class or upper middle class young black man faces issues of race that his white peers do not, yet the issues he faces are different from the issues a young black man growing up in extreme urban poverty faces. To discuss the "plight" of young black men does erases the quantitative and qualitative differences in the actual and potential experiences of discrimination across the gamut of young black men. In this way, "young black men" serves as a category bereft of individuality, positive capabilities, and humanity. Young black men become objects of pity and confusion for white commentators rather than persons living actual lives.
While I digress, I believe the digression is an important one to measure any comments that I (or anyone else for that matter) make against a backdrop of potential paternalism. While race in America is a significant issue that gives rise to significant problems, the permutations are myriad and do not lend themselves to a one-size-fits-all analysis or solution. Indeed, one of the great peculiarities of our discussions of race in America is the paucity of attention that is placed on the effects of racism on the white population. I don't mean this in the sense that white persons are subject to reverse discrimination or any such nonsense, but rather in the sense that a white person who engages in racist thought or behavior, even of the unconscious sort, must also be affected by racism.
Too often white commentators act as if they are at an objective remove from racism, neutral observers not subject to the affects of the racism about which they write and speak. It seems to me that nothing could be further from the truth. For example, I (and many others) have long believed that the reason the "southern strategy" works is that the last three decades have seen a significant diminution in the standard of living of middle and lower class white persons who do not possess college degrees and it is convenient for these persons to displace their anger and frustration onto African Americans; hence, the vitriol in discussions about affirmative action and any other legal apparatus that is perceived as disproportionately benefiting African Americans. This has led to enormous numbers of white persons who derive no benefit from conservative policies to vote for conservative politicians out of a racial bias (conscious or not), especially those conservative politicians who explicitly promise to gut affirmative action, welfare, and any other program perceived (rightly or wrongly) to favor African Americans. The impact of the racial bias on political choice has been severe: diminution of organized labor, diminution of the social safety net, an increase in regressive taxation schemes, etc. Ultimately the racism of many white persons has had a clear impact on the actual power this population wields and the prosperity available to them.
Back to Gutting's piece. His thesis is that "our continuing problems about race are essentially rooted in a fundamental injustice in our economic system." Gutting cites Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech and notes that Dr. King's principal thesis was that African Americans were "not free" because they "live on a lonely island of poverty." The thrust then, of Gutting's critique is that persons who lack "basic goods" are at a staggering disadvantage in trying to advance their material prosperity when compared to those who do not have to compete for basic goods. Cass Sunstein has a fantastic piece on the deleterious effects of scarcity on the poor that effectively demonstrates Gutting's point. The unstated premise of Gutting's argument is that race will become less of an issue if African Americans are not disproportionately represented among the poor, with which I take some issue as noted in my digression above. Ultimately Gutting persuasively argues that the distribution of material wealth is unjust and that we need to examine whether this is an injustice subject to correction.
The primary benefit of Guttings' piece is to call attention to the fact that most of the platitudes and polemics about race in America fail to say anything intelligible about the actual causes and effects of racism. In this way, he presents an effective critique of the diametrically opposed responses to the Trayvon Martin killing as being unhelpful in advancing our understanding of race in America. While I believe that his contention that systemic economic injustice is the root cause of racial disparity is not entirely accurate, it is refreshing to see a point of view that looks below the surface and at least tries to get to the heart of the matter. And regardless of whether Gutting accurately diagnoses the reason that many young black men in America face long odds against success, he is most certainly right that:
Unless we work for this fundamental [economic] justice, then we must reconcile ourselves to a society with a permanent underclass...And that, regardless of race, is tragic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)