Black Girls Do Bike. It shouldn’t be revolutionary. It shouldn’t even stir comment, but it is and it does, and so, following along with our mantra that ‘if you ride bikes, you’re one of us,’ we thought to highlight the work and joy of Black Girls Do Bike, a rapidly growing group with branches throughout the US and abroad.
The bike can be a powerful and transformative tool for anyone who can find the energy and a safe space to ride. Black Girls Do Bike is bringing that energy and creating that space for women of color on a massive scale, and it warms the cockles of our bike-loving, cyclist-loving hearts to see them grow.
Cool. Indeed, in a just world, this shouldn’t be anything to write about but in my many years of riding since I took up The Banner of the Drop Bars, Black and other minority riders have been….well, a small minority of the peloton. I’ve rarely seen downright racism amongh the folks I have ridden with but as Derrick Bell, Richard Delgado, or Kimberlé Crenshaw might say, its baked into the system for some seriously sorry-ass historical reasons.
In Hawaii, there were plenty of both local and haole riders, cyclists came in all genders and colors**. The breakdown really came down to class and resources, not a color or ethnic line. Adult cycling has never bee a cheap date. Plus, if you go back in time in the USA, one will see that Black and minority neighborhoods were often neglected as far as providing safe routes to travel and sometimes were downright trashed. My kid neighborhood in Buffalo which was sliced in half by the nascient Kensington Expressway, for example. As a little kid, we all walked to school and played on those home made fruit box and 2×4 scooters. Then they dug The Trench.
That said, more power to these ladies, and let every route, regardless of what part of town, be a safe and friendly bike route.
** in the picture at this link, that’s me in the middle as President of the Hawaii Bicycling League with two League members after finishing the Haleiwa Metric Century.
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-m83FRwjKLks/UuWYI4L6SyI/AAAAAAAABNw/vsUSOT7HZOk/s1600/HBL+1990s.jpg
Jezus, no one else has anything to say about this issue?
@Khal – Perhaps they’re just absorbing the reality of it all. Acceptance is the first step to progress.