I gotta get a little personal for a minute. I’ve had a rough year. I don’t think I’m the only one. For many people who never had an economic future, 2011 didn’t change that. For others in the middle class, the light got dimmer as the situation in Michigan and our country didn’t improve. For many folks this is nothing new though. Detroit is not a “blank slate” and there have been people here improving the city for decades.
I can be frustrating and tiring to think that these problems we face are nothing new. My bad year is what life looks like for some folks. But in that darkness there is survival. There are people not giving up and making due with what they have – life. So as it seems like 100 new non-profits pop up everyday, we can’t go back to this “blank slate” idea that isn’t true. Life finds a way. There have been people making things happen and in the future there will still be people doing the hard work for communities survive. We are all just small freckles in the big picture right?
So I can’t pretend like I’m some life saver because of what I do. I just happen to work in an industry that is rooted in empowerment. Of course I’m talking about the bicycle. I just help introduce youth to this great machine which isn’t that great alone, but the empowerment that comes with it is the real pay off. We increasingly live in a world where we aren’t allowed to move about it.
State and national boarders are just invisible lines that are becoming more and more visible as walls and bridges tower above us. Native American’s were just “human beings” before someone “discovered” the land they lived on. Mexican’s weren’t “illegal” until a wall was built between where they lived and where they worked. It is all an illusion.
The youth I work with weren’t jailed in their neighborhoods with no future or options until red lining, destruction of educational systems and environmental racism attempted to keep them there. But more and more things change.
Long ago women weren’t “allowed” out at night without a male escort. “Their place” was the home. Women didn’t have bank accounts without husband’s approvals and it wasn’t “proper” for them to drive a horse carriage. Well, that changed with the bicycle. I’ll let Susan B Anthony tell you about it:
“I think [the bicycle] has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world. It gives a woman a feeling of freedom and self-reliance. The moment she takes her seat she knows she can’t get into harm unless she gets off her bicycle, and away she goes, the picture of free, untrammeled womanhood.”
Even in the brutal winter I see people get to work by bicycle because their job will never pay enough for them to afford a car to get there and they are lucky if the bus will get there on time to keep that job.
Despite the set back in light rail developments for our region I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there will be a publicly owned international bridge instead of letting Matty Maroon keep his monopoly. My excitement about the bridge exists because I’m really hoping that bikes and walkers will be able to cross it. Sure the international boarder will still be a large barrier between people that doesn’t need to exist, but it will become that much more accessible to people that don’t want to use a motor vehicle to visit their neighbors.
And those youth I work with. When they build their own bike and are able to move about their neighborhoods on their own; the world becomes so much bigger. They can go farther. But the world also gets smaller at the same time because they can go farther under their own power.
I’d like to think that I’m some sort of better person for being a bicyclist, but it isn’t true. I’m just a small freckle in the big picture and I’m lucky enough to be a part of the bike picture and the Detroit picture. Sometimes it is empowering to know that small actions like owning and maintaining your own bike has a bigger impact. At the same time it can be empowering to remember that you are part of a much bigger picture.
This week we are closed for the holidays at the shop. I can’t wait to see everyone next year and get back to work! I’ve got graphs for 2012 to fill and a warehouse of bikes to get out to kids!
see ya’ll on the other side,
– jason x