CM Welcoming Violence
Thread started by
indigis at 11.15.10 - 12:40 pm
i've had some shifts in opinion and recognitions lately about CM, police involvement, and rida behavior
just yesterday i participated in a ride around bev hills with a group dedicated to making that city a bike safe and friendly place. there is a good chance of success. i see lots of opportunities here and resistance on the government side is simple indifference rather than strong opposition. i know if we get businesses and residents on our side through people friendly rides and financial incentives for retailers, government with be lobbied to move in our direction.
i'll work with this group and approach the solution in a way that does not come naturally to me... working productively, responsibly, in conjunction with bike coalitions and politicians. as some of you know, my normal approach for change is through protest and disobedience. i won't use that angry approach here. it's not necessary.
however, neither tactic works when there is no end plan. and that is what i see as all of our mistake regarding Critical Mass.
what exactly do we all want to achieve through CM? what does the Protest Arm of ridas want to get through rebellious behavior? and what does the Welcoming Arm of ridas think will be achieved through inviting the police to the ride?
to the Welcoming Arm, if you want to put a happy face on the ride and impress on drivers to come out and have fun with us on their bicycles, are you doing everything you can to facilitate that? are you waving to drivers, smiling, handing out CM and MR invitations to the drivers?
and the Protest Arm, when you scream about owning the road, breaking laws, fucking with drivers, is there a concrete end plan that you want to achieve from this? perhaps if it is to create such road havoc that city government finally recognizes, "we need to make bicycling in this city a real option and safe to stop this antisocial behavior," i've never heard it stated before as the explicit threat it needs to be.. "do something or we're creating havoc until it is."
i know both are needed. i don't know if either are being done.
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I think that a lot of the "protest arm" doesn't have a concrete end plan. They just like to be rebels. The LAPD's typically heavy-handed and typically shit-stupid response just encourages this minority and makes them the stars of the show.
PC11.15.10 - 2:31 pm
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--what exactly do we all want to achieve through CM?--
for the cops to go out and fight some real crime, not the chicken shit running a stop sign or the mass going throw the red light.
fixie4life11.15.10 - 10:48 pm
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LOL @ Fixie... I can't disagree with that one!
Regardless of what the "Protest Arm" achieves, I think it will at least makes the other arm seem more diplomatic. So the powers that be will be forced to listen to one arm of the other, and who cares which one as long as they *start* listening.
The plan is working! ;)
jericho1ne responding to a
comment by fixie4life
11.16.10 - 12:07 am
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really? you think it is?
I thought CM pre-police was where riders were nicer to cars - actually waiving - remember the "Happy Friday" line? (yeah, some cars got really pissed off, but most were more accepting than the rukus caused by the current jumble fucked organization and mixed message: we should not need the police to ride safely, even in mass)
I think that the popo presence at CM make a part of the element of the ride resist that and the true-er message of CM (They will allow us and pretend to escort us so FUCK THEM attitude comes out)
i think it has perverted CM beyond the point it was before
nolikedrive responding to a
comment by jericho1ne
11.16.10 - 12:27 am
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CM has always been adverseral...Been on CM rides all over and it's a combat...I don't think CM or any other group ride will do much to get motorists to be aware of or respect cyclists.
rev106 responding to a
comment by nolikedrive
11.16.10 - 7:58 am
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I don't really see Critical Mass as a "protest arm" of the bicycle movement.
CM is impossible to leverage one way or another because of its lack of leadership, the narrowness of its purpose and the simplicity of its design.
Ride bikes with people.
No route, no leader.
That is not a formula for anything other than meeting people and riding bikes with them.
But it is a formula for riding bikes that works in just about every free industrialized country around the world. And in the end meeting people and riding bikes seem old hat to us but are pretty radical acts in our
individually metal boxed culture.
CMs greatest strengths, are also its greatest weakness.
CMs can not be easily leveraged by activists to obtain a certain goal
It also, can not easily be co-opted by governments or corporations.
It belongs to the people.
Maybe at the time and place of CMs creation the people it drew and the people who help formed it had a background in radical politics. But the very brilliance of CMs structure is that its appeal goes much wider.
CM will always be the institution that people when they want to meet to assert their right to ride freely with a group of people. It can, by design, do little more than that.
Occasionally, CM has the accidental result of revealing failures in policing (LBCM anyone?) or gets enough attention from local governments to warrant some change, but these results are accidental, and will always require outside forces to see those changes through.
trickmilla11.16.10 - 8:58 am
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as far as the welcoming arm ...
Working within our system takes a looooong time to get things done.
But constant applied pressure and patience is what it takes.
I know for a fact that there are people going to every city council meeting possible, ever BAC meeting, every transportation meeting, every possible meeting with the police.
Government moves at a glacial pace.
But I know for a fact that 8 years ago, there was not the kind of sustained pressure coming from the bike community. And it is slowly making a difference.
I credit Midnight Ridazz for a lot of this, MR was a turning point in the energy of bike activism and a lot of people who have gotten directly involved in political / infrastructural change come out Midnight Ridazz and the relationships people built here going on silly bike rides that had no agenda behind them other than to get people together to party and have fun riding a bike.
@indigis,
I'm glad to hear you are extending your reach. Even if its just to get a sense of another approach. We all have to get in where we fit in, and find out where out talents can be used for good.
Sometimes we appear to be working against each other but its important that we honor different approaches to the same problem.
If we get to sweet and cozy with government then our whole project becomes co-opted, if we only "smash" and never build, we highlight a problem but provide no out outlet for dealing with it.
trickmilla11.16.10 - 9:13 am
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PS: after reading the OP 3 times I am still not connecting the title of the post with the content of the post.
trickmilla11.16.10 - 9:17 am
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I didnt get the "violence" thing either.
Beverly Hills is very very very different from where many LACM participants come from. Who gets beat in BH? What streets corner memorials from police killings do you find in Bel Air?
Different environments create different perspectives and attitudes.
We need politicians and officers who have the nuts to say shit like:
"Officer Mehserle's sentence was bullshit".
"Judge Perry is a corrupt"
"Yeah, we brought crack to the hood"
"Manuel Jimenes didn't need to die"
(Oscar Grant's mom noted Michael Vick got 4 years for dog fighting. Mehserle might do a year with good behavior.)
That's the problem for so many residents. Not Beverly Hills residents, not Los Feliz residents, but residents who are hearing the stories, watching the cops harass family members and viewing the incidents that don't get caught on tape.
Again, why doesn't this happen in Beverly Hills?
If justice doesn't occur over night, why should the LAPD expect change so quickly? If residents have to be patience for decades for justice, then why does the LAPD expect change quicker before they resort to enforcement, etc?
If a change in LAPD culture took this long (as Krumer alludes to), then fuck it, we can have many decades to change too, right? We have some people skills to work through too, so be patient LAPD.
I dont know, 50 years, that's seems fair, right?
LACM 2060
md2 responding to a
comment by trickmilla
11.16.10 - 10:18 am
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50 years? Sgt Krummer, I think this md2 might need a little flashlight therapy!
hipster responding to a
comment by md2
11.16.10 - 11:29 am
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BHillz is a great place to get profiled.
I have a good friend who went out for a late night ride who got rolled 2 times in about 10 mins for RWB. The second time he was like: dude, what's the deal? your homey just rolled me up 5 mins ago? and cop #2 was like "oops" OK you can go.
My friend has an MFA a good paying job and a clean record, but being brown on a mountain bike at 2 am in B.Hills doesn't project that apparently.
"oops".
trickmilla responding to a
comment by md2
11.16.10 - 11:58 am
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It boils down to Krumer and his coworker acting like bitches on our rides.
They have showed us month after month that are and will be bring a fight.
This month we are ready for their fight. This month...we win!
revolution11.16.10 - 1:21 pm
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Im sure many in Los Angeles would prefer a simple profiling incident opposed to being beat up or killed.
Still the issue is the treatment of residents. Let's see the BHPD treat residents they way the LAPD treats others.
It doesn't happen; unless you're 50 cent.
md2 responding to a
comment by trickmilla
11.16.10 - 4:28 pm
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Ridazz Roulette!