Some of the smartest and most effective leaders in bicycle advocacy founded The Untokening a few years ago. It’s a mobility justice movement that centers marginalized voices. The organization is all about reframing the narrative around transportation and to that end, they publish papers, host webinars, and have regular conferences. Mel Herrera-Baird attended one of them, and wrote up her takeaways for Bikequity, the fourteenth issue of Taking the Lane. A reader requested a shareable, online version that they could use in their advocacy work, and with Mel’s generous permission here it is! Please feel free to use and share this work freely for your non-commercial purposes, with attribution and a link.

The Untokening: A Reflection and Next Steps

By Mel Herrera-Baird
“Equity” is quite the buzzword amongst mobility justice organizations. I would know, I used to work for one. The organization I worked for, the California Bicycle Coalition, or CalBike for short, uses that word a lot. The idea is that by advocating for infrastructure in communities that are often ignored by government agencies, they’ll be somehow fixing a wealth of issues related to transportation. And while they genuinely want to fight and work for the underserved people and communities in our beautiful state, they—like many other similar organizations—fall a bit short of succeeding. The issue, I think, is a lack of inclusivity.

Who are “underserved people?” The term is broad but they tend to be poor, and people of color. In other words, people like me. Add in the fact that I’m a woman and the child of immigrants and you’ve got the perfect token for your organization.

So when I read Sahra Sulaiman’s essay on Streetsblog LA about a new transportation conference called The Untokening—which she opens with a story from the 2015 CalBike Summit—I felt the overwhelming need to attend. The Untokening took place in Atlanta on November 13th, 2016 and was put on by a committee of women and people of color. It was put together with the understanding that if we are ever to fix transportation issues, we must also face the other issues affecting our communities: gentrification, police brutality, harassment in all its forms, violence. I applied for a scholarship and let my colleagues know that I would be going whether I got it or not (I did).

The Untokening was a first and foremost a healing experience, especially after the trauma from Election Day only a few days before. Being in a space dominated by women and people of color from all over the country was a powerful experience that continues to inspire me daily more than six months later and will likely inspire me for the rest of my life. We were able to talk freely about the issues we face as advocates for better mobility. Issues of feeling unworthy because of our skin color, our gender, our lack of a degree. Feeling pushed out of the very communities we work in because of gentrification and a nationwide housing crisis. Feeling like we’re crazy because the people we’re often in meetings with don’t understand where we’re coming from, why we’re talking about social justice when we should – or so they feel—be talking about bikes. Simply, they don’t understand our experiences.

The second Untokening took place in Los Angeles. I unfortunately missed it but I will be at the third one in Detroit on November 11, 2018. You can find more information at www.untokening.org. I will be writing a follow-up but until then, I present some tips, which I’ve compiled based on experience and discussions had in Atlanta, on how to become a better ally in the bike advocacy world:

*
• Do not expect community leaders (the people leading bike rides, who are part of the culture; the ones you call disenfranchised) to speak eloquently—code for “talk white”; understand that we are not all as educated as you, that this is the way we talk in our communities. Speaking in Spanglish or Ebonics, with accents and simple words is how we’re understood in our communities.

*

• Respect our experience and accept that we have a lot to learn from each other. You can take all the urban planning classes you want, but if you don’t know how our communities actually work, your bike lanes and road diets will fail.

*

• Accept that the bicycle, as in the actual transportation tool, does not belong only to white/young/male/middle-class/athletic/typically-abled/fast people. Recognize that your advocacy should be for the masses, and if you want your work to succeed, you need to check yourself when working with those masses.

*

• Do not be condescending to the people you see as an embarrassment. Not everyone can afford a nice bicycle. Not everyone wants the newest model. Some of us love our sticker-covered beaters.

*

• Smile to the migrant workers riding their mountain bikes, offer them an extra light if you can, carry around information about bike safety in different languages.

*

• The person who rides 5 miles a day deserves as much respect as the person who rides 50.

*

• We do not need to regularly do centuries to know our stuff. Not all of us are physically capable of mashing up hills all the time. I am not, and will never be, impressed by your mileage – it does not make you a better advocate than me.

*

• It is ableist, ageist and elitist to disparage ebikes. Some people need the assist to be able to ride a bike; do you really prefer they drive?

*

• Take your outreach to the people. The expectation that people of lower-incomes can take time off work to come to your meetings is unrealistic and unfair. Look at the success of programs like LACBC’s Operation Firefly, which gives free lights to passing bicyclists in Los Angeles; they’re actually out in the underserved communities providing a tangible benefit.

*

• Look beyond academics to the people in the community already doing the work. Experience matters as much if not more than formal education. People without degrees tend to value experience more.

*

• Engage organizations that already exist.

*

• Do not present problems that you think exist, ask community members what they want.

*

• Diversity in the bike advocacy world already exists. You just have to look.

*

• Listen. Listen. Listen.

*

• Bikes lanes are not enough. We need to face issues of police brutality, housing, and income inequality. A majority of folks at The Untokening felt that solutions that are only infrastructure based are not enough. We can, and we should, use our work to draw attention to larger social issues. Intersectionality is important, and is ultimately how our movement will survive.

Beyond the bike lane, the bicycle can be a tool for social change. I look forward to continuing the fight on two wheels and taking back our streets for a safer and more inclusive future.
Join me.

Source: Bikequity (Elly Blue Publishing, 2018)
http://takingthelane.com/2018/11/07/lessons-from-the-untokening/