Racism & Cycling

October 31, 2022 iarierac

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Throughout the years, we have seen how the practice of cycling has been developing in communities around the world. Cycling has many benefits; from physical to mental help and improvement, bringing society together, decreasing the use of fossil fuels, etc. But even though we have these benefits, there are still some matters that not many people have noticed from this activity; for example how it contributes to racism. Through the past couple of years, there have been studies performed which show that there is a greater percentage of white Americans that ride bicycles than there is of the African American and Hispanic population. Besides this, police reports also present to the public that the majority of the ethnic group police officers stop, and receive reports to be injured or killed tend to be more from the African American and Hispanic communities than White Americans. Based on a study researchers from Harvard and Boston University have conducted, it came up with the result is that African Americans “suffer about 34 deaths for every 100 million miles they traveled on a bicycle” (K. Wilson). There is also the result that about 52-70% of Hispanic cyclists and even pedestrians suffer more deaths and accidents. In chapter fourteen of Cycling for Sustainable Cities, the authors talk about how gender, race/ethnicity, and income groups can make an impact on the practice of cycling and its planning too. This material reinforces the idea of how social justice can affect the context of cycling and its planning. This disparity keeps happening and it keeps increasing around the country. Even though is hard to identify the roots of this problem, I don’t think it should be used as an excuse to not do anything about it. Possible steps we can start taking care to let people spread their opinion; have more voices heard and more from these communities, and keep performing research to identify the main roots to inform government and state officials about it. Therefore, cycling is a better option for transportation that can bring many benefits to society, but it can also contribute to some social problems like the practice of racism.

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