“my favorite bike … the Schwinn
‘Tuskegee Tornado’ Sting Ray.”
(photo courtesy Tetteh)
When the Community Cycling Center announced last week that it had selected its former shop director Mychal Tetteh as its new CEO, quite a few people who know him applauded the choice.
But plenty of Portlanders haven’t yet met Tetteh, 31. And he’s got plenty to say — and, we suspect, plenty to do. Here’s what the Benson Polytechnic High School ’00 grad told us about his early days dirt-biking across Portland and the reasons race matters to local biking.
When did you start biking for fun? What about for transportation?
Fun on a bike started when I found out that I could stand a cinderblock on end to get on my brother’s BMX bike. It has been awesome skid-outs and weak bunny hops ever since. Getting myself across town to school at MLC was my first foray in cycling as a bicycle commuter. Before that, it was the way I got to Devil’s Ditch in Laurelhurst Park.
How did you first hear about the CCC, and what drew you to it?
The Cycling Center was my neighborhood bike shop. I lived on 23rd and Alberta, and the Center was right up the street. It reminded me of the great independent bike shops that I grew up with and they had all the cool stuff you couldn’t find anywhere else. So when I decided that I wanted to work at a bike shop they were the only place to give me the time of day, much less an interview. That was 2005. Now here we are.
You’ve just spent a couple years away from CCC to run the Village Market corner store at the New Columbia public housing development. What have you learned from that job that you’ll take with you to this new one?
New Columbia is the nation’s largest affordable housing development. It has over 2,700 residents that hail from 18 different countries and speak 22 different languages. It’s the most diverse neighborhood in Oregon. Over 52 percent of the people who live there are under the age of 18. With the establishment of a healthy, affordable and culturally approachable grocery store, the neighborhood is positioned to continue removing barriers to abundance for its residents. By the time I left, I was sure of one thing: Portland has the capacity to end poverty one community at a time. The future is closer than we think.
What’s your goal for the CCC? Describe how it or its work might be different three years from now.
In 2008, we embarked on a transformational change process as an organization. Change is tough, and transformational change is the toughest. The nice thing is that the Cycling Center already has a strong direction and a clear vision. I’m going to finish what we started in 2008 with a focus on innovation in active transportation advocacy. [For example], bike sharing. If we want to see bike sharing in the near-term that meets the needs of people who live outside of the center of the city, we may need to develop a different tool. The Community Cycling Center, in partnership with the BTA and other stakeholders, has been contributing to the Open Bicycle Initiative. This scalable, customizable, bottom-up, open-source approach to bike sharing constitutes the greatest potential for sustainably getting share-bikes in the hands of people who would benefit from them the most.
An often overlooked finding from the Understanding Barriers to Bicycling project was that the leading barrier to riding a bike was often not having a bike.
“Race, power, and privilege have constituted a blind spot for active transportation advocates in the whitest major metropolitan city in the U.S.”
— Mychal Tetteh, incoming Community Cycling Center CEO
How would you sum up the ways that race is related to biking in Portland?
Race, power, and privilege have constituted a blind spot for active transportation advocates in the whitest major metropolitan city in the U.S. It’s complicated. The noble morality of mainstream bike culture develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself by empowered individuals. This righteous nobility perspective often prevents a deep understanding of the reality experienced by people that don’t have the benefit of empowerment, privilege and a legacy of both. It’s deep. Check out Friedrich Nietzshe, On the Genealogy of Morals, First Essay, #10. This lack of perspective prevents effective advocacy from within, and in collaboration with historically disenfranchised social groups — women, LGBTQ, people of color, immigrants, etc.
The fact that a person lives close enough to where they work, makes enough to invest in a sweet bike as a priority, and is confident enough to know that they won’t be subject to unwarranted persecution while fully exposed in the right of way, is just some of what people may take for granted every day when they leave the house.
Why should people who care about equity and social justice care about bikes?
If you are looking for inexpensive ways to empower people from all walks of life, there is no better lasting return on investment then to focus on active transportation issues. Environment, economics, empowerment, education, equity: There are tools that can address these issues individually in a more effective way, but there are few tools that can address all these issues at once and cost so little.
—
As the CCC’s top executive, Tetteh will work as the public face, partnership-builder and strategic captain of the organization, and current Interim Executive Director (and former Deputy Director) Anne Lee will step back to manage day-to-day operations.
You can hear more from Tetteh in person on the new episode of KBOO FM’s Bike Show, taped last weekend. Tetteh will also be hanging out at the CCC’s transportation trivia night this Wednesday, and we’ll look forward to his formally taking the handlebars on Sept. 16.
Qs & As edited for brevity.
NOTE, 10:19 am on 8/27: We changed the headline of this article twice: once in an attempt to make it clear that race is an important part of this interview, and then back, because we don’t want to overemphasize the issue, either. Thanks for reading and for talking about this, everyone.
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There is so much racial oppression goggledegook in Tettah’s statement about how race is related to cycling advocacy in Portland that I really am not sure what he was talking about. I read it twice and I think what he was saying that he doesn’t particularly appreciate white cyclists and thinks that black people don’t have an equal opportunity to purchase and ride bikes. I suggest that he have a black person ride through a ‘white’ neighborhood and tell us how many times he gets jumped by a bunch of white kids. Then, have him talk to the guy who got his teeth broken by a bunch of kids on MLK and ask him how many white women will ride through certain NE Portland neighborhoods. This guy is bad news for any kind of sane bicycle advocacy.
Umm, no. Perhaps you should read Kant before you call it gobbledygook.
Ooh meant Nietzsche. Both of them I file under “you have to read it a few times before you think critically about it.” Preemptive apologies to my Philosophy profs…
@ Steve… Thoughtful honest dialog is what will bring people together.
Chill buddy..chill.
At times being a six foot ,white, Germanic male I have been snubbed by Black educators/social workers (male and female) at events I support… Once even in my own home..I swear…. It hurt a bit,and at times it makes me wonder if things will ever truly change…
I have also lived in the mid-south and the deep south and have so many POSITIVE, REAL and lasting life experience with black people that I am easily able to roll with the bad I have encountered by misguided academics. ie: I am close personal friends with the Director of the Major Taylor Club in my home town….fwiw.
I have also been brutally attacked by black men who were certainly not academic, (on and off the bike) and often verbally berated by women of color in cars as they pass me….
More so in my former hometown than Portland….
..and beyond my activity with my child, and his friends at his NoPo school, and the Rec center in New Columbia, I have to say my personal interaction with African Americans on a daily basis has almost all but dried up having moved to Portland…good or bad.
Nothing in my life experience with keep me from striving to be the best person I can be, and continue to bridge relations with all individuals I encounter.
I continue to ride anywhere I wish, despite perceived class or race lines….Some may view this as “white privilege” others may not.
I encourage all humans to ride bikes despite race/gender/class/creed/religion.
(Cycling is my religion..btw…)
As a bike shop employee/passionate cyclist have had many conversations with black people about embracing cycling as a lifestyle… often the most engaging conversations around this (by my experience) have been with women.
One particularly honest woman, recently, sticks out in my mind, who asked my advice on how to “sell the idea of her cycling” to her critically minded family….They see it as a “white person thing” she said…
I was of course flattered that she trusted me, and told her that the best thing I could offer her was simply what cycling is to me…”beautiful and belongs to everyone”.
This is my belief.
Perhaps getting beyond reading into what Mycal says, one might /could spend time with him at the CCC in person and see if something positive may come of that.
Just my thoughts on all that.
@ Chris Anderson…Confusing Kant and Nietzsche… totally fubar…
Y’all have a great day!
Steve,
If you don’t understand what Michael Tetteh is talking about, maybe you should refrain from making assumptions about what you think he is saying. That way, in the off chance that he is right, and the assumption you made about his statement is wrong, then you won’t appear to be exactly the privileged and willfully ignorant person with the blind spot that he is referring to.
I know it’s rare that someone injects any historical, racial or critical analysis into transportation advocacy in Portland, but that doesn’t mean these issues don’t exist. If it makes you uncomfortable, maybe you should think about why it makes you uncomfortable rather than implying that the MLK attack was racially motivated. Anecdotes aside, would you disagree that people can have different attitudes and experiences of their own personal safety, and the threat of violence, based on where they live and what they look like?
I’m excited that Mychal Tetteh is raising challenging questions of race and privilege in our transportation systems. He’s a critical thinker, a great emerging leader, and a real asset to the Community Cycling Center. Biking should be accessible to all communities, and CCC’s report provides a lot of information about the barriers and early steps they’ve taken to support access. And now here’s Mychal, talking about moving forward with innovative ways to break down those barriers so that biking can be a reality for more people.
I also love that he’s talking about how active transportation can address so many issues at once: Environment, economics, empowerment, education, equity. Mychal, I look forward to working with you again!
Hogwash. I’m a 40 year old white woman who lives in inner NE Portland and I can’t think of anywhere in my neighborhood I wouldn’t ride my bike just about any time I’m likely to be out and about.
Yikes, dude.
“Doesn’t particularly appreciate white cyclists”? Thanks for speaking frankly, Steve, but I don’t get that from his statement at all. I think Tetteh’s take is that privileged people often get caught up in the feeling of awesomeness that bikes can provide, and that feeling makes it even easier than usual for them to ignore the problems of being broke and/or marginalized that it’s easier to experience when you’re female, gay, black, undocumented, etc.
To say that white people often have trouble understanding people of color isn’t the same as saying that you don’t appreciate people who are white.
Michael…your statement is almost as incomprehensibly written as Tettah’s. I don’t say that to put you down, just asking that public statements be written in a way that make sense. I appreciate your attempt at explaining his statement. I also scanned the CCC Barriers article referenced by Banjo!!! A couple of observations and I will shut up: if I am correct, that was a picture of the CCC staff in the report; I see 20+ people, almost all white. I see lots of white folks who want to encourage minorities and poor people to ride bikes. What I see in the Barriers article is lots of ‘excuses’, not barriers. Bikes are too expensive, I have no place to store bike, etc etc. What I learned in years working in the Welfare system is that the only person who can truly change a person’s situation, is that person himself (or herself). This is like the gang problem, the obesity problem, the educational gap problem, etc, all those problems associated with the minority community. I say this as a 66-year old person who has heard the same litany for three generations: these problems (and I include the lack of minority bike ridership in them), will only change when the members of that community decide to change themselves, not when the so-called privileged majority in their awesomeness, decide to ‘help’ them.
Shut up and stay out of the way of black people riding bikes. It’s that easy. Oh, and put your helmet on too.
You put it so much better, and more succinctly, that I did. thanks.
When you say their statements don’t “make sense”, do you mean you don’t understand them, or that they are untrue? I ask, because I by no means consider my reading comprehension anything special, and I thought all their statements were quite straight forward regardless of their accuracy/inaccuracy.
I come from a rural farm community in a red state. I grew up with the
The above is a reply to Steve.
I recently thought to place my finger on the screen at the edge of one’s comment and then scroll down to see who is replying to it. That’s how I knew you were replying to Steve. 🙂
“There is so much racial oppression goggledegook in Tettah’s statement about how race is related to cycling advocacy in Portland that I really am not sure what he was talking about.”
That you don’t understand what he’s talking about is likely true for most of the people in this city.
Steve, is this what Tettah said that you were referring to?
bikeportland interview Q: How would you sum up the ways that race is related to biking in Portland?
“…Race, power, and privilege have constituted a blind spot for active transportation advocates in the whitest major metropolitan city in the U.S. It’s complicated. The noble morality of mainstream bike culture develops from a triumphant affirmation of itself by empowered individuals. This righteous nobility perspective often prevents a deep understanding of the reality experienced by people that don’t have the benefit of empowerment, privilege and a legacy of both. It’s deep. …” Mychal Tetteh/bikeportland interview
I don’t think anyone really knows the answers to questions you raise in your comment, but somebody has to think about what they may be. Inevitably, some of the answers people present will provoke responses such as yours. Part of the territory. Tettah appears to be smart, articulate, committed to making a positive difference, somehow. He seems like someone that can be a very positive model for people, irrespective of their skin color.
Words ’empowered’ and ’empowerment’ to me, are key to analyzing what factors may be relative to people of color being part of mainstream bike culture. I don’t think it’s the money, near as much as it is the sense of empowerment. Overemphasis on spending a lot money to get an expensive ‘sweet’ bike…rather than a very effective, basic rider…easily can get away from people, enslaving rather than empowering them.
Perhaps you should tone down the race war rhetoric, as well. First, there is no proof that SpanishMoles was attacked, let alone by black youth. Second, even if his teeth were broken as he alleges, there is no proof of racial motivation. It’s fun, in a morbid sense, to see racist fantasies spew from those who claim to be progressive.
We threw a lot more than a parking cone at black people.
Steve, I don’t want to attack your statement in anyway shape or form but I do want to know, what neighborhoods are you referring to in N.E. Portland that white women can’t ride? I see people biking all over inner N and N.E. Portland of all races, predominantly white and they don’t seem to have an issue riding anywhere at anytime during the day. I guess it comes down to personal experience which I can’t judge on. I just wanted to know where these areas are.
The CCC provides bikes for low-income residents, regardless of race. What are the cycling rates relative to the racial breakdown of the city? If minorities are less likely to bike, why is this? Is it cultural, or are there barriers of some kind that the white majority are creating? What are these barriers?
The CCC did a study! Check out the Understanding Barriers to Bicycling report here:
http://www.communitycyclingcenter.org/index.php/community/understanding-barriers-to-bicycling
The result that probably stands out the most from your link: 100% of African Americans in the survey think that cycling is unsafe, and motorists will be hostile towards them, while 0% of Africans and Hispanics think the same. This is a pretty shocking difference.
Another major one is that African Americans view bikes as “toys for children” and “symbols of gentrification”, according to the survey.
I’m not sure what the privileged white majority can do about these perceptions. We constantly advocate for cycling, based on how it improves health, saves money, improves communities. Somehow the message isn’t getting across.
Getting more people on bikes from different communities and different walks of life is a good thing.
Mychal Tetteh is just the noble gentleman that this community needs today. I love this man to death. He is the best thing that happened to Alberta street in a long time. It takes me back to Pastor Hardy and his effort to save lives, the Black United Fund, the House of Umoja, and the Ron Herdon and Albina Head Start. What more can I say Portland, just sit back and watch the next Renaissance. Join in supporting this young capable brother.
Mychals position at CCC is Well deserved for his hard work and Resistance.
….. [typo] hard work and persistence.
Ty pretty much covered it. Mychal is the man and I look forward to him leading CCC into the future.
Such a great interview. Thanks so much for posting this! I love how Mychal takes on race and class so directly. Good luck, Mychal! It sounds like you are just what Portland needs.
Another Benson Tech grad doing great things in the community.
Obviously, the CCC knows him and vice versa, so that’s a good start.
I hope he’s as successful as getting people on bikes as another Benson grad, Jay Graves.
Reading stories of people being assaulted while riding bikes, and recent bike jackings in St. Johns, I was wondering if those acts of violence were justified by the perpetrators as feeling like they were fighting back against the elite. I hope that isn’t the case.
I hope Mychal Tetteh can eliminate bicycle class barriers by both educating the privileged society and also not create resentment among the have nots.
My bike is worth 3x more than my 25 year old car, and commute about 8 miles one way on what would be perceived as a “fancy” bike. If I can’t bike to work without feeling safe from thugs, this town isn’t worth living in.
Let’s not forget that Portland is the safest it’s been in the last 40 years. http://www.kgw.com/news/Portland-crime-rate-lowest-since-1960s-218413971.html
Reacting to media sensationalism by letting it change your perceptions of safety is not usually rational. It’s that kind of thinking that has given us a generation of obese children who are raised to be scared of being out of earshot of their parents.
I profile drivers and other road users during my rides–I’m a hundred times more afraid of young white men in oversize pickup trucks, and middle-aged white women in suits talking on their phones driving their immorally large SUV’s than I am of any black driver or pedestrian.
Sorry, my keyboard is junk.
Anyway, this is all anecdotal, but I grew up with the preconceived notion that only the individual can change his/her/its situation. That’s a very common view where I’m from, and based on that view expectations, norms, policies, every-day decisions, etc are set. What results is a culture of isolation for many. Information and resources just don’t flow freely enough around here to make long term change anything but exasperating for those who don’t have an abundance of disposable income paired with a willingness to spend it.
I say that notion was “preconceived”, because it didn’t actually originate with any awareness of other people’s situations, but instead with ignorant observation of my own life. My father wanted help on the farm, so I became a laborer in my early youth. Much later my first job off the farm was picking rocks out of fields for other farmers at age 13. After a college career, I am debt free thanks to money made laboring throughout it. I mention this only to show I was once very determined to not be a social burden and instead provide for myself. But I would have had none of that “self sufficiency” had I not been given so much by my parents and surrounding community. All that “helping myself” actually required input from others and thus was truly a cooperative effort. I was just fortunate enough that I lived in a culture which in a few key ways reflected my own values and subsequent efforts.
But I’ve changed much since then. I still prioritize “self sufficiency”, but no longer feel comfortable finding that in places and ways I once did. I now feel I have hardly any common ground with the community I grew up in. I feel little passion for anything but social change, but the social changes I envision and believe in make me feel isolated here, and I do little to actually promote them. Before such an experience I had always thought of myself as a person with much will power, so what’s becoming clear to me is how much my ability to change myself depends on my surroundings, even if just for a little bit of motivation. A takeaway I consider positive is that I can now empathize more instinctively with people who struggle to make changes in their lives, such as choosing to ride a bicycle.
I guess what I’m getting at is that I think we’d be wise to refrain from classifying others’ reasons as “excuses” unless we have a comprehensive understanding of where they are in all aspects of existence.
Hmmm…I meant that as a reply to my above comment that got cutoff by my faulty keyboard which I suspect deleted what I was replying to without my noticing. Sorry for any confusion.
Caleb, come back West!
I’ve occasionally wondered if you are the Nathan I know. Thanks for speaking up, friend. 🙂
I feel I’m regaining sanity and thus ready for a westward return, but first I’m traveling south for a warm winter and seeing where opportunity takes me. I really don’t know when I’ll make it back west, but until then you and our crew will be on my mind!
“All that ‘helping myself’ actually required input from others and thus was truly a cooperative effort.”
I think this is what we refer to as “opportunity”. Opportunity is all one person can offer another when it comes to efforts to expand the experience of that other person. The person offered opportunity can either take advantage or not.
I believe it is true that we have nothing but what we have been given–by our creator (whether you believe that to be a supreme Creator, or merely the sum total of your ancestral DNA) and those who contribute to our lives as we grow up and find our way in the world. What would have happened if you had refused or made some excuse why you couldn’t help out on your farm? What would have happened had you refused or made some excuse why you couldn’t pick up rocks on others’ farms? What motivated you to accept these opportunities rather than refuse them? Was it the desire for some reward? Was it the fear of some kind of shame or punishment? What made any reward desirable? What made any consequence of refusal undesirable? I know lots of kids today that would much, much rather watch TV or play video games if given a choice between that or farm labor. Why did you choose the labor? Were there no more attractive options? Is it ever “too late” to learn the advantages and develop the motivation to recognize and seize opportunities rather than ignore them? How can someone later in life learn such things? How can someone earlier in life learn such things if they don’t live with people who will teach them? Can the government or community orgs really teach such character qualities as self-sufficiency (to the extent that is possible) or self-respect? If we as a society provide a path of least resistance that is acceptable to so many, can we ever expect that changes will occur?
I have had some conversations with a friend who is involved with CCC about the bizarre spectacle of a bunch of white bike advocates spearheading a drive to expand bike transportation within communities of color . . . I have had serious questions about that being right (or practical) way to have the benefits of cycling begin to pay dividends for communities that could really benefit. Given that, this is a welcome development, and not in the sense that Tetteh is a figurehead; he is of the served community in every way, and I think that cannot help but powerfully impact their mission going forward.
Congratulations to Tetteh. Hope he can help get a whole bunch of new bikers on the roads.
Grocery stores & bikes & Portlanders actually talking (however badly) about race and class issues — I’ll call that a winning combination. Welcome, Mycah! Hope you never give up on those bunny hops.
Let’s just start here: “Race, power, and privilege have constituted a blind spot for active transportation advocates in the whitest major metropolitan city in the U.S.” — Mychal Tetteh, incoming Community Cycling Center CEO.
That being said… congrats to CCC on an excellent leadership choice! I appreciate your commitment to serve the bike community through connections with and consideration of ALL of Portland’s residents, including the more racially, ethnically and economically diverse communities often not a priority in green Portland.
Ty hit the bullseye when he said that Mychal is a noble gentleman. The CCC is an incredible organization, and I can’t wait to cheer Mychal, the Board, and the CCC on in the years to come. Welcome, Mychal, and thank you for your past and future work.
There is so much (white privilege and) racial oppression denial in Steve’s statement about how race is related to cycling advocacy in Portland that I really am not sure what he was talking about. I read it twice and I think what he was saying that he doesn’t particularly appreciate POC cyclists and thinks that black people have an equal opportunity to purchase and ride bikes. I think he is suggesting that a black person ride through a ‘white’ neighborhood and tell us how many times he gets followed or glared at by a bunch of white guys. Then, have him talk to the guy who got his teeth broken by a bunch of kids on MLK and compare that to the senseless racism black people have endured for hundreds of years. This guy is bad news for any kind of sane bicycle advocacy…
*also, the original comment was so poorly structured, I thought it would be appropriate to keep the format intact.
So I guess my comments were deleted, why so? I didn’t say anything out of the ordinary.
Nevermind, I guess I overlooked it while reading responses.
It is as much about economic privelege as it is about race.
“The fact that a person lives close enough to where they work, makes enough to invest in a sweet bike as a priority, and is confident enough to know that they won’t be subject to unwarranted persecution while fully exposed in the right of way, is just some of what people may take for granted every day when they leave the house.”
This isn’t (just) about race, it’s about being poor, and that cuts across the boundaries of race.
In my experience volunteering at the bike hub, none of the people who I helped cared whether I was white or not. They had broken bikes, and I fixed them.