Hundreds of people joined the World Naked Bike Ride Saturday afternoon in a flesh-filled spectacle that marked the 20th year Portlanders have come together for this mass protest and celebration.
World Naked Bike Ride is a global event launched in Spain in 2003. It has roots as a protest against oil dependency and has morphed and grown into a larger movement that encompasses many goals and ideas. Portland has held a version of the ride annually since 2004 (large rides were not organized in 2020 or 2021 due to the Covid pandemic).
This year a new crew of leaders branched off from the group that had been leading the ride since its inception. Compared to previous editions, Saturday’s ride was much smaller and the general vibe as I observed the crowd at the meet-up spot at Colonel Summers Park in southeast was different than years past. There was less partying. It felt more like a gathering than a festival. I didn’t see anyone consuming alcohol. And the usual legions of novice riders who seem to dust off their bikes just for WNBR, mostly stayed home last night.
[Story continues below photo gallery.]
At the meet-up spot in Colonel Summers Park, pink vests of volunteers and naked bodies dotted the grassy field as mobile sound systems filled the air with music.
On the park’s pavement next to the tennis courts, a place that has hosted so many bike cultural moments over the years, I met someone named Jasmine wearing underwear and roller skates. She was first inspired to join big group rides after randomly coming across the Opera Ride on her way home from work one day. “I was like, these people look like they’re having a lot of fun,” she said. “So I grabbed my bike and joined them.”
Bill Chin, who I once referred to Pedalpalooza’s iron man for his prolific ride attendance, was also there. The 64-year old said he’s done several naked rides. “I think it’s interesting. It’s fun to be free,” he said, as he stood wearing nothing but shoes. For Bill, the ride is, “all about protest and visibility, body positivity and inclusion.” “I’m an older person, but I fit in just fine with everyone else,” he shared.
That sense of inclusion is important to the organizers of the ride. One of them, Moorland Moss of Nakedhearts:PDX, took to the mic before the ride began. “It’s a huge deal that you decided to come out,” they said to the crowd. “No matter what the reason, you’ve chosen to come out and be naked and vulnerable with strangers. You are all welcome here.”
“I hope that during the ride you can feel a sense of belonging to Portland, America and the year 2024,” Moss continued. “It is increasingly difficult for a lot of us to feel that way… Your body speaks the truth, and we need to stop letting our politicians and all these things lie to us. We need to start listening to us, and I hope you can feel a sense of belonging to yourself, because that’s where the truth lies.”
Moss then shared messages about consent, respect, and safety before handing the mic to three speakers.
Hearing about activism and important issues in speeches before the ride was another big shift from previous years. It underscored a key goal of this year’s naked ride leaders: to make the protest aspect — which had been largely absent from the ride for years — much more prominent.
The first speaker (who didn’t give a name and I forgot to ask) urged the crowd to get engaged with the fight to prevent climate change. “I want to encourage everyone to expand their thinking outward on a more global scale, because our struggles against climate change and fossil fuels here in Oregon, are connected to what’s happening all over the world right now,” she said.
Specifically, she pointed to the global week of protests against Chevron that begins Sunday. The event is organized by the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement that works to negatively impact corporations that are benefiting from what she calls the “Illegal occupation and apartheid and genocide in Palestine.” The speaker said Palestinian sovereignty is a threat to Chevron’s off-shore drilling operations and that all the bombs Israel has dropped in Gaza, “Have contributed more to climate change in the past year than anything else going on.” “That’s something we should all be yelling about today and every day.”
Next up was a woman named Alyssa who shared a poem from “those who are harmed or negatively affected by objectification and sexualization.” “Society and relationships can sometimes either treat us like an expendable commodity or a footnote, while they impose, objectify and sensationalize projected idealism,” she shared. “AKA, it sucks facing life with all this patriarchal bullshit and relentless sexual and societal harassment.”
Then Dineen O’Rourke took the mic. O’Rourke works with the nonprofit 350 PDX and leads their campaign against Zenith Energy. She told the story of how the company came to Portland seven years ago and, “sneakily” bought a facility in northwest Portland to transport and store crude oil and tar sands oil from North Dakota and northern Canada. “Once that happened, we saw quadruple the amount of oil trains coming into this region,” she shared. Despite this, O’Rourke blamed Portland city council members for being “bought out” by Zenith and betraying Portlanders. “It’s despicable,” she said, as she reminded folks to prepare for an upcoming comment period and public hearings by the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Then it was time to ride!
The group massed onto SE 20th and headed toward the wide, wonderful downhill of SE Hawthorne Blvd toward the Willamette River. The bodies flowed and spirits rose as legs powered bikes, boards, and skates. We rolled onto SE 7th southbound as spectators began to spill out of businesses to watch the sea of skin cycle by. Then it was on to the Tilikum Bridge and Naito Parkway.
We rode miles north on Naito until it turns into Front Ave. Our destination was the Zenith Energy Terminal — the facility O’Rourke warned us all about.
“We can’t take 4 ounces of hand sanitizer on a plane,” Moss said as the group neared the location of a planned die-in protest. “But they [Zenith] can bring millions of gallons of chemicals into our city.”
Once the group arrived on the street adjacent to Zenith’s massive oil storage containers and train cars, everyone laid down on the pavement. The music stopped. Skin pressed onto pavement as a planet earth flag waved silently in the breeze.
Cheers and bike bells rang out as protestors stood and mounted their bikes. View a video of the protest on our YouTube channel (it’s age-restricted so I can’t embed it here.)
As the sun set, the ride continued back into downtown Portland. The group rolled over the Morrison bridge into the central eastside and ultimately to the Eastbank Esplanade where dancing, live music, and a rising full moon marked the end of the the ride.
Thanks for reading.
BikePortland has served this community with independent community journalism since 2005. We rely on subscriptions from readers like you to survive. Your financial support is vital in keeping this valuable resource alive and well.
Please subscribe today to strengthen and expand our work.
So many lithium batteries… I remember when WNBR wasn’t dependent on a finite resource whose extraction leaves our earth scarred, polluted and broken.
Another driver who emits tons of environmentally-destructive GHG complaining about a few grams of lithium.
Yawn.
And think of all the aluminum and steel those bikes are using — other finite and polluting extractive resources.
These people sure do suck all the fun out of life and now even the once great World Naked Bike Ride event. To think i thought there was just going to be some naive demands all Portland folks need to bike and transit for every daily task/commute (fyi I am typical daily bike commuter for work). No instead they one up my expectations and made the protest in support of the radical extremists that lead Hamas in Gaza. Mentioning Chevron, perhaps activists forgot that the Sauds (and muslim allies in the Middle East, all “PoC”) are the richest oil barons in the world. Supporting the fossil fuel, climate change industry, is absolutely not unique to “white colonizers”.
Boo hoo.
WNBR has always been a protest against fossil fuels and oil imperialism (e.g. the US oil industry and the KSA petro-monoarchy) and I’m glad that these organizers are bringing back this ride to its original purpose.
Well, the “once great” WNBR was started as a protest against oil dependence, so your expectation for a (very condescendingly worded) “naive demand” for people to ride bikes is misguided.
Furthermore, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this protest who doesn’t recognize the problems of the Saudi oil.
Finally, your attempt to dehumanize the Palestinian people and demean their struggle is not appreciated. And trying to separate current events there from oil dependence is simply incorrect. It is absolutely relevant and tied to colonization and oil.
If you want to stay in a bubble and stick your head in the sand about world events, you’re free to do so, but I appreciate that this WNBR gave a (small!) nod to something serious.
I doubt that anyone forgot this?
Also, imagining that somehow the ruling dynasty of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has not directly benefited from US interests is rich. Particularly in the context of the US directly promising to support and protect the regime militarily in return for supplying oil to the US.
Calling them “PoC” is like calling Xi Jinping a person of color, it might be trivially true if they were to be a different person and living in the US, but they aren’t. They are ruling a different country with it’s own history, only partially tied to European-American imperialism and not solely of it. If we want to engage in something like racism as it pertains to Persian Gulf petrol states, then it’s probably more relevant to bring up things like the forced labor of migrant workers, primarily from Bangladesh, than it is to consider the dynamics of anti-Islamic racism in the US. While the Kafala System is not overtly racist, and has seen minor reforms since the mid 2010s, is still deeply problematic and racialized. If you were to look at a distribution of incomes in the UAE, Qatar, or Saudi Arabia by national origin, it would be hard not to conclude that Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, and Fillipino workers do not constituent some kind of lower class.
This is a good point in that at what time does a person who is not white become a person of color rather than just a person? Is it when they disembark in America? Do they need to have been born American? If the person of color grew up without whites around are they still a POC? What was I when I was the only white amongst 3 million plus Chinese in Changsha alone? Was I a Person of Whiteness? Well, I discovered they did have a word for me when a bunch of children surrounded me chanting a word that I later found out was “monkey”. Good ole racism and cultural superiority. I’m curious what folk’s opinions of this are. Is the phrase “POC” tied to others being white? That would be somewhat unfortunate.
I think “person of color” as it’s used in the US is broadly applicable to only the US. Even in Europe, racism takes a different tone (it’s worse in a lot of ways imo, but less tied to categories an American would recognize as meaningful).
Presumably, if the majority (or some significant portion) of someone’s life takes place under the context of US society, then it makes sense to use US racial/social categories. And still probably only to understand their experience within US social spheres. The experience of being Chinese in American society writ large is different than the experience of being Chinese in Chinatown in NYC.
And yes, I think in the context of US racial politics, “POC” is just a more acceptable way of saying “not White”, which is a useful, albeit broad, way to understand differences in experience at the very high level. Obviously, the difference in experience between different racial groups within the US is always in flux, and never the same across categories, but it’s still a useful lens to view things through (if not the only one)
I’m not sure what a second generation Japanese citizen, an American Indian, and a 5th generation Mexican immigrant have in common that is so different from the children of poor Russian immigrants.
Perhaps you could define “useful” more precisely.
Society perceives the latter as White, and probably not any of the former (though a 5th generation Mexican-American is highly contextual to the individual and their family history). Being White offers a certain degree of social privilege, and especially considering that most non-White racial groups in the US have at least some history of official government oppression, it’s a useful demographic indicator.
Obviously it’s not the only one, and someone’s specific life circumstances play a role too. Racial groups are reductive and arbitrary, and a combination of all non-White people into one group is even more so. But still, there’s a shared experience there which is obviously relevant given the way many people self-define this way.
I completely agree with this. And while there may be little “shared experience” between Japanese friend, who seems to have access to all the same social benefits I do and my Russian neighbor, who clearly does not, I don’t think the difference is racial.
Culture and class are far more important than race, in my opinion. Who has better life prospects in present day America? A rich black kid with professional parents, a poor white kid who grew up in a family that didn’t put much value on education, or a middle class Japanese kid?
I don’t know the answer to that question, but I know it’s not the white kid.
Sure, but how does that change if each person in your hypothetical example is of equal economic status? Race isn’t the only factor that influences things in society, but it is one of them. Like how White men with criminal records have been shown to have better job prospects than Black men without (source).
It’s also worth considering how race interacts with poverty. It’s just less likely for a Black child to be born to rich parents. 5.6% of Black households earn 200k/year or more compared to 13.4% of White households. On the flip side, 9.6% of Black households earn $10k/year or less while just 4.4% of White households do. Sure, the Black child born to rich parents is likely to have better future prospects than the White child born to poor parents, but it’s twice as likely that a Black child will have extremely poor parents than rich ones while it’s three times as likely that a White child will have rich parents as opposed to poor ones.
To the extent that direct racism affects Black Americans is maybe debatable, but it’s undeniable that past racism does. The wealth gap stemming from the exclusion of Black Americans from the mid-century housing market is just one example.
You can always create a scenario where the poorest White family is worse off than the richest Black family, but that’s an uninteresting comparison to me. Lots of things affect someone’s life, and race is one of them.
I don’t doubt that race impacts people, I just claim it’s secondary to class and culture, and if we want to create more opportunity and equality, a focus on race isn’t likely to be as effective as one based on primary factors. Nor, I would add, is it likely to produce a cohesive society.
That there exist aggregate differences between groups that reflect historic realities does not negate my point.
A white male claims that race is secondary to class or culture.
How novel.
I love this! I love that they made the protest part more prominent. And after the initial talks and protest, it looks like people were having a blast. It’s a good balance of taking it seriously and having fun. And what a nice day for it!
It also occurred to me (and this must have been a conscious choice), they did NOT start the ride so late it was all in the dark. They were out and visible.
I’m sad I missed it. I didn’t have a babysitter and the event said it was “21+” for some reason.
Does any of this matter?
While I feel that the freedom to protest is sacred and should be utilized, I also question the effectiveness of using a naked bike ride to speak out against wars, environmental concerns, and other injustices in our world. It seems far too easy for the powerful to either ignore this or write it off as a bunch of “crazy Portland exhibitionists”. WNBR was once a cultural novelty that made a statement about the vulnerability of cyclists on our streets. The average Portlander was amused but could get behind the idea of safety for bike riders. As a catch-all protest, I feel that it missed the original intent of the ride and now just becomes overtly political and gets lost in an increasingly loud sea of angry people seeking attention.
I make no judgement about the causes promoted during this ride. I do wonder if the event was appropriate for such statements and if the average citizen was reached or even cared?
Well, directly it appears to have impacted hundreds of folks who came out to ride their bicycles on Saturday. And now indirectly it seems to have you thinking about it and me thinking about it. And maybe one or two of those onlookers noticed the theme as they took a gander of all that was bared.
Maybe it’s a small ripple in the pond but it does have impact.
Every protest action gets the “goldilocks” treatment
Every corporate, status quo, life-destroying action gets the shrug of acceptance
Look no further than the graffiti that was sprayed on the walls at the PSU library, it’s a grab bag of grievances against vaguely defined boogeymen like capitalism and our democracy. When I see “END CIV” I know we’re not dealing with serious people.
So a great and wonderful ride was tainted by some anti-Israel BDS propaganda with the first speaker after the safety brief given latitude to hate. Why?? Why is it so important to focus on something that many don’t really understand and are simply going along with the crowd instead of focusing on environmental nightmares happening in the United States and specifically Oregon?
This is long, but full of receipts and historical truths.
The picture that goes along with this is real and not a deepfake or whatever word you want to dismiss it with. They really did meet and it’s discussed further below.
First of all on BDS, it is something the US government opposes….
BDS Israel boycott group is anti-Semitic, says UShttps://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-54999010
It is the policy of the United States to combat anti-Semitism everywhere in the world and in whatever form it appears, including all forms of discrimination and hatred rooted in anti-Semitism. The United States strongly opposes the global discriminatory boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign (Global BDS Campaign) and practices that facilitate it, such as discriminatory labeling and the publication of databases of companies that operate in Israel or Israeli-controlled areas.
https://2017-2021.state.gov/identifying-organizations-engaged-in-anti-semitic-bds-activities/
Biden blasts BDS: Why it mattersBiden’s firm rejection of BDS contrasts with the views of several members of Congress led by Representatives Ilhan Omar (D-MN) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), both of whom have explicitly endorsed BDS.https://www.jpost.com/american-politics/biden-blasts-bds-why-it-matters-632301#google_vignette
About Israel being a white, colonialist and Apartheid country.
That’s not true either. Slightly less than half of Israeli’s are descended from Europe which is not even considering the 20-25% of the Israeli population that are Muslim.
A majority of Israel’s Jews today are not descended from Europe, but rather from Arab nations. To expect them to leave Israel is unprecedented, unrealistic and wrong
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/15/israelis-go-back-to-europe-slogan
Adolf Hitler (the actual one, not “like Hitler”, but the actual murdering madman himself) and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem had a vision to destroy the Jews in the middle east and met to plan it out. This meeting actually happened. It’s historical reality. This is who you are siding with when you support BDS against Israel.
Netanyahu mischaracterized the meeting by saying that it was the Grand Mufti’s idea to start the Holocaust. The Holocaust was already in motion, this meeting was how the Arabs could support Germany’s eradication of the “Jewish problem”.
https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/
If you support BDS you also don’t support LGBTQ in Gaza and the West Bank.
LGBT Network President David Kilmnick’s Op-Ed: The abandonment of Israel by LGBT groups is hypocritical and cruel
https://lgbtnetwork.org/news/abandonment-of-israel-by-lgbt-groups/
If you support BDS you also support Hamas and Hezbollah, at that is where all the money is going into. Very little of it reaches the population.
https://apnews.com/article/business-middle-east-israel-foreign-aid-gaza-strip-611b2b90c3a211f21185d59f4fae6a90
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/gaza-plagued-poverty-hamas-no-shortage-cash-come-rcna121099
Arabs had a chance at a 2 state solution from the very beginning which they refused. They wanted the Jews out of their lands no matter how many thousands of years they had been there and then they wanted them all dead. It’s not about oil, its not about Chevron. It’s about hatred of Jews.
The Jewish community approved of the first of these proposals, while the Arabs opposed them both.
https://www.britannica.com/topic/United-Nations-Resolution-181
The migration and expulsion of Jews from Arab countries was almost total. Of the nearly one million Jews living in Arab countries before 1948, only a few thousand remain today. But outside of Israel, this topic is rarely mentioned in current debates on the Middle East.
https://www.mena-researchcenter.org/the-emigration-and-expulsion-of-jews-from-arab-countries/
A timeline leading up to the first of FOUR traditional wars that Arab nations waged on Israel. You might wonder why Israel wants a buffer zone and is not eager to give back land they captured in open combat? It’s because they keep getting invaded.
Timeline and key dates
https://www.britannica.com/event/1948-Arab-Israeli-War
I don’t care. Why would anyone care? This is the same US government that genocided our own native populations, and currently does all sorts of things I oppose. Our government doesn’t get to decide what is anti-semitic.
Yes it’s true. You know apartheid South Africa had a lot of black people living in it, right? Right? Like, that’s the whole point.
No it isn’t. We’re siding with the native Palestinians who actually live there now, and are being pushed out of their homeland by force.
Actually no, you don’t get to decide what people support or don’t. And you know what really isn’t supporting the LGBTQ in Gaza for real? Bombing and starving them to death. That’s not supporting them at all. Not being bombed and starved to death is a precondition to supporting their rights.
Utter transparent lies. Do you know what a boycott is? Hint: it’s not giving money to someone. Do you know what divestment is? Hint: it’s not spending money. Do you know what sanctions are? It’s not spending money. No money is going to Hamas et al because of BDS you liar.
What on Earth gave them the authority to do that? “Might” of course, but the people living there also have a rightful say in the matter.
Nothing about what you say applies to now and the oppression and genocide of the Palestinian people now.
Now, why you decide you have to insert this comment is beyond me. It’s way off topic and goes into the weeds of a thing this particular protest was about and you don’t agree with, and you absolutely know it’s going to stir up a long flamey comment thread. Maybe that’s what you want.
Who does? If a Jew tells you you’re doing something antisemitic, do you listen?
Surely you can and should define antisemitism in a way that doesn’t require asking a Jewish person? If that definition includes “boycotting, divesting from, or sanctioning the state of Israel” I’d raise my eyebrows though. That’s like saying refusal to purchase goods from Iran is the same as being racist towards Iranians; the people of a nation are never the same as their governments
Only if I can and should define other forms of prejudice without talking to those directly affected. Intent trumps impact, right?
If you’re meaning to be cheeky at the end, surely you mean “impact trumps intent”, since you are “worried” about the impacts of someones actions rather than the intent of them.
And on the impacts: if the impact of economically weakening the state of Israel is antisemitism, that means construing Jewish identity with Israel. I’m not Jewish, but I have a fair few friends that are. They certainly do not have a consensus on that topic, but there is considerable dissent. But I won’t speak for them.
For me, I view the actions of the state of Israel in Gaza and the West Bank as categorical unjust. If someone else calls me antisemitic over that (even a Jewish person), I would disagree with them. Exactly what is antisemitic about saying that it’s unacceptable that the IDF has killed more than 16,000 civilians in a year? (per the IDF, actual numbers likely to be closer to 40,000)
My phrasing was intended to be ironic.
I’m saying that if you believe that impact is more important than intent, you cannot define antisemitism without talking to the people who are impacted.
===
This incoherence is what I was reacting to. If you won’t speak for Jews, and we don’t need to involve them, who does get to decide what’s antisemitic?
In my opinion, nothing, but many would argue that by focusing only on the wrongdoing of one side, you are in effect taking the side of a murderous terrorist organization dedicated to wiping out the Jewish people in the Middle East, and that is, in effect, antisemitic.
You may not agree with that view, but if you’re concerned about impact, you don’t get to decide.
Those aren’t the sides. The sides are a super-power backed murderous apartheid state vs millions of innocent civilians. That there are some people fighting back within that group is unsurprising. I absolutely will focus on the wrongdoing of the side that is doing the most wrongdoing. And by no small measure. 16,000 is a joke of a number for the death toll. Because of Israel’s actions, the death toll is far closer to 200,000 as of at least two months ago (plus, of course, amputations and other permanent maimings hidden in the mere “wounded” numbers). It is disgusting and there is no defense of it.
And I don’t care how much bad faith genocide defenders want to get bogged down in misdirection and whataboutery about stuff that happened either a thousand years ago or was imposed on the native Palestinians by superpowers, or things that we are not directly funding and supporting. That shit doesn’t matter, what people want to stop is what is happening now.
I’m not trying to pour more fuel on the fire, but would hope you would also consider this aspect as well.
Hamas can surrender, release the hostages and allow Gazans to vote for a government that can help them and create ties with Israel. That’s another option that seems to get glossed over. If they did the fighting would end the day they surrendered.
We Jews have a secret weapon in our struggle with the Arabs; we have no place to go.
Golda Meir
If the Arabs would lay down their arms, there would be peace. If the Jews laid down their arms there would be no Israel.
Golda Meir
N/m, misread a comment.
Suffice it to say, I disagree. You don’t get to dodge the fact that Israel is doing outrageous disgusting atrocities by saying “they started it” like you’re fucking 6 years old.
Those aren’t the sides, either. It’s millions of innocent civilians on both sides. Or, better, it’s governments on both sides willing to sacrifice Palestinian civilians to further their war aims. Civilians on both sides probably largely want peace.
That could describe actions of Oct 7 as well as the Israeli military response it drew.
Hamas didn’t sign on to the cease-fire that was offered last month, so why is it Israel’s fault? Neither government wants peace, but you blame only one side (the Jews) for what is clearly a two-state problem. I think that would strike many as antisemitic, even if it’s not your intent.
The “sides”, the civilians on both sides, are basically pawns at this point. Hamas is perfectly willing to let its citizens be slaughtered (maybe even hoping they can lure Israel into bombing hospitals and mosques), knowing each incident will increase indignation against Israel. Should Israel just “stand down” and let Hamas continue to attack from behind it’s civilian shield? Maybe, but maybe Hamas bears some culpability in the deaths of its people as well.
Those who see clear right and wrong in this war are not seeing things clearly.
Incredible comment!
“Or, better, it’s governments on both sides willing to sacrifice Palestinian civilians to further their war aims. Civilians on both sides probably largely want peace.“
An excellent and concise description of war in general, just substitute “Palestine” with country of choice.
“Those who see clear right and wrong in this war are not seeing things clearly.”
Another great truism! Again, describes all wars.
It’s easier for me to see right and wrong with the war in Ukraine.
War is misery personified. War is an attack on the working class as that is who ends up fighting and dying leaving families destitute back home. The initiators of war never seem to be the ones who suffer and indeed are the ones who profit at the expense of those dying slowly and those who are snuffed from existence in a notion.
The war in Ukraine was unimaginable for the US. I know as I sat through the most up to date briefing at the time in 2016 in response to the 2014 initial invasion of Ukraine depicting NATO invading Russia. The capabilities that the scenario assumed Russia possessed was not even remotely close to what they’ve actually shown to have. An utter failure by the senior intelligence community. The war has been going on for so long (thanks Obama and Trump) and of course escalated horribly in 2022.
Is there a right and wrong? Are the Azov Brigade and like minded units or the penal legions (unbelievable in this day and age) as bad as they’re reported to be. Are the atrocities of the Russians that much worse than the Ukrainians? Is the invader always wrong? What does that make us in Iraq and Afghanistan if that’s true? Why aren’t the legacy media on the ground reporting what happening?
Couldn’t agree more
If you can’t see right and wrong in the siege of Gaza, you aren’t paying attention.
I just read it as doubly ironic I guess.
Who gets to decide the meaning of any word? Surely there’s a definition of antisemitism that doesn’t require asking a Jewish person. And for the record, me “not speaking for them” is not in directly in reference to antisemitism in the comment above, it’s in reference to construing Jewish identity with Israel, and while I am certain not all of my Jewish friends agree with that I’m not looking to just throw their opinions out on the internet. Rather, just as a demonstration that there is no singular Jewish perspective (especially as it pertains to Jewish people live in the US). I can also misconstrue the context of what you say, but I’d prefer not to.
Would you argue this?
And I’m not focused on the wrongdoing of “one side” in the broader historical context of the Middle East (see my comments in other parts of this thread in response to Jake), but for the narrower context of “the last year”, I think it’s appropriate to point out that Israel has in effect waged war on what was the densest and poorest part of the world. And that this came after a decades long blockade and the establishment of a police state. I think there is no historical context that justifies this. Even if the entirety of the population of Gaza were murderous antisemites (which of course, they are not), it would be unconscionable to summarily execute them.
It’s not “taking the side of Hamas” to say that the Israeli invasion of Gaza has been unjustifiable. You can have viewpoints that coincide with groups that you disagree with without taking on every viewpoint of that group. Like there are plenty of policies that the Democratic Party has that I think are good, but that doesn’t mean I dogmatically follow their platform no matter what, or that I even support them in any sense of the word.
I’m not sure how I feel about this line of argument, but I know that many Jews do argue this. I can’t make a strong argument about why this viewpoint is wrong, and when I hear people argue against Israeli action while completely ignoring the actions of Hamas (which should be trivial to condemn), I gain more sympathy for the argument.
Israeli conduct of this war is abhorrent. The Hamas actions that triggered it were abhorrent. The fact that Hamas continues to put its civilians directly in harm’s way is abhorrent.
I feel no moral conflict saying any of that, but if you stop after the first statement, it does sound a bit like you disagree with the rest. The idea that if one side is wrong, the other must be right is such limited thinking. They are both wrong. Why not say so?
As for your question about deciding meanings, if you believe that impact is more important than intent, then those who decide are the ones who are impacted. I happen to think that both are important, but progressives won that argument years ago.
“We’re siding with the native Palestinians who actually live there now, and are being pushed out of their homeland by force.“
Most of the point of this was to show that our wealthy American view of “native” might not be mirrored in what is happening in Gaza. If you think American history is reflected all over the world then fine, leave it at that. The Jews were there as long if not longer than the Arabs and the UN attempted to craft a solution that was beneficial to all sides (Also I can’t believe I am supporting the UN and you are not).
The only way this will become a mess is if you keep repeating the same opinions without any documentation or any point. I don’t want that either.
On the topic of antisemitism: if boycotting Israel is antisemitism, that’s because you are defining being Jewish in a way that is congruent with being Israeli. I think it’s unreasonable to conflate protesting aspects of the Israeli government with being antisemitic, or against the idea of Jewish people having a right to live
On the topic of the history of various Arab/Israeli wars: if you have a geopolitical goal of “creating a buffer state”, you are usually doing so at the expense of the people who already live there. See: the history of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War. You don’t strike me as someone who would justify the Soviet invasion of Hungary, why justify the Israeli invasion of Lebanon or Jordan?
And on the topic of the late 1940s in Palestine: surely events have transpired since then that are more relevant. I don’t think Arab irredentism over a two state system in the 1940s justifies any atrocities committed by Israel in the present day. Sure, it’s useful context I guess, but it should also be contextualized in the time it took place. The reason Arab nations were not supportive of a Jewish ethnostate in Palestine is because one didn’t exist there, and a one state multi-religious entity made more sense then (as a successor to the British Mandate).
On the topic of boycotting Israel i have to ask what the end goal of that is as you see it? I have read over the official website for BDS and noticed they mention this.
Ending it’s (Israel) occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall.If the BDS movement believes all of the Middle East is Arab despite the Jews being there for thousands of years (after all, the Dome of the Rock is built on top of Temple Mount and not the other way around), where does that leave Israel? Where do they go? To me it sounds like calling for the destruction of Israel, but would like to hear another opinion.
On the topic of the Arab Israeli wars, I don’t believe the goal was to create a buffer state. Israel was fighting for it’s existence and the lives of it’s citizens and would not have been able to capture that land had they not been invaded 4 times by Arab armies. They have been loath to return that land simply because the Arab countries keep invading them. After 4 invasions, many intifadas and near constant rocket attacks, at what point does Israel begin to trust it’s Arab neighbors? If the Arab nations are serious about resolving the Palestinian situation and reclaim the land Israel took through self-defense, than a good starting point would be to recognize Israel and affirm that it has a right to exist and that the Jews, Muslims, Arabs, Christians, Bahai’s and others have a right to live. Right now only Egypt (in 1979), Jordan (1994), UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan (2020) are the only Arab nations to recognize that Israel is not going anywhere. That leaves 28 Arab and Muslim countries who don’t regard Israel as worthy of simply existing, or even it’s right to exist.
As far as your comparison with Hungary and the Soviet Union, you are right and I thank you for the consideration you show that I would indeed not want an invasion. Unfortunately in the ME Jordan did invade Israel (many times) and Hezbollah who took over a significant part of the political structure of Lebanon did attack Israel (and killed a lot of Americans).
I do believe the German partnership with the Arabs in the 1940’s is significant. Time works differently in the ME. My old armor unit was in the spearhead of the Iraq invasion and helped take and occupy Baghdad. They told me a bunch of wild stuff including twice when different people came to them on patrol and said a family member had been murdered by that family down that street at such and such a place. When asked when this happened as the soldiers got ready to respond they were told many centuries ago. The grudge was as alive for them today as it was for their ancestors. The 1940’s (and 1840’s, etc.) are still alive and they remember clearly what happened to their families. They then got angry at the patrol for not arresting/executing the guilty descendants.
On the discussion of a Jewish ethnostate, you are right, there was not one at that moment in time. There was also not a Palestinian ethnostate. The Jews had been scattered, coalesced and scattered again for thousands of years. The Arabs were just fine subsuming the Jewish population into another Arab state as they knew they would then be able to kill or expel them as had happened in all other Arab nations.
History reveals the present and lets us anticipate the future. I am not claiming the Jews are completely in the right, I am claiming though that they are in their ancestral homeland have a right to exist within a nation without being constantly invaded, threatened with destruction or put in gas chambers.
Racists just can’t see any possibility other than segregation.
Yeah, Jews lived there for a long time. With the Palestinians who also lived there the whole time. They coexisted before.
I thought your earlier comments supported the idea that Jews were somehow colonizing the area. How can they do that if you agree they’ve been there all along?
Israel is a vibrant, multicultural place where Arabs, Jews, white, black, brown and everything in between coexist. The Arab places, including Gaza, are vibrant, but incredibly monoculture. Jews and Arabs live together every day in Israel and yet in just about every Muslim and Arab country the Jews were expelled or killed (which is an extreme version of the segregation you dislike) before Israel as a nation was founded. Do you have any theories on why that may be?
Also, I’m not sure if you are calling me a racist or the Israelis racist or why you even started using that word.
Jews used to live there, which was fine. The problem is setting up an apartheid ethno state, and then moving all the Jews of Europe there in the 40s. Then they make the people who were previously just living there peacefully into second class citizens (yes, that’s what they are, they are not living in harmony now). They’re living together like the black and white people lived together in South Africa before the terrorist Nelson Mandela helped lead them to freedom. And people have the fucking gall to wonder why some Palestinians would fight back.
The racists are the segregationists who can’t imagine any alternative to apartheid. Does that include you? All evidence points to yes.
I imagine an alternative to the Arab world trying to wipe Israel off of the map as they have been trying since to 1948. In this imaginary world the Arab nations and people recognize Israel as a real place and they begin to trade between each other much as we do with Canada and Mexico.
Sounds crazy doesn’t it?
Pro-Gazans can never explain why Hamas which is the Gazan Government doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist. How does Israel trust someone who doesn’t acknowledge it’s existence and calls for their destruction?
It is so sad folks don’t care about Children under age seeing them ride bikes with no clothes on. What has this world come to? You should be ashamed and get some morals folks.
Nice troll.
Bodies are not immoral.
Obviously you don’t believe in God or the Bible.
My god doesn’t believe in hiding behind middle ages thinking of a bunch of old while males. Why does yours still?
Having just visited St Peter’s Cathedral in Rome, I would love to see you take up this discussion with the Pope and the keepers of this and the thousands of churches and cathedrals in Italy.
Are the kids going to self-combust because they see a naked body?
Really, quit inflicting your dark-ages mentality on us modern more enlightened folks.
Seeing naked bodies does not harm children.
Inculcating body shame does immeasurable harm to people of all ages.
Yes seeing naked bodies does not harm children if they are age appropriate for that and there parents have talked to them about it. I will pray for you. It’s obvious you don’t believe in God or you don’t read the Bible.
Well, bless your heart.
If they applied for a permit and published their route like every other group is required to do you could choose to or choose not to expose your children to them. .
Seems like the rumors about the rift in WNBR were about Palestine after all.
I am just so, so tired of all of this bickering. It’s embarrassingly performative.
Not sure about that, unless you have some evidence? The arguments on this forum were started by an out of towner who didn’t go and wasn’t part of organizing.
I think, but am also just speculating, the “rift” as you call it was simply that some people wanted to do some protesting in the protest.
Actually, you and Hami are the ones who mentioned the difference in goals for the 20th running of the event and it turns out you were right…..
I responded to what the two of you were discussing.
https://bikeportland.org/2024/09/18/a-world-naked-bike-ride-will-happen-saturday-but-its-not-the-one-you-think-389701
Hami….
Also, Israel is committing a genocide of the Palestinians using our tax dollars. The real protest is against the military-industrial complex, of which cars and car cultural are a massive part. It would be useful to use at least some of the energy spent in comments and this article to mention this stuff. Do you notice that the colors of the flyer are white, red, green and black, the colors of the Palestinian flag?
As I see it, Portland’s so-called progressivism has been co-opted by neoliberal corporatists. This happens when any one person or group of people are idealized and put on a pedestal. We should always be weary not to create vertical platforms. Impermanence is Natural Law.
John V….This, given the lack of any specifics from critics, is the vibe I’m getting from this drama.
When JM wrote “the PDX WNBR leadership team grew uncomfortable with Moss’s plans for the ride and their organizational style.”, my suspicion is that they don’t like that Moss’ plans seem to be a little bit more explicitly political, instead of the “oh yeah, WNBR is about oil dependence, but really we just want to party” that it has been in recent years.
Yeah, that sounds like an actual protest!
And I like the argument that the WNBR is owned by the community, not Umbrella organizers. They don’t get to unilaterally decide it isn’t happening.
This person (Jenny) is talking about the event that actually happened, and concluded the “rift” was about Palestine. We have no evidence of that. Hami’s comment was just Hami’s opinion, mentioned on a different post, and we have no idea if that somehow had any role in the “rift” between organizers. The person coming in and posting a long, baity argument starter was you.
“This person (Jenny) is talking about the event that actually happened, and concluded the “rift” was about Palestine. “
It’s pretty obvious that it was. From your comments I thought you were happy to get a more substantive protest out of the event. I’m honestly sorry you missed it. Are you unhappy with discovering that not everyone (as evidenced by the schism) shares your beliefs on the BDS movement?
I already knew not everyone shares my beliefs (much like half the country doesn’t share my beliefs on other things, like bodily autonomy), but I don’t believe that is what caused the schism. I think it was more that the organizers who tried to cancel the WNBR didn’t want to do *anything* to protest. But I’m just guessing, and so are you.
My comments on the WNBR itself were that I’m glad they are making protest more prominent. I think Palestine has a place in there, but even if they left that topic out I would be happy they are doing things like the die-in at Zenith. That’s what I’m talking about. Make the protesting oil and car dependence part more prominent.
Totally agree with you on this! I (for what its worth) thought the die-in was a great idea, was executed very well and I was bummed out I couldn’t make it down there.
World Naked Bummer Ride
Sounds like a lot of preaching to the choir. Were any minds changed? Doubtful.
Wait, I don’t see how this could possibly be true. First of all there’s the much, much larger scale invasion of Ukraine… civil wars in Syria, South Sudan, Myanmar…. and that’s just looking at armed conflicts. “Anything else going on”? Well if you’re going to cast such a wide net, why not consider the industrial pollution being pumped out by China, India and countless other countries?
Either this speaker has an incredibly narrow, distorted perspective, or they’re disingenuously attempting to appropriate Climate Change goals in service of their pet cause. I’m so over the mental gymnastics routines.
Steel-manning, the quoted line could be “more to climate change in the past year than anything else going on [that we can influence]”. There is not a whole hell of a lot protesters here can influence over the war in Ukraine.
And the industrial pollution pumped out by China et al, we can just point that finger right back at us.
Sure there is. We could pressure the government to stop arming Ukraine, and the war would be over quickly. If our government stopped arming Israel, I suspect the war would continue more-or-less as it has.
But if you’re arguing that protest against either war is unlikely to get results, you’re probably right.
The Chinese can point wherever they want, but industrial pollution is far worse in China than it is here.
Sure, I meant there is nothing we could do to stop the aggressor from attacking.
On the other hand, we could definitely put an end to the aggressive side in Gaza if we stopped giving them our support, as presidents have done in the past when they get out of hand. There is a lot of misdirection about this, people like to say as you do, that somehow they don’t need the billions in support we’re rushing over there. Makes you wonder why we do it if they don’t need it.
I don’t know if popular opinion can change foreign policy. We don’t have democratic control over that. Maybe it’ll take another Kent State, that’s certainly the way things seem headed. I don’t know if even that will work, but it’s certainly morally right to try.
N.B., The pollution in China exists so you can get cheap garbage delivered from Amazon.
This is highly unlikely. The Israeli government sees the country in an existential fight, as does Netanyahu on a personal level. I believe many in government already think they listened too much to Biden and didn’t attack hard enough. You seem to think America could just turn things off like a spigot. I am highly skeptical of that claim.
It’s probably worth reminding you that there are two “aggressive” parties in Gaza. You don’t get to massacre a bunch of civilians then hide behind women and children and claim title to be the unilaterally wronged party. Both Likud and Hamas are to blame for the way things are unfolding, and your continued application of a double-standard is telling.
Given the fact that protests died out over the summer and haven’t restarted now that kids are back in school tells me you’re probably wrong.
I think stopping the funding + weapons embargos with believable warnings of further sanctions would probably put an end to it pretty quick. And more importantly, if it didn’t put an end to it, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it anyway.
If they didn’t think they’d get unlimited support from the US, they wouldn’t be in such a belligerent stance.
You don’t get to excuse unlimited slaughter and war crimes because of any arbitrary attack. What if Hamas killed one person on Oct. 7, would that justify causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and literally destroying the entire area – all infrastructure, schools, hospitals, culture, *sewage treatment*? What’s the excuse other than pure bloodlust? They have none. They are the bad guys, 100% in the wrong and need to be stopped. The only reason their actions aren’t causing immediate action from the US is because people like you and the people of Israel don’t see Palestinians as fully human.
Sure, unless you are looking at the big picture of our involvement in the region, which I’m not going to debate with you except to say nothing that happens there is isolated, and instead fits into a much larger picture. What is it worth to make a gesture that seems unlikely to achieve the ends you want?
People who are fighting for their lives (as many in the Israeli government seem to believe) tend to take a very belligerent stance. That’s just the way life works.
That’s right. Nor do you get to fight from behind women and children and blame your enemy for striking you there. Both Hamas and the Israeli government are behaving in a disgusting manner. Why is that so hard for you to say?
It’s fine, I’m sure Israel and Hamas have both purchased the appropriate number of carbon offset credits /s
Hi there, I was that speaker. The United States military is verifiably the largest consumer of fossil fuels and largest producer of greenhouse gases, not those other things you point to.
Israel is currently functioning as an extension of the US military, with a significant amount of funding and arms coming from the US (18 billion $$ worth in the past year).
An independent study found that the first 2 months of the invasion of Gaza created the Co2 equivalent of 75 coal plants operating for an entire year. That was in the first 2 months. It’s been a year now. I’ll let you do the math.
If you were actually a person who gave a damn about the climate or the fate of humanity, you wouldn’t be quibbling with me over exactly who is creating the climate emissions. You’d join me in trying to stop them.
I would love to look over that study, it sounds fascinating. Do you still have a link to it or can to point me in the right direction to find it?
“Israel is currently functioning as an extension of the US military”
There is zero evidence that Israel is acting at the behest of the US.
Give me a break. The USA has a “special relationship” with two nations: the UK and Israel. In the rest of the world Israel is seen as a de facto proxy for US interests in the middle east. Pretending that this isn’t so does not make the reality of the USA’s active participation in the Gaza genocide disappear.
I guess we understand different definitions of the word “behest”.
No permit yet again. More rules for thee, never for me.
How about some love for JM?!?
Excellent reporting. Even as I was on my first bike tour of the San Juan Islands I got to see my friends living their principles.
Thanks Gasper! Missed seeing you there but I’m so glad you found the coverage. Have fun in the San Juans you lucky duck!