This week at Bike Happy Hour, we’ll sit down with activists working on the front lines of the fight to keep immigrants safe. Everyone is welcome at what should be a night of listening, learning, and productive conversations.
After anti-ICE activists shouted down my interview with Mayor Keith Wilson earlier this month, I reached out to them. As I alluded to in my recap of that night, I was disappointed we didn’t get a chance to have a conversation with the mayor and wish the night would have ended differently; but I understand the frustration of the activists who showed up and believe we’re stronger when we hear each other, build a bigger tent, and keep the conversation going. And they agreed.
Folks who do advocacy with Revoke the ICE Permit PDX, a project of Portland Contra las Deportaciones, want to connect and collaborate with road safety and transportation activists. At Bike Happy Hour on Wednesday night (10/1), they’ll join us for a teach-in. Our goal is to learn from each other, find out how our issues intersect, and how bicycling and transportation activists can leverage our tools and knowledge for the cause of keeping immigrants and streets safe from a rise from federal military aggression in our city — and vice versa.
Whether it’s transportation justice during the old Critical Mass days, protests against Big Oil, the fight for economic justice during Occupy Portland, or the fight for racial justice during the George Floyd protests, — our city has a long and proud legacy of bicycle riders who step up in moments of need. The fight to keep vulnerable people safe against the illegal incursion of federal forces in Portland should be no different.
Leaving the confines of transportation advocacy and injecting myself into the immigration rights issue with activists who I’ve never worked with and have mixed feelings about is a bit scary and uncomfortable. But we are in times where discomfort is required and I didn’t create BikePortland and Bike Happy Hour for it to be an oasis from reality.
I hope you’ll join us from 3:00 to 6:00 this Wednesday in the Rainbow Road Plaza (with raincoats on maybe!) on SE Ankeny for this event. It’s a regular Bike Happy Hour, but starting at 5:30 we’ll open the mics for conversations around ICE and immigrant safety. There will be opportunities for you to speak as well, so come ready to share your voice.
Let’s keep an open mind about how we can learn from each other, and who knows, maybe all the advocacy we do will be stronger as a result!
If you have any questions or comments about this, leave a comment below or reach to me directly at maus.jonathan@gmail.com. Thanks for your attention and support.
Thanks for reading.
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I attended the meeting on September 3rd and was so disgusted with the lack of respect for the Mayor and the nearly hundred cyclists who had come in expectation of reasoned discussion of issues surrounding transportation that I did not comprehend what the *** name-calling, deleted **** and her posse were blasting with their bullhorns.
Weeks later they tried the same thing in City Council, minus bullhorns, which probably had been confiscated before they were allowed in Council Chamber.
Why give them another opportunity? They have demonstrated more than once they do not deserve to be heard on ICE or any other important topic.
Marshall McLuhan was right: THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE. Those needing BULLHORNS are full of only themselves.
Thanks for making my point stronger, JM, for what you deleted was perfectly factual, not name-calling at all, as anyone who was there could attest.
The *** was harassing, bullying, intimidating the Mayor, and at times what she said could be construed as menacing a public official, which is a criminal act (ORS 163.190). I am amazed you cannot understand that. And you are rewarding her!
Anyway, I quietly rode home, and later heard that the event had disintegrated in chaos, provoking some 300 comments here!
Bullies do not sing, “kum ba yah.”
Have a nice day.
Jonathan, you’re a bigger man than I am. I’ll be showing them the same level of respect they showed me at your last happy hour by skipping any event that platforms this organization.
Hi Dan. Totally understand that. I think this even will be very different, but of course you have every right to feel that way.
I very much hope you’re right JM but it seems like these folks don’t care that we’re all in this together whether we join them or not.
And what they do can affect all of us whether we like it or not.
Proceed with caution grasshoppa.
Oh how BikePortland has fallen. Jonathan pretends to support open dialog but is an apologist for the mob that wants to shut it down at every opportunity.
Matt P.,
This event is literally about keeping an open dialog. Your criticism of me is very hard to take seriously. And you say I’m an “apologist” for these groups. I don’t see it that way. I’m just extending an olive branch so to speak to see if we can take a situation that wasn’t great and make it a bit better, and maybe we all learn more in the end. How about give me some grace and space to do my work and maybe give me some benefit of the doubt?
Pretending to support open dialog by having open dialog. Really so sneaky, it’s devious.
Excited to hear how we can make a difference with ICE locally.
Hope there can be another opportunity to interview the mayor about cycling issues as well!
And keep up the good work.
Anti-American politics have no place in our bike community. Do better Jonathan
Thanks. Can you explain to me what is anti-American about any of this?
Agreed. Fascism has got to go. They will make sure that any federal funding for infrastructure that will be used for bikes or public transit gets cut. That hurts our bike community and we need to get together and find ways to work together to keep the fascist dictatorship from growing.
Oh, that isnt what you meant…
Oh – I thought you meant that the extremism of activists would ensure voters continue to elect right-wing politicians to lead our gov’t. Because that’s exactly what has happened and will continue to happen.
“He’s being noisy so I’m going to vote for a fascist.” Come on, now.
Maybe you can notify the national guard so they can join this event? That would be a very American thing to do?
Opposing ICE is anti-American? Kidnapping and locking up people is pro-American? Is that what you’re saying?
A ‘teach in’? Oh great, i’ve always wanted to learn how to be loud, intrusive and disrespectful! Personally I’ve led too quiet a life.
Thanks, Jonathan! This is exactly how we build community, by inviting folks for conversation, not by walling ourselves off from everyone.
You can shut down BP programming and then be invited back to lead the event? Are you not rewarding bad behavior here?
I know I certainly won’t be showing up to reward bad behavior.
Maybe you can show up with a megaphone and start chanting about safe streets for cyclists and pedestrians?
Fred,
I can appreciate your perspective here. But I just don’t see it the same way. Like I’ve said, I don’t see the world in such a neat binary of good/bad behavior in this context. Yes I didn’t love how some of these folks acted at that event, but I also saw an opportunity to try and make a connection that just might yield some benefit. That’s just the way I approach things. And there’s a reason I’ve said from Day One that Bike Happy Hour is not a BikePortland event. Yes I organize and host it, but I truly do see it as a community space and as such it’s impossible for anyone in the community to “shut down BP programming.” I hope that makes sense. I know it might sound like a stretch, but this is the path I’m going down and I just hope you will give me some grace and space and keep an open mind. Thanks.
“it’s impossible for anyone in the community to “shut down BP programming.””
And yet that is exactly what happened when protesters chased the mayor away. That that wasn’t the “community” speaking, that was some selfish loudmouths ruining an event that the community had come to participate in.
I hope the teach-in goes well, and I hope one of the lessons includes civility towards our fellow citizens.
Reading the other comments, I would counter this to folks – just because you seek to understand someone doesn’t you mean you endorse what they do. I applaud Jonathan for trying to build a bridge here. Yes, the protestors shutting down the talk with the mayor was extremely frustrating. Yes, they used tactics that are, in my opinion, worse than worthless in that it repels people rather than builds a coalition of allies. But this behavior doesn’t come out of thin air. It comes from a sense of urgency at the injustice that is happening both at home and abroad that has gone deferred for so long. But it also comes from the fact that we live in a hyper-polarized culture that doesn’t teach people how to talk to each other. Our society as a whole from cradle to the grave consciously and unconsciously teaches people that to get what you want requires yelling, screaming, and domination. The only way to solve this is persuasion (persuasion being ethical, manipulation being unethical). The first step of persuasion is making the other person feel seen and heard. Healing the divide was never going to be easy. But if we can’t heal the divide here at home, how can we ever hope to do it nationally? Abroad? We have the opportunity to start here.
I hope it goes well tonight, I wish I could make it, but I will be working, unfortunately. Best of luck to everyone!
It’s now Thursday. How did it go?
I’m writing the recap right now! It’s only 9:30 am! sheesh 😉
Sorry, it’s 3 hours later here, noonthirty or so…