Yo, Bay Area peeps, I know you may have had your bike stolen recently, but please, for the sake of antiracism, don't you dare get the police involved.
Yes, I'm not joking, this is a real worry to the progressive and antiracist San Francisco Bicycle Coalition. They do want you to make an attempt at finding your stolen bike, but…
Bike Theft and Policing:
Black and brown people are often deeply harmed or even killed by interactions with the police, and the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition decided in 2020 to end any formal relationship with SFPD. Because policing is interwoven into nearly all current solutions to bike theft, some of our recommendations do involve minimal contact with the police, but we identify those and try to propose alternatives. We encourage everyone to consider the potential impact to human life of involving the police in any situation.
A note about registries such as SafeBikes.org and BikeIndex.org:
These bike registries allow owners to register their bike's make, model, and serial number, to help reconnect recovered bikes with their original owners. However, they also rely on the police for recovery, offering police departments increased access to registry information — which raises privacy concerns — and soliciting close police partnerships. Because both services rely heavily on the police to find and recover bikes, which may put Black and brown lives at risk, we do not recommend them.
So basically what you're saying here, San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, is that if my bike is stolen, I should turn to, like, some bike-finding superhero to solve my problem?
But how can I be sure that this transgender vigilante superqueero isn't a racist xerself?
What they really mean here — and it's quite racist — is that your bike was more than likely stolen by a black or brown person, and that you should just eat the cost, find a new bike, and go about your life as a happy-go-lucky antiracist cyclist who is now $500 in the hole.
Plus, lets be honest, the San Francisco Police Department probably isn't going to be much help in the first place — sorry, not sorry.
One more thing: Why are we not capitalizing "brown" at this point?
Seems a little bigoted.
Anyhow, I can't believe this is a real story.
Next, they'll be telling you to get off your bike and buy one of those motorized carts instead, so you don't offend the fat community.
Sorry, *Fat Community.
Keep the progress coming, California!
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
