Our beloved friend Darren Knox passed away this weekend, finding peace after a long and painful battle against cancer. He was a deeply gentle, loving person with a generous spirit and a beautiful heart. His final conversation was with a childhood friend, to whom he said "I love this world," and "people are beautiful." He was 33.
Darren died at his home in New Orleans surrounded by a close circle of loving friends and his parents. He had been fighting with the cancer for a couple years now, but had kept his struggle mostly private. His health declined sharply over the last few months; between spring and fall this year, he lost a huge amount of weight and energy, and his body started slowly failing as his cancer advanced. Although he had planned to come to Bike!Bike! in LA, a city he had once called home, he was no longer up to it when the time came. When we talked on the phone that weekend, he broke down crying, which was very rare for him. He said, "I'm usually so stoical about all of this ... but I just can't take it that I'm never going to make it to another BikeBike."
Darren had dedicated his time and love to bike coops in New Orleans, Chicago, and Portland (and I believe other places too), and many of us knew him from Bike!Bike!; his first one was in 2013 in New Orleans (he moved to New Orleans after Bike!Bike! 2013, you know. He just stayed -- how about that?). Darren expressed to me passionately and often that Bike!Bike!, the community bike shop world, and all the people in our tribe have been among the most important parts of his life -- the things that have given him the greatest sense of purpose, belonging, comfort, and happiness. Our labor, our love, our camaraderie, our boldness and zest for life, our politics and commitment to gender equity, our do-it-together "yes we can" sensibility, and, more than anything, the warm, deep, wacky love we show each other as a community ... all these things kept his spirit burning brightly for the world around him, for his entire adult life.
*Darren also had hopes for our community*: he strongly desired that we work more mindfully and expressly on confronting white supremacy. He actually led a workshop on this in Columbus in 2014 -- this is actually where I learned to understand the term white supremacy, if you can believe it. When I visited him in New Orleans last month, he told me that this is still his wish: that we work hard, as a community, towards making this struggle central to our movement. I hope his vision guides our futures. And I hope, as well, that in the midst of our sadness, we all feel glad that the movement we've built together so far became one of the most meaningful parts of the beautiful life that has just sailed away from us.
There will be a memorial service for Darren in New Orleans on February 9th; you are all welcome. Check the Bike!Bike! Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/648758205249998/?ref=bookmarks for details, housing arrangements, and so on.
So, let us organize. There's talk afoot about ensuring that future BikeBike conferences work to include workshops on issues like "Moving Beyond Saviorism Towards Solidarity" -- the title of the one Darren facilitated in Columbus -- and other topics related to overcoming white supremacy. There's also been ideas floated about a monetary collection, possibly to fund an organization that Darren was passionate about, or to bring anti-racism teachings and actions into our own organizations. Please contribute your ideas in this thread and we'll see where we go.
Please also feel free to contribute your memories and photos of Darren here. If you wish, we'll do what we can to convey these down to New Orleans on the 9th.
"I Love This World" and "People Are Beautiful" are nice last words. Please carry them with you today.
Josh
Josh Bisker 914-500-9890 New York Mechanical Gardens Bike Co-op http://bikecoop.nyc/ 596 Acres http://596acres.org/ Bindlestiff Family Cirkus http://bindlestiff.org/
