Hey all,
Thanks to Aida for bringing this up, and to everyone else for their responses.
At Kickstand in Vancouver, BC, we are exploring the idea of offering small grants to aspiring BIPOC mechanics. We're still in the early stages of planning, but some ideas:
- Exploring a partnership with our distributors - this could look like
discounts or donations of tools, parts, stands, etc.
- Offering a budget ($500? $1000?) towards at-cost tools and parts in
conjunction with or in lieu of the aforementioned partnership
- Reaching out to our local bike mechanics school to see if they would
be interested in offering reduced cost or free training
We are in a pretty solid financial position at the moment, so I think we could foot the cost of this ourselves, but I'll also be looking into grant funding to support this program.
I am *very *interested in any feedback folks might have. My hope is that this program will uplift BIPOC folks and provide a means to gain a foothold in the cycling industry. But as an all-volunteer organization, we don't have the capacity, necessarily, to offer ongoing support beyond provision of tools (and maybe external training). I worry about that, but also am conscious that ongoing support could end up being something more akin to tokenism than actual support. Feel free to contact me privately if any of y'all want to continue this discussion off-thread. (Also heeeey other Vancouver shops - I haven't brought this up to y'all yet, but maybe we can collab?)
Alysia
On Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 11:02 AM Rachel Eckles rachel.c.eckles@gmail.com wrote:
I am not involved with a bike co-op right now, just a supporter of what y'all do. But I came across this resource by the Triangle Bikeworks (in North Carolina) and it seems like a really great structure to a first conversation around white supremacist culture in the cycling world. This is a link to a doc that details their approach to this first conversation: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-KM8aNyv74YH0U_i6RYTKpGBJo4yxFp7yEkLiSbr...
Also sidenote: just want to love on this article on this being the summer of women on bikes https://www.cntraveler.com/story/its-the-summer-of-the-bicycle-and-women-are...
-Rachel
On Thu, Jul 16, 2020 at 8:13 PM Carlyn Arteaga carlyn.arteaga@bicas.org wrote:
Here at BICAS we are also trying to figure out the best way forward, and we've determined that we need to pursue multiple avenues including not only direct services considerations, but also organizational education, reflection, reconciliation, and even reparations. By no means is BICAS perfect and we have a looong ways to go, but we have been working hard for some years now at getting away from the "white bike bro" monoculture and having some tough convos about general racial equity. But as part of issuing a statement of solidarity with the Movement for Black Lives, we decided that it was important for us to identify our current endeavors as a commitment to unlearning *anti-Blackness specifically*, as a thing apart from a more general commitment to racial justice. Many non-Black POC communities, after all, are just as steeped in anti-Black sentiment as white communities, and we felt it was important to be clear about our learning & unlearning efforts as they relate to this movement. That said, we have only just begun.
~Carlyn
Español: (Perdóname los errores, es que aprendí mi espanol en la cocina de mi abuela): Aquí en BICAS estamos tratando de identificar la manera mejora de avanzar y decidimos que necesitamos perseguir avenidas varias, incluyendo no solamente los servicios directos, sino también educación organizacional, reflexión, reconciliación, y aun las indemnizaciones. Claro que BICAS no es perfecto y nos queda mucho de hacer, pero hemos estado trabajando mucho durante años recientes en salir del monocultivo "white bike bro" y hablar de la equidad racial. Pero bueno, así que emitimos una declaración de solidaridad con "las vidas negras importan" decidimos que fue importante identificar nuestros intentos como una obligación desaprender *la anti-negritud específicamente*, como algo distinto de nuestro compromiso a la justicia racial en general. Es cierto que las comunidades "non-Black gente de color" estan tanto llenado del racismo anti-negro como las communidades blancas, y sentimos que fue importante ser muy claro sobre nuestras esfuerzas de aprendar y desaprender en relación a este movimiento. Ahora bien, estamos solo al principio.
~Carlyn
--
*Carlyn Arteaga*
*pronouns: they/them/theirs*
Youth Program Coordinator
*BICAS*
2001 N. 7th Ave. | Tucson, AZ 85701 | Shop: 520-628-7950
carlyn.arteaga@bicas.org | www.bicas.org | Facebook http://www.facebook.com/bicascollective/ | Instagram http://www.instagram.com/bicastucson/
*Through advocacy and bicycle salvage, our mission is to participate in affordable bicycle transportation, education, and creative recycling with our greater Tucson community.* ____________________________________
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