Know Justice, Know Peace.

Miranda Craig

It’s been hot all day. I’ve kept my water bottle close at hand drinking one, then another, and then another. Gotta stay hydrated. A close brush with fainting from dehydration in the middle of the woods left me with a healthy respect for the process. I might be overdoing it but hey, better safe than sorry. I keep checking the time, readying myself to board my bike, sail across the city, and return to the heart of resistance.

My favorite right, protest, exercised through my favored rite, bicycling. Helmet, check. Shades, check. Full water bottle, check. And on my hip is my trusty multi-colored pandemic fanny pack- complete with face-masks and a mini hand sanitizer. By 5:30, I’m all geared up to head out. I put on my helmet, straddle my seat, take a deep breath of the fresh air and head toward the city. It’s much cloudier now and, blessedly, there’s a breeze. As I make my way down the street, I see a group of bikers gathering in front of a house. I don’t know them, but I wave. I have a feeling.

“I think we’re going to the same place!” I yell across the street. They start laughing and wave as well. Eventually, they catch up.

“What’s your name?” Call it protest bonding.

We begin the process of cutting off traffic at our starting point. Cars, there to both create the traffic block and be our shields, surround the intersection as bikers, boarders and skaters of all kinds circle within. Ages from wise to widdle, all masked up, determination shining in their eyes. I’m proud to roll out with this crew.

“When we ride, we feel free.” One of the organizers of the protest is speaking while we wait and the words cut straight to my heart. I’ve said this every time someone asks me if biking is something I do out of necessity or if riding every day is a burden to me. I ride simply because it feels good. I can’t help but think they must not understand. Or maybe they do but they’ve forgotten the feeling of riding- of the wind in your hair, of the opening of the road beneath your wheels- that freedom feeling.

No one I know who rides has ever really questioned me, now that I think about it. They just offer me car rides on rainy days.

I whoop my agreement as we roll out, bikers and skaters intertwining, beginners and veterans alike calling out their location. Meanwhile, our collective voice rang out-

“No justice, no peace.”

Eight minutes, forty-six seconds.

Have you ever laid down on concrete? Felt the waves of heat undulated directly into your pores? Smelled the oil slicks and mysterious wet stains? Felt the granules dig deep into your hands and knees? Have you ever had 150+ pounds weighing on your throat as it happened? How long do you think you would last? How long before you invoke the aid of spirits who have already made their journey into the great beyond? How long before you call out for someone, anyone, to save you? How long would you hold on after you realized, still alive, that help isn’t coming? That this will be your last memory? That this will be your fate?

Eight minutes, forty-six seconds.

If you ride, you’ve tasted the asphalt and the dirt and the mud. You’ve felt the sting, scrape and throbbing pain of your failures- of your falls. And just as you learned to minimize the damage on the way down, you learn that you must always get back up and get back on, if you can. You have to recommit to the risks of this freedom- you cannot allow fear to dictate your ride. Commit to doing whatever is necessary to get the skill or the calm or the knowledge to keep on riding. Or you’ll never really ride again.

Fear erases freedom. The journey back to freedom, once it’s replaced by fear, is a long one. One most people don’t want to make. They call their fears reasonable. They say they are justified. They will do anything but face it and call it anything but what it actually is. And they will spread it to others- those who aren’t afraid, those who haven’t even fallen or worse, those who haven’t determined their limit for themselves. They find joy in the falls of others- a quiet, toxic pleasure- and given half a chance they will tell you how they told you so. Lord help you if they have power- because they will try to take your freedom from you too. For your own good, they’ll say. To protect you.

What a blessing, to get back up after a fall. What a curse, that there are people who never rise again.

Someone is trying to cross the protest path at a green light. Our group has spread a bit too thin- our shields are nowhere in sight. A lone protester stays in their way as the rest of the group catches up. Frustration mounts-

“I’m just trying to get to my job!” “You cannot cross here yet!” The family just behind me rides safely past, just mom dad and their kiddo- maybe elementary or middle school aged. His parents looked nervous, likely scared for their boy. But a concerned curiosity was all I could see in his eyes.

It was that same look of ‘why’ we’re all familiar with. Why would someone do this? Why would someone want to cause harm or hurt? Why don’t we have patience, kindness, and empathy for one another?

I still don’t have a solid answer for that look. It’s the same one I carried on my face when I learned of the history of our nation. Those early days in elementary school, asking why when I learned about slavery and the Trail of Tears. The same why as I grew older and I uncovered for myself the Tulsa bombings, the mass murder of Black elected officials and our state-sanctioned eugenics practices. The same why I have today when I think about the people currently in ICE detention centers in my own country and the treatment of Uighur people of China, watching helplessly as our history repeats, repeats, repeats within and outside of our borders.

Somehow, doing the right thing escapes us. The hurt and the healing is put off on the ones who suffered the most loss- while those who caused it vie for the profits made on the backs of those who happen to be on the short end of the stick, never once considering that one day, it will be they who are on the shorter side.

Answer or no, I fight for us. For our humanity. Our collective soul. Because when the world has ended and we must leave our home, what will be our legacy? How will we be remembered? Why will anyone want to remember us?

At the next intersection, we are told that we can’t spread ourselves too thin. We make ourselves vulnerable if we are able to be isolated. A young woman with blue hair and fire in her eyes finishes her reprimand with a reminder:

“I’ve already been hit. Help me protect you.”

If you are looking to make your voice heard, if you are looking to support the growth and well-being of your community, if you are looking to answer that why in your heart that wonders how we could let the unthinkable occur regularly in our communities and our world, if you are looking to get back up and fight the good fight but you don’t know where to go, I encourage you to seek out the linked organizations below. They are all- in one way or another- seeking to dismantle the systems that have for far too long allowed these heinous acts against humans and our environment to occur without recourse and are working to make a difference right here in our community.