When We Become The “Other”

 What do you notice about this headline?:

Cyclist beats man with bike, critically injuring him on the Upper West Side

Leading with “cyclist,” to me, foments a bias—or sparks one some readers may have already had. I don’t recall news stories about cars hitting cyclists beginning with “Driver” or “Motorist.”

Now, some may argue about volition—the man who used his bicycle to attack another man seems to have intended it.  Why, I don’t know. 

While I suspect that the majority of car-bike collisions are caused by carelessness (such as the driver looking at a cell phone), confusion or poor conditions or infrastructure design, in more than a few instances, the person operating the vehicle clearly intended to cause harm.  Yet they are not identified first as drivers or motorists:  That person is portrayed as someone who just happened to use two tons of metal and a powerful engine to cause harm or worse to a cyclist or pedestrian.

Oh, and the way victimized cyclists are talked about—especially if they are dead—reminds me of how, not too long ago, rape and other sexual assault victims were thought about and treated: “What was she wearing?”“What was she doing out at that time of night?” “She had it coming to her.” And the perpetrator wasn’t identified as a rapist or predator, especially if there was a large gap in age or socio-economic status between him (I’m not being sexist; they usually were and are men) and the victim. That meant, too often, that he got off scot-free.

In other words, we, as cyclists, are subject to violence from people operating motor vehicles—or who throw debris in our paths, shove us off our bikes or attack us in other ways—far more often, I suspect, than we use our machines to cause harm.  Yet we are blamed when victimized—and “othered” when someone who probably doesn’t even ride regularly uses a bicycle to attack someone.