Did She Or Didn't She--Vote?

 Late yesterday, I zigzagged between Brooklyn and Queens on Tosca, my Mercian fixed-gear bike.  I sometimes take rides like that with no particular destination, and turn wherever something looks interesting--or, sometimes, just to take the path of least resistance (less traffic, a better-looking road or just inertia).  Rides like the one I took yesterday inevitably lead me along streets never frequented by hipsters or the bourgeoisie and never visited by tourists.  Those streets are also among the increasingly-small number of byways not enclosed by towers built from beige Lego blocks, black metal bars and windows designed for people to look at, but not see themselves.

One such street--Borden Avenue--parallels the Long Island Railroad tracks in Hunter's Point, about five kilometers from my apartment.  It's still an industrial area, and sometimes interesting graffiti-murals (like the lamentably-gone Five Pointz) can be found.  

While pedaling along Borden, I chanced upon something I would have expected to see on Five Pointz but, surprisingly, graced a billboard.

I have to admit that I felt a bit of shame.  Sojourner Truth, Alice Paul and Ida B. Wells are familiar names to me, but until yesterday, Mabel Ping Hua-Lee wasn't.  All of them fought for human rights, specifically for women and people of racial "minorities."   The sad part is that, among them, only Ms. Paul (who died in 1977) lived long enough to fully benefit from the legislation for which she fought.  

Sojourner Truth was born into slavery and died decades before the 19th Amendment became law.  Ida B. Wells lived to see it, but not the civil rights legislation of the 1960s.  Ms. Ping Hua-Lee apparently (I'll explain) lived long enough to enjoy the right to vote and to be a benificiary of civil rights legislation--but it's not clear as to whether she could, or did, take advantage of those rights.

Ms. Lee was born in China but came to New York as a child when her father, a missionary of the Baotist church, was sent to take over a church in Chinatown.  The neighborhood--now endangered as a result of pandemic--could just as well have had a wall around it.  Back then, it was much smaller.  Some people, especially the women, almost never left their homes because of the hostility they faced and, like Lee's mother, had bound feet that made walking difficult.  And, in contrast to today (or, at least, say, a year ago, before the pandemic), tourists rarely visited, except to gawk.

Moreover, Lee's father was unusual, not only for being a minister, but because he was able to enter the United States at all.  The Chinese Exclusion Act was passed about a decade and a half before he arrived, but a few people like him--diplomats and other educated professionals--were sometimes allowed to emigrate.

Lee quickly took to the educational opportunities available to someone of her intellect and talents.  She attended Erasmus Hall Academy, whose alumni include Beverly Sills and Barbara Streisand and whose most illustrious dropout is Bobby Fischer.  After graduating Erasmus, she would attend Barnard College and become the first Chinese woman to earn a PhD in the United States--in economics, from Columbia University.

What she is best known for is her leadership in the suffragist movements, especially her role in the massive 1912 march.  Energized by these experiences, she wanted to return to China and spark a similar movement.  But those plans were thwarted when her mother fell ill and her father died.  Although she wasn't a minister, she became the director of his church and used her position as a platform to advocate for gender and racial equality.  Interestingly, she believed that Protestant theology could be used to advance causes of social justice, knowing full well that one of the goals of the Chinese Exclusion Act was to help keep a white Protestant majority in the United States.  Of course that, thankfully, failed:  Most of the mass immigrations that came from southern and eastern Europe between 1880 and 1919 wasn't Protestant. (Catholics and Jews, oh my!) 

Little is known about Mabel Ping-Hua Lee's later years.  She is believed to have died in or around 1966.  It's not clear as to whether she ever became a citizen--and, thus, whether she exercised the right to vote for which she fought!

Now, in case you were wondering:  After I got home from my ride and ate some vegetarian nachos I made for supper, I did a Google search on Mabel Ping-Hua Lee.  I often do such things after rides and, in the days before the Internet, I'd go to the library the first chance I got after riding.  You might say that bicycling has caused me to continue my education!

Let's Hope They Don't Get Stranded On The Island

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a few paradoxes.  The bike business is booming, but some shops are closing because supply chain disruptions have cut off their supplies.  And more people are riding, but bike tour companies are struggling.

The latter situation is playing out in, among other places, Maui.  And two enterprises in particular embody its contradictions more than most.

"I am currently seeing more people out riding their bikes," reports Donnie Arnoult. A longtime cyclist, he owns Maui Cyclery on the island's north shore.  Sales and repairs have surged during the pandemic, and rentals increased during the holidays but slowed a bit this month.  "{M}y clients are people who can work remotely and they are staying in Maui for a longer period of time," he explains.  So, he is "busy with less numbers, but still riding just as much as before the pandemic."

Photo by Matthew Thayer, The Maui News

In contrast, Bike Maui is struggling.  They re-opened in October after halting services for a few months.  Though Bike Maui has a shop and mechanic "for locals and their repairs," the "majority of our business is tourism," says Ron Daniel, who directs operations, sales and marketing.  Visitors are the ones who rent Bike Maui's bikes and ride in the company's guided and self-rented tours, and tourism has suffered, possibly, more in Hawaii than anywhere else in the US. 

So, while many new cyclists in Maui say they plan to continue riding after the pandemic, and tourists will almost certainly return, one can only hope that Bike Maui and Maui Cyclery will still be around to serve them.

Are Helmets An Issue Of Racial And Economic Justice?

 Four decades after helmet-wearing became widespread among cyclists, at least here in the US, helmet laws and regulations remain controversial.  Medical experts are all but unanimous in recommending helmets, citing their efficacy in preventing brain injury (something to which I can attest).  So, most doctors and surgeons favor requirements to wear head protection.

On the other hand, not all cyclists favor such regulations. I admit that sometimes I miss the wind through my hair, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way.  But I want to keep on riding, so I am willing to sacrifice that to keep my brain intact. And, as much as I respect this country's Constitution, with all of its flaws, I don't buy civil libertarian arguments against helmet laws--which some cyclists voiced years ago but I rarely hear anymore. (That, of course, may be a consequence of where I live and the people I normally see.)  Still, I am conflicted about helmet laws.  I certainly encourage cyclists to wear helmets, but I also understand that laws have unintended consequences.

One such outcome has played out in the Seattle area.  In a way, as upsetting as it is, it shouldn't come as a surprise because it's a result of a pernicious, pervasive problem:  the unequal enforcement of the law. 

If you are, or are perceived as, a member of any "minority" group, whether by race, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, or socio-economic class, you are more likely to be cited for minor infractions--or for no infraction at all--than other people are.  (Yes, it's happened to me.)  Turns out, one such minor infraction can be riding bareheaded in places with helmet laws.   And, if you are a member of a "minority" group, that citation for a minor infraction is more likely to turn into a major fine or even a jail sentence, just as a cut is more likely to turn into an infection or something more serious if you don't have the means to treat it.

The key word here is "means."  "Folks aren't riding around without helmets because it's fun," according to Edwin Lindo.  "They're doing it because helmets aren't cheap."  Lindo, who identifies as Central American Indigenous, started the NorthStar Cycling Club to support Indigenous, Black and other cyclists of color in the Seattle area.  He was referring to Seattle Municipal Court statistics showing that while an estimated 4.7 percent of the city's cyclists are Black, they receive 17.3 percent of the summonses for not wearing helmets.  For Native American and Alaska Native cyclists, those numbers are 0.5 and 1.1 percent, respectively.

Edwin Lindo

For this reason, and others, Lindo and other activists encourage helmet-wearing but want Seattle to repeal its mandatory helmet law.  They cite the experience of Tacoma, which repealed its own helmet law, because it was, if unintentionally, reflecting the racial and other disparities in law enforcement.

One of the other disparities is economic:  Homeless and poor people are also disproportionately cited for not wearing helmets.  As often as not, they are riding bikes that were acquired for little or nothing.  So, they don't have funds to pay for buy a helmet--or pay for a ticket when they're cited for not wearing one.

So, the question of wearing helmets raises a question the COVID-19 pandemic has brought up:  How does a society promote the health and safety of the greatest number of people without exacerbating racial and economic inequities?