This afternoon, an activist friend of mine who has been very involved in Critical Mass approached me concerning my stance. Unfortunately, due to the context of our interaction, the conversation escalated unnecessarily and i found myself unable to articulate my feelings. So instead, i brought them home to chew on.

Her key points are all exceptionally valid and i agree with her wholeheartedly:

1) Critical Mass is an “open source” activity where you cannot have a central organization with rules.
2) Many people have had their eyes opened by Critical Mass to the issues of bicycles in cities, probably more than have been negatively impacted.
3) Cars exercise violence on bicycles every day – running them off the road, not looking when opening doors; car culture also exercises power through the law and norms.

The combination of her points helped me clarify where i stand on activism in general these days and why the situation on Friday still upsets me.

I am definitely one of those people who had my eyes opened by Critical Mass’ activities – i learned a lot more about biking laws, situations through 2nd hand accounts of their activities. Having lived in Amsterdam, i’m perpetually horrified by the car power that goes on in this country and i’m very much supportive of non-hierarchical structures of change.

All that said, i can never ever support violence. At the core of my body, i cannot accept violence because violence has been committed against you. I will never forget being 13 and deciding to not punch back as one of my classmates threw punches at me. Nothing would be gained by returning the blows – only increased hostility, a deepening of sides and an increase in intolerance. I cannot support activism that permits violence as one if its tenants. I was so disgusted by some of my classmates who felt as though they became activists when they brawled with the police; at the last protest i went to, i gave the police donuts and talked to them about the protest from their perspective.

No matter how much i believe in revolution, no matter how much i want to see changes made, i can’t accept moving in that direction through deplorable means. I also cannot support pack behavior on either side – what the crowd does under and umbrella name is often terrifying. As much as there are thousands of non-violent Critical Massers, the idea that the name and event has a violent side to it is enough to alienate me. I can’t stand behind events that accepts violence as even a minority group or where that group has the right to use the name to instigate their pack behavior. I think that this is how folks who would believe in the cause of anti-WTO folks get alienated by the violent protests.

As much as i appreciate my friends’ point that i should not disrespect a movement for the behaviors of some, i have a hard time actually feeling that way. Those few aggressive voices go far which is why they need to be actively squelched in a non-violent movement – the two cannot go hand in hand.

How can we move forward activism that doesn’t use violence? Am i a fool for thinking that’s possible and for not supporting groups that allow violence to occur?

I’m a huge fan of bicycles and i do miss living in Amsterdam where that is culturally supported form of transportation. The hills in SF, the distance of my commute and the lack of infrastructure support demotivate me from even thinking about biking as transport in SF. That said, i love my public transit.

Last night, around 7.45, i started my car for the first time in over a month because the quantity of grocery shopping necessary would require a car (even though its only 6 blocks away). On the way out, i hit Critical Mass.

Now, i have nothing but appreciation for folks taking to the streets to demand infrastructure support and i love the idea of Critical Mass. Every time i’ve seen them before, they slow down traffic as they go about their route, but this situation was different. I was halfway through the intersection at Church and Market when two guys biked in front of me and stoppped, forcing me to take to my breaks. They started yelling at me and then one asked me if i was smoking a joint. I rolled my eyes and him and said of course not; Jo gave a cigarette to another guy. They had also stopped the cab next to me in the middle of the street, screamed circle and began circling and screaming at both of us.

Needless to say, this aggravated the passenger of the cab and the cab driver and i had the same uncomfortable feeling about being illegally in the middle of a major intersection with no ability to get off to a side. The bicyclists started yelling at the passenger saying that they did this every month and he should find another route and he should just be patient and make his life easier and he started yelling back, telling them that they have their rights but if they want him to take an alternate route, let him get out of the intersection. They were screaming past each other.

About 5+ minutes later, on the other side of the street, another car was stuck in the middle of the intersection. They started screaming at him and he decided he was going to push through and get the fuck out of the intersection. A group picked up their bicycles and started pounding them on the car, hitting the car, kicking the car and from it looks like, hitting the driver through his window. I called 911, reported an assault and told them to get a police officer there immediately; the guy who was right out of my window screamed disperse.

The language and tone used by the bicyclists at Critical Mass had a level of aggression to it that was just terrifying. It’s like what you see when police officers breathe power and spit it out at you. It is everything scary about crowd behavior.

On the Critical Mass website under “Testosterone Brigade,” it says For some bicyclists, Critical Mass is an opportunity to berate motorists, now that WE own the road for once. Our society’s over-reliance on motorized traffic is a massive and overwhelming social problem, and it won’t be changed through the use of bitchy, ineffective tactics by a small minority of pissed-off bicyclists. But a movement for change based on a reclaiming of public space and the building of human community, open to people from across the social and political spectrum, could contribute to a deeper and more fundamental change in the way our society operates.

After my experience yesterday, i would never support Critical Mass. I saw a level of aggression and potential danger that is precisely antithetical to any public space takeover that i can value. There was no need for aggression. I thought Critical Mass was supposed to be a process of taking to the streets and riding at bike speed down busy streets, not collectively taking over intersections, circling cars and screaming at them. I don’t see how people think they will gather support through aggression and goddess knows they just alienated me permanently. And i’m a bike lover, public transit supporter.

::sigh:: Why is it that the protesters for the movements i believe in always alienate me?