Pamela Paul, a white woman who is a mother and a columnist at the NYT, takes the side of the Pregnant white Worker, in the dispute over whose e-bike it was in that early summer, viral video, "battle at the bikerack".
A 90-second video of a dispute over a rental bike between Comrie, who is white*, and a Black* teenager was filmed on May 12 and then posted online,
Do you remember? I wish it had faded mercifully into the past, but here Paul is, bringing it up again if only to complain about all the "unwanted" attention the pregnant worker (did I mention she was white -- lower case w) is getting ...
Here's what happened, what no one disputes:
The boys -- teenagers under the age of 18 -- are given "free" passes for bikes in the summer. These boys know the system -- they can't drive so they have to plan to get around the city. They sound like good kids.
That morning, they watched where the "new" ebikes (of better quality) would be dropped near them, got themselves to that bike docking station, and checked out enough for their group. Then they "pedaled" into the heart of the city -- using the bikes' motors, which allows users to travel greater distances with less exertion.
It's fun for some, real transportation for those in need... Presumably, that's why they offer the discounted "free" rides to some. After 45 minutes, you get charged though. So you need to calculate your distances, check the bike in at another station, then check it out again for another 45 minutes.
Perhaps the "check in; check out" is to help the bikes circulate to more riders in need? If so, perhaps they need to supply more bikes into the programs because once word gets on the street, even people who can afford to pay like to take advantage of "free" benefits, especially if they legally qualify! How good is that?
No word on whether the white worker, who needed an ebike for her commute as a pregnant woman, was being reimbursed for her rentals as she was under doctors' orders to to pedal her way in to work, Pamela Paul reports.
So there you have it. The boys biked to the station, checked their bikes in, were standing near or straddling them, and respondeded politely but negatively when the white worker asked if she could check one of them docked into the station out...
Sounds like she pulled a fast one, or tried to, taking the same bike the boy had pedaled in and parked, temporarily, with every intent to use the same one to get him back home. She wanted the new bike. The one that was only showing availability so close by her workplace because he temporarily docked it there, having ridden it from his neighborhood where planners placed if presumably for people to travel in.
The teen, who went by the pseudonym Michael in the story, provided receipts to NewsOne that indicated he began using the new Citi Bike e-bike in the Bronx with a group of pals earlier that day as they made their way to Harlem. During his travels, he then used the same bike from 6:33 p.m. until it was docked at 7:19 p.m. at the 1st Avenue and East 30th Street station, where the video was shot. Comrie’s lawyer Justin Marino provided a receipt to The Post earlier this month that showed his client rented the same Citi Bike at 7:24 p.m. — five minutes after it was docked by the teen. Michael, whose family receives some public assistance, explained to NewsOne that because he and his friends have discounted memberships to Citi Bike, they’ll dock their bikes before going over 45 minutes when more charges are applied to each ride, and then take out the same bikes when the timers reset.
It's wasn't her bike to begin with, Ms. Paul. The pregnancy has nothing to do with it. The planning does. She could have taken anothe bike. She could have done like them -- gotten herself up early in the morning and planned a way she could find a newer e-bike available in the system for her use. She didn't.
She was trying to "free ride" on their efforts, and then scream, "HELP" becaus e the black children refused to accommodate her needs. (She should buy her own ebike, I think.)
Now she wants to reply her side of the story, all these months later, by confiding in a sympathetic white woman NYT columnist? Is she trying for a PTSD postpartum trauma, claiming "flashbacks" and trying to prove how her life has been upended?
Because I think the less you publicize people like her, the better. Our sympathies are with the boys. They sounded like hard workers -- of immigrant stock? -- and ambitious. They had receipts. They rented those bikes, and refused to give one up to accommodate a pregnant white woman who was lax in her planning.
Expect more such conflicts.
Pray the adults stop acting like children, crying fake tears, and learn how to communicate better with children (even ones not of your own race) and never ever, ever falsely cry that someone is trying to harm your fetus or your child just to help yourself.
It's ugly and we won't stand for it. Men, if you need to, tell your wives. There's a lesson for some people to learn from the Emmitt Till story, even today, it seems.
Perhaps, especially today as we are in greater contact with Others in public places, and there is greater competition for "resources" like seats on a subway, city ebikes, and homes in your neighborhood too! ;-)
Don't be afraid; there's room for all of us here, America. On many levels, people just have to learn that we are all equal, and they are not presumed superior because of their wealth or race or status in society.
Put simply, those boys had receipts. She was trying -- in a baby girl way -- to take what was theirs, little that it was. They weren't having it. More power to them.
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* How can you honestly call for an equal world when you cap the B in black, but keep the w lowercase in White? You can't do reparations with languages.
It's Italian-American, Nigerian-American, Hatian-American, Scandinavian-American, Hmong American (or Asian-American), Jamaician-American ... if you know your ethnicity and the land of your people, we uppercase that if people so identify.
But black is a skin color just like white. They're comparables. If one is upper-cased, so is the other. Under the standard style, both were lowercased.
It's going to be changed back as more and more African-American immigrants -- who know their country of origin -- take leadership roles in the United States. Their cultures and attitudes just differ from native-born American blacks, and also the level of assets that accompanies themselves and their children to these lands. It's a myth that all immigrants are poor; many countries only send us their wealthiest...
That's why affirmative-action was really helping the most meritorious black students who worked their way up in this country, but more rewarding the offspring of wealthier black families who had advantages to pass on to their own. Then, when they take "leadership" roles they really didn't earn, quality of work suffers.
There's a reason the ones who did the most should receive the greatest rewards. Otherwise, you end up in a medicre system with medocrites reinforcing their prejudices on the parties before them. See what happened here? And months later, we are still supposed to wallow in this white woman's victimhood?
Not happening in today's America.
Many conflicts forseen ahead until the adults -- men and women -- learn to grow up and leave the kids alone in grabbing for themselves and their own.
