Yes, We’ve Seen the Column

Yes, we’ve seen columnist Courtland Milloy’s awful rant against bicyclists in yesterday’s Washington Post and wonder with you how such a dreadful piece of writing could find its way onto the pages of such a respected source of news. 

As usual, the question is how does one respond to such mindless vitriol? Facts clearly don’t matter. Self-righteous indignation probably isn’t going to make much of an impression, certainly not in the comment section of the paper’s website!

He comes dangerously close to inciting violence against cyclists — something the Post’s ombudsman and editorial board should look at closely for internal disciplinary action perhaps — but probably doesn’t cross the line for criminal action.

Unless crass stupidity is a crime!

Next time, Milloy might do well to read up on the subject he’s writing about before making such baseless assumptions. I’d have directed him to:

• The startlingly high number of people who ride bikes who are killed in our streets every year, and how he can help us combat that number’s rise
• The people who ride bikes come in all shapes and sizes, from all backgrounds and identities — “bicyclists” is not a monolithic term. We did the research.
• The fact that, yes, there is a lot of work to be done around unraveling the questions and perceptions of inequality and gentrification attached to bicycling. We’re on it.