Bike Swarm, PDX Valkyries Smash the Patriarchy

from PDX Valkyries

The Valkyries are the trans and/or women’s caucus of Bike Swarm. During Saturday’s ride, thirty-seven swarmers took to the streets of Portland to smash the patriarchy. Led and organized by trans and/or women–and accompanied by cis-male allies in support roles–a new era of Bike Swarm burst their way into the biking community, shattering the erstwhile male domination of the group and bike culture generally.

The Ride to Smash the Patriarchy was organized in direct response to Aaron Mesh’s article in last week’s edition of Willamette Week (WW), “Purged: A Portland Radical Gets Banned from the Group He Once Led.” What Mesh wrote was dishonest and extortionary; he relied on inflated drama to lure readers into his shallow retelling of events. WW simplified a story about a community trying to create a safer space and achieve transformative justice into a predictable and sensationalistic tale about vigilante justice and an unsubstantiated witch-hunt. At first, we wondered how Mesh could have possibly written this story so wrong. Soon, we knew: patriarchy had struck again.

Mesh initially reached out to Bike Swarm to request an invitation to our first community accountability meeting. Survivors of Hart Noecker’s abuse gathered bravely to share their personal narratives in what they assumed was a safe space, free from the prying eyes of opportunistic reporters. Despite his acknowledgment of these conditions, Mesh directed WW underlings to attend the meeting undercover. While we turned away several community members due to room capacity, WW put their desire for a juicy story above the privacy and trust of the survivors. Soon after this meeting, Mesh reached out to the survivors with an ultimatum: he was going to publish this story, with or without their cooperation.

Given a chance to tell their part of the story or else go unheard, survivors put trust in Mesh to capture the nature of abuse in our communities. More than that, the survivors and the community believed the story to be one of empowerment, of coming together through healing and reconciliation. Indeed, Mesh had worked hard to gain the trust of the survivors and assured them their stories would be treated respectfully. What happened next happens all too often. The white man covering the story zeroed in on the other white man in the story and flipped the narrative. So obsessed was Mesh with Noecker that he made several critical mistakes in his “reporting.”

The article does not even hint at the allegations made by nine other survivors of Noecker’s abusive behavior, pulling the story of Byrd’s abuse out of its context. In fact, the article contains what he knew to be an affirmative lie: that none of the experiences other survivors described amounted to sexual assault. Indeed, at least five survivors described what would be considered sexual assault and all described what would be considered abuse. Despite hours of interviews and his presence at community meetings, Mesh only identified one of these sexual assaults for what it was, and affirmatively discounted the experiences of other survivors in print. Bike Swam organizers spoke at length with Mesh, too, emphasizing the differences between a criminal trial and a community’s choice to choose their associations based on explicitly abusive behavior. We discussed our desire to create a more open dialogue about the very prevalent problem of misogyny and sexual violence in our culture–even within those communities that seek to extinguish it. None of this was cited in the article at all. Mesh was messy when citing the community, once citing an off-the-record quote as well as deliberately misrepresenting another off-the-record conversation with an organizer.

A journalist who came to us waxing poetic about how this was a story “all about the community response” instead wrote a dishonest patriarchal narrative of a “leader” in the movement, struggling against the hysterical and jealous influence of spurned women. Mesh manipulated survivors by gaining their trust through hours upon hours of interviews, only to become a self proclaimed expert on what is or what is not sexual abuse. Mesh, not a lawyer by trade, decided for himself that only one allegation amounted to sexual assault, and ignored narratives put forth by the survivors. Instead, he dedicated the article to glorifying the male abuser as a “fallen leader” with “chiseled shins” while silencing, ignoring, and misrepresenting female and trans voices across the board, presumably because they don’t net as many page views. This story is an all-too-telling reminder of why so many sexual assaults go unreported or unspoken.

As we processed these events, we struggled with the fact that Hart’s behavior, though extreme, is not an aberration. Sexual and emotional abuse is common in activist circles, as it is throughout our culture. Those who suffer are conditioned to stay silent about such abuses or face scrutiny and shame from a society that is much more willing to believe the narratives of men than women.

The beauty of the swarm is collective, if not matriarchal. In the wake of Hart’s expulsion, Bike Swarm is remade through female leadership and the community has responded overwhelmingly with action. From the ashes, the Trans and/or Women Action Collective (TWAC) and People with Access to Male Privilege (PAMP) were born. PAMPs are actively working to decondition and deconstruct their inner patriarchs, as they educate themselves with guidance from TWAC. Both groups are dedicated to providing monthly community trainings and workshops, as the key to social change lies in daily practice. Swarmers realize that we can storm the streets in the name of justice all we want, but we cannot have the world we strive for until we change ourselves.

Swarmers gathered copies of the WW and fashioned Mesh’s own words into an interactive art installation entitled, “The Patriarchy.” This physical representation of the concept accompanied the riders as the Swarm reflected upon the role patriarchy has fulfilled throughout our history. Chalk and written messages were left in the streets and filled the installation itself, amplifying voices that have long gone unheard. Their battle cry, “swarm the patriarchy!” echoed all around as the Swarm defiantly descended upon “The Patriarchy.” One by one, each took their turn ripping into it, engaging in the catharsis of destroying this physical representation of the chains that bind us all. The notes that had been stuffed within the installation during the ride emerged from within, expressed at last. The dismantled remains of the Patriarchy were left outside of WW offices with a note reading, “WW, you left your trash out, don’t worry we cleaned it up for you. Signed, The Valkyries.” Without warning, Mesh miraculously appeared outside the offices of WW sipping coffee. The Swarm took to the streets and knew the very patriarch who had attempted to oppress them had been forced to hear their voices.

The Patriarchy was literally built out of Mesh’s words: the silencing of non-male perspectives, the misplaced focus on the abuser, and the insistence that those affected did not experience the “severe” abuse they believed they did. This is, in microcosm, the patriarchy at work. We refuse to be silenced. We will continue to smash the Patriarchy.

Signed,

The Valkyries