Roll On

Hi Everyone,

Last Wednesday, I got done with my evening class and was all set to bike home. I reached the rack outside the Illustration building and realized that my bike wasn’t there. I scoured my brain, trying to recall if I’d left it somewhere else. Nope. I distinctly remembered attaching it to the rack with my coil lock and securing the back wheel to the frame of the bike with my U-bolt lock.

So my friends Erin and Krishna kindly waited with me while I reported the theft to SCAD security and then to the police. I wasn’t as upset as I would have thought. For one thing, bike theft in Savannah is so prevalent that I was expecting this to happen at some point or another. For another, it could have been much worse. If it had been stolen out of our backyard, that would have felt much more invasive. If I’d been mugged or if something more irreplaceable had been taken, like my computer, I would have been more upset. On the whole, this wasn’t too bad.

The security guards and the police officers were terribly sympathetic, and were assiduous in taking down every detail I could remember about my bike in case they came across it. My favorite part of the evening was explaining three separate times to three separate authorities that one of the distinguishing features of my bike was a pink shower cap on the seat. (An important aside here: I think the shower cap bike seat cover is my single most brilliant moment in life and I’m completely fine with peaking at age 25. I was told a few weeks ago that some Chinese people use them as well, but I don’t think that information detracts from my invention. I suspect that everything was originally invented by the Chinese anyway, so if anything, this news only confirms that it’s a good idea.)

I was told that since I’d registered my bike with SCAD security when I first arrived here, there was a 90% chance of it being recovered. Apparently, the police stop people who they think “shouldn’t be on a bike,” check to see if there is a registration sticker on it, and if so, hand it over to SCAD security. Uh... hang on a tic. Back up. What does that mean, “shouldn’t be on a bike”? It seems to me that bikes, out of all methods of transportation, are the most likely to be ridden by a wide variety of people. Was this a euphemism for racial or other kinds of profiling? If that was the case, I didn’t want my bike back through this kind of policing.

After a week full of discussions with friends prompted by the ludicrous request for President Obama to release his official birth certificate, and by the capture and death of bin Laden, my mind was already steeped in thoughts about racism and about justice. On the one hand, I believe very strongly that seeking justice is essential, not just to maintain order in society, but morally. One of the most beautiful and hopeful verses in the Bible, which has particular racial overtones due to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s famous speech, is Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

However, when seeking justice the question becomes, “At what cost, not just to a particular society but to justice itself?” Do we label groups of people more dangerous or criminal than others in an attempt to isolate danger and defeat crime? Ironically, so often when we try to uphold justice, we end up stripping it from an individual or a group of people, either directly or more subtly.

Today, I woke up to phone call. I think I had been dreaming about some kind of sporting event because as I was waking up, in my head, I heard an announcer say, “Well, this is an unusual turn of events.” The conversation began the way many of my phone calls do:

“Hi, this is Sarah.”
“Hello. Is Sarah there?”
“This is she.” (I was too sleepy to think of a non-poncey way of saying that.)

I was then informed that SCAD security had found most of my bike (minus the front wheel) right outside the Illustration building and I could go and pick it up. I hurried off to reunite with my bike. It was exactly as I’d left it, except, of course, for the front wheel. The basket was still there, the U-bolt lock still attached to the back wheel and frame. Even the pink shower cap had made it through the ordeal, zealously protecting my seat from the elements.

I tried to take my bike home wheelbarrow-style, but it was not as easy as I’d predicted, so in the end, I carried it the five blocks. As I walked, I found myself being relieved that the bike had been found on its own and had not been taken from someone, even if that someone were guilty. If the ways we catch criminals aren’t fair, the justice we claim to be upholding -- even when we catch the guilty person -- is incomplete at best. And it’s a lot harder for justice to roll on when one of the wheels is missing.

Have a good week,
Sarah/Mouse