Pacing for the Long Haul
Image Credit: Eric Perlin
The restlessness of quarantine was likely what landed me and my wife at a bike shop once we were able to leave our suburban Seattle home, masks secured and fingers crossed. We were selecting my first bike in 20 years, along with a trailer that would carry our 2-year-old child. After seven test rides, out of breath and questioning this plan in its entirety, I left with a shiny new setup.
If you’ve ever been to Seattle you’ve probably experienced our countless hills. Our neighborhood is no exception, and so it was that I found myself hauling 50 pounds of extra weight up some seriously steep inclines. In the beginning I would see a hill coming and start peddling feverishly, while hyperventilating about whether I would be able to make it to the top. Time after time I would burn out a third of the way up. I would stop, feel defeated, catch my breath, and try again.
Enter my friend, the lifelong cyclist. One day we rode together and after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at summiting hills she said, “Why don’t you try this instead: Keep your pace steady. When you hit the hill, put it in first gear, keep your head down, and push on.” Huh, I thought. Worth a go at least. When I spotted the next hill I took a deep breath and tried to relax my body. The incline began and I shifted down as far as my bike would go. As I crested the top of the hill, having conquered it in one try, a triumphant grin crept onto my face. I had done it – and in about half the time my stop-and-start technique had taken.
This was all happening late in May when George Floyd had just been murdered by a police officer named Derek Chauvin. The urgent need to dismantle the racism that continued to violently take so many black lives from us felt more present than ever. And though I had so much anger and fear and frustration, as a white woman I couldn’t even begin to imagine what my Black friends and colleagues were feeling. I kept asking “what’s different this time?” while trying to band together with newly awakened white folks. I was awake all hours of the night. I was hyperventilating while looking at the giant hill ahead, and it felt impossible not to see the metaphor in my friend’s wise words.
Becoming antiracist requires of us an ability to hold seemingly opposing things at the same time more often than not (what psychologists call the dialectical). There is an urgency in racial justice work that is undeniable; people have been dying for centuries because of the deeply embedded racism pulsing through our country. At the same time, this work requires a sustainable pace, lest we burn out a third of the way through the journey. I tell you all of this not as an invitation to coast in 1st gear while lives are at stake. It is important that as white allies we show up powerfully and continuously. But recognizing the long arc of antiracism work can help us to be there year after year, news cycle to news cycle. The world doesn’t need our short-lived, reactionary campaigns. Dismantling racism will take a life-long commitment from all of us – one we cannot live out if we’re huffing and puffing at the side of the road.