Entitlement Schema, on your Right

Or maybe I should call this another SOAS/CTJ. It's really a combo platter. Hmmm.
The bike shop we go to most frequently because MacMookie does massage-trade with the owner (the place is called "Cycle-Analyst" and Macmookie is in training to be a licensed psychoanalyst.. can ya beat that?) has the most awesome selection of bike horns and bells you ever did see. Squishy horns shaped like dinosaur heads or dog butts, tinkly asian-style bells that practically whisper, zen-like, "let me pass beside you on your left, grasshopper," classic ringa-ringa-ringa bicycle bells what look like they're straight out of the 1923 Sears & Roebuck's catalog, and airhorns. Lately, I'm leaning towards the airhorn, even though I've had my eye on this cute little number with a picture of a bear on it for a mere $4.50... but really what I need? Lately? Is a horn that blares out, "Get OUT OF THE BIKE LANE, YOU OVER-ENTITLED YUPPIE BITCHES." Seriously. That sound harsh? Let me 'splain. Here in Denver we have designated bike routes, like most cities with over 50,000 people- and some of those bike routes go along regular ol' city streets what aren't the busiest streets or main arteries, but also aren't dinky little residential side streets. In those streets, width permitting, are painted lines which designate actual bike lanes,complete with arrow markers pointing the direction bike traffic should go (along with the flow of other traffic, duh) and a symbol inside of that arrow depicting a unisex, helmeted cyclist. Should I repeat that? The symbol depicts a CYCLIST only, not a jogger, or a walker, and not, most importantly, a trio of trophy wives walking 3 abreast, with at least 2 strollers and 2 dogs on leash between them. No. It's a cyclist.
The route I take to work follows a designated bike route with one segment of it containing the precious bike lanes. It's a beautiful ride, for the city, the whole length, but this segment with the actual bike lanes is really somethin' else. A wide parkway, with a gorgeous, shady green median separating the lanes of traffic going in opposite directions. Enough space on each side for one lane of car traffic, the bike lane, and then a parking lane that abuts the curb. On the other side of those curbs, as you might guess, are these things called sidewalks. They are broad and commodious compared to the skinny, aborted things in my neighborhood. There is probably enough room on them for two portly people to walk side by side, with a dog, or for two people to pass each other, single file. If I lived over there, I would walk down the footpath on the grassy median, but I'm just that kinda Nature Gal. I much prefer dirt and grass under my feet than pavement. Plus, it's probably the safest place to be, and I'm also a paranoid safety freak. I will bike or walk MILES out of the way just to take the safest route. Especially if my bambina is with me.
**Which brings me to another point- yes, I am also a mom. Yes, we own a jogging stroller (which we will be selling, since we just got a bike trailer/stroller- woohoo!). Yes, we frequently put b. girl in said stroller and walk around the neighborhood, to the park, the store, etc. But there is NO WAY IN HELL I would take that thing, with her in it, in the middle of the f'in street when other, safer options were available. My neighborhood has those aforementioned skinny sidewalks though, so frequently we do have to walk in the street. But I never walk in the MIDDLE of the street, and if I did, I certainly wouldn't expect people to get the hell out of MY way because I'm entitled to be there, as a pedestrian or whatever (even though technically, pedestrian rights are supreme in such cases.) The area with the bike lane is different. Here comes the judgmental bitch part, hold to your armrests- what kind of shitty parent are you if you put your own spoiled-ass convenience and entitlements ahead of your CHILD's safety??? Huh? Is it really that much of a BOTHER to negotiate curbs and the occasional untrimmed hedge? Or god forbid, get some actual dirt on your $150 tennies? Maybe next time I'm out there, instead of flipping them off, I'll call Social Services. Right after I call Traffic Right-of-Way enforcement.

Do me a favor and read those paragraphs again. My point is that most of 7th Avenue has plenty of room, and plenty of pleasant options, for the average pedestrian, without ever stepping foot in the bike lane. And yet.
Also, as you might guess, the people lucky enough to live along or near this gorgeous street are uh... shall we say.. rich. I'm not gonna say wealthy, because that dresses up a condition that doesn't need to be. They're rich. If you asked them, they might say "well-to-do," or you might even get a "yes, we've been very blessed" from the Catholics, but most of them are heavily invested in the notion, or false premise that 1) they earned what they have through some combination of hard work, brains and talent, and 2)they deserve it, they're entitled, so shut up, all you poor-ass whiny minorities and half-breed peasants that actually have to work for a living- obviously you're just not SMART enough to be rich and live in this gorgeous neighborhood.
That's the sense I get, anyway, when I'm trying to get to this thing called a job I have, Monday thru Friday, 8-5, after dropping off my wee one at daycare. Now, this may be a big ol' wild-ass guess on my part, but the women with their $700 baby strollers and designer doggies walking in the bike lane 3 across, DO NOT, by contrast, have anywhere they really need to be at 8am. Which is why I feel pretty damn free to honk my bike horn, and failing to dislodge them with that, yell. I try not to be rude. I just try to be very clear, so they can hear me, and understand what I'm saying. "GET...OUT...OF...THE...BIKE...LANE" is usually what I say, and start to say it when I'm least 50 feet behind them, so they have time to comply. But do they comply? Hardly ever. I'm usually met with over-entitled attitude in response. Yes, these people, though clearly in the wrong, try to argue with me. That's when I flip them off.
You might think this is a little thing to get all worked up about, in the grand scheme of things- big deal? Why not just go around them? Who died and made me the Bike Police, as well as the Entitlement Police? I certainly don't want to be like the over-entitled jackass that Peeps pedaled past this morning, who was tail-gating another cyclist on the multi-use bike path, and then had a frickin' cow when the cyclist he was tailgating slowed down for a homeless man with a huge shopping cart. According to Peeps, Jack-ety hollered, "oh my GAWD! I can't believe this!" as if the ignominy of applying his brakes for a hazard completed his "trifecta of human atrocities- First there was slavery, then the horrors of WWII, and now THIS!" I have to quote Peeps and give him full props because that is just too frickin hilarious.
So back to me- if you've read any of my past blogs, you'll know that over-entitled assholes of any stripe tick me off to no end. And I firmly believe that if you don't confront these "little things" you encounter in your daily life, and right the wrongs that you see, no matter how tiny they are, nothing will ever change. The power structure will remain as it is, with rich, white males at the top and everyone else in the world crushed under their immense bulk- except when it collapses (soon), everyone, and I mean everyone, will be utterly destroyed along with them. There's a way to dismantle the current patriarchy and inherently corrupt power structure without killing everyone and destroying the planet- but it takes a mountain's worth of these little things to incrementally add up and turn the tide. You have to do it. I have to do it. No one else will do it. Especially people who don't even realize what assholes they are, who were brought up to believe that if you're rich, and white, you can pretty much do whatever the fuck you want. You think they're just going to wake up one day and wail, "oh my goodness gracious, I've been SO wrong, for SO long!" ???
Nah. I'm still not advocating violence, so put your guns away you buncha trigger-happy rednecks. But verbal bitch-smacking is an art, a type of martial art, and like any artform, it takes practice. And now you might be thinking, "well Queenie, don't WE feel a wee bit over-entitled to our self-righteous anger, hmm?"
Well yup, I'm aware of that. As a woman who LOOKS white, I have all the privileges and entitlements that most white women in America do. It matters not one flea foot to passersby that I'm 1/16th Mohawk, 1/8th Basque (does that qualify as Latina?), and come from an abusive family where I was treated like a 2nd class citizen and raised to believe that I was a complete piece of shit. People can't SEE that when I bike past them, flipping them off. To them I look like just another angry-about-nothin', over-entitled white woman. Even though I grew up feeling more like a minority, and all my friends tended to be either minorities or social outcasts of some kind (please don't be offended, friends:) e.g. the overweight kids, the poor kids, the kids who were plenty smart but had learning disabilities or wacky senses of humour that no one else got... I also realize at the same time, that I have no earthly idea what it's like to walk around on earth as a black woman, or even a Latina, or a full-blooded Ind'n, with people making all sorts of assumptions and judgments about you (mostly negative) based on unreliable visual cues.
{Perhaps I should do a whole CTJ on that fact, entitled: um, hello, we are visual animals, and prejudice is largely based on visual cues, rather than the whole reality of a person. Think back to high school. Ok, that's for another time.}
So there's always been quite a bit of cognitive dissonance in my life, but for other people, there's also visual dissonance. E.g. "you don't LOOK like you've had a hard life... therefore I'm going to assume that everything has come easily for you, and feel justified in being nasty to you." Same goes for me. Maybe these yuppie women have husbands who beat them, or are such complete assholes that they only respite they get from their posh misery is walking down the bikelane with their girlfriends once a day and acting like they have real power in their lives for oh, about an hour. But I doubt it.
I'll own up to the partial source of my righteous indignation being plain old, garden variety jealousy. More accurately, envy. Because I would cut off my left breast for the chance to stay home with my kiddo, go for strolls with the girls, and have my biggest worry be what to plant in the flower garden this year. That's probably what they say to themselves too, watching my figure recede in the distant foreground- middle finger silouetted against the morning sky- "She's just jealous." Yep.
For all I know they are nice people despite their arrogant stupidity and bad parenting, and under different circumstances we would get along swimmingly.
But I doubt it.
However I'm going to try to keep an open heart, an open mind, and yes, an open hand, all the better to deliver bitch -smacks with.