I grew up around bikers. My father rides. Up until recently, I found a lot of happiness and camaraderie in that environment. My husband and I used to like to spend a lot of our leisure motorcycle time hanging with other members of the biker community. We've had/still have some good times; I'm not going to ignore that. The more time we've spent in the company of other bikers, the more disillusioned we've become by the attitudes/world views we often encounter.
When I use the term 'bikers', I'm referring not to the sport-bike crowd, whom are amazingly tolerant and open-minded (and usually young, multi-racial, and with various sexual orientations.....these are qualities I've personally observed, not a generalization). My husband and I don't ride a sport-bike, however.
Most people, when they think of bikers, have one of two images: Trouble-maker or open-road loving/open-minded free-spirit. I've encountered many of each. There also exists groups of bikers/members of clubs whom are primarily one ethnicity or another (take the Buffalo Soldiers, for example, who are a group of African-American bikers.....and really sweet folks, by the way). Neither of those really concern me, because they aren't pretending to be someone else.
There's a bit of a facade at work in a large remaining percentage of the biker community, however. That of tolerance. For a community that complains (and rightly so) about being prejudged and discriminated against by others, there's an incredible hypocrisy afoot.
I encounter racism and homophobia (of course, two women is always the exception) frequently in the company of many other bikers. A lot of these folks don't really even know WHY they hold the opinions they do, as is evident by the poor arguments in favor of their position. There's also a surprisingly high amount of Republicans/Conservatives on bikes. This baffles me....however, it does go right along with the rhetoric to hate gays and 'non-whites'.
I'm not speaking from a party-line position favoring Democrats....let me be clear. I don't call myself a Democrat. Probably more accurate would be to call myself a Libertarian, but even that doesn't encompass my total political view.
Neither am I implying that the descriptions above are the prevailing attitude among every other white, non-sport-bike-riding motorcyclist. I guess I'm just more somber about the fact that a group of people who fight so hard to be accepted and treated equally would draw some sort of invisible line as to who else deserves the very same.
