A venerable writer’s admonition is to write about what you know. I know bicycles—actually, recumbent bikes and trikes—and I know breasts. Steve Martin, a keen observer of human nature and reality, once wrote: “breasts make men stupid.” It’s also a good idea to save the best for last, so bicvcling goes first.
When I was much younger I ran marathons and shorter races of all kinds, but age overtakes us all, and with the warranty on my knees nearing expiration, switched to recumbent bikes, and eventually, trikes. Identity politics posits all manner of “communities.” There’s a gay community, a trans community, and now a fat black woman bicyclist community. Well, not quite, as a fat, black female rider tells us:
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I, too, am part of the cycling community. Or am I? If we’re not talking about those on the margins, then we’re not truly talking about community. Community isn't just about who shows up, it's about who feels welcome, who’s invited, and who’s made visible. It’s about who has a voice and who’s being centered, not just tolerated.
Whenever you are at a table, whether it's a meeting, an event, or a casual group ride, take a moment. Look around. Then ask yourself: Who’s missing? Whose absence goes unnoticed? Whose stories aren’t being told? Because if we aren't being intentional about inclusion, then we are by default participating in exclusion.
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Just when you think this kind of manufactured nonsense is on its deathbed, Cycling Weekly resurrects it. We’ve been told “silence is violence,” and so is pretty much everything else. Now we learn unless the cycling “community” “centers” fat black women, that community is “participating in exclusion.” Do we need to buy bikes and other cycling gear for fat black women too? How about old white guys riding old recumbents? And fine, I’ll tell a story: I read about a fat black woman who started riding bikes. Good for her. The end.
That’s a leftist view of reality, where it’s all about one’s identity, which must not only be noticed, but praised. In real reality, one doesn’t join a bicycling “community” by riding a bike. There are people with shared biking interests, largely defined by their machines, abilities and participation in types of competition. Beyond that, no one much cares about anyone not in those particular, narrowly defined interest groups.
Normal American’s view of reality is reality-based. Many years ago, I tuned in to Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show. The topic of the night was a lovely young woman working on Wall Street. Tens of thousands of men turned out to watch her walk to and from work because she was lovely, and enormously well endowed. Carson’s guest was an eminent psychologist who he asked to explain why all those men would do that. He paused and said, as best I can recall: “Well Mr. Carson, that’s because she has the biggest breasts anyone has ever seen.” The studio audience went wild, they cut to commercial and when Carson returned, the psychologist was gone, never knowing Steve Martin would so eloquently sum up human nature decades later.
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Which, of course, brings us to jeans/genes and Sydney Sweeney, who in posing in jeans for an American Eagle ad, invoked Nazis. Blonde hair, blue eyes, sure, but I don’t recall Nazis identifying with large breasts. I do recall men in general doing so, particularly young men, which I used to be—a young man, not breasts or a Nazi.
Woke isn’t nearly dead, but hopefully, it’s dying. Wokeness is unreality, a made-up statement of what leftists think human nature ought to be, like the “new communist man” who is constantly new and always murderous, economically illiterate, and an utter failure. You can convince advertisers putting morbidly obese people in their jeans will make young people with disposable income buy those jeans, but you can’t change immutable human nature: youth, beauty, slim athletic figures, flat tummies, intelligence and sex appeal sells. Breasts do that for men, and while they can stupefy, they also motivate.
The kind of people likely to buy at American Eagle won’t obsess or go stupid over Sydney Sweeney in jeans, but they’ll smile at the “jeans/genes” word play, and the next time they need jeans, they’ll be likely to remember American Eagle. That’s reality. That’s a clear understanding of human nature. Donald Trump understands that well, which is why I voted for him.
But isn’t Sweeney being objectified? Isn’t she being reduced to a pair of breasts?Isn't she excluding fat black female bicyclists? Nah. Get over yourself. She’s being very well paid and getting great publicity for her career while she can. That’s human nature and reality too. It's good to see it again--and her.
Woke is dying, but not nearly fast enough. The resurgence of reality, led by Sweeney’s jeans/genes, and yes, her breasts, just might help restore our representative republic. Nazis have nothing to do with it.
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Mike McDaniel is a USAF veteran, classically trained musician, Japanese and European fencer, life-long athlete, firearm instructor, retired police officer and high school and college English teacher. He is a published author and blogger. His home blog is Stately McDaniel Manor.