Jared Taylor, Taki’s Magazine, November 2, 2009
Friday’s New York Times had a report on the rent-a-bike system the city of Paris has been operating since 2007. For about $1.50, a Parisian can pick up a bicycle for half an hour from any of hundreds of unmanned rental stations and return it to any other station. Like other cities with similar systems—Oslo, Stockholm, Vienna, Luxembourg, Milan—Paris is preening itself on having gotten people out of cars and onto bikes.
Alas, the people who set up what’s known as the Vélib’ system forgot that Paris is not all yuppies and tourists. Certain Parisians, for example, burn cars for sport. July 14th, Bastille Day, is a favorite day for it, and this year, despite stepped-up patrols and 240 arrests, immigrant “youths” reduced 317 cars to cinders—a new record. New Year’s Eve is another time for burnt offerings, and the national total in January was 1,147—a few percent off the all-time record but still up by eight percent.
With even just a few of these “youth” about, you can be sure that sturdy, $3,500 bicycles that you can rent with the swipe of a stolen credit card are not always going to come back. About 40 percent of the initial fleet of 20,600 bikes have been stolen and another 40 percent have been burned or busted beyond repair. Bikes are showing up in Eastern Europe and even back home in North Africa, and the company that operates Vélib’ has to fix 1,500 smashed up bikes every day.
No one even pretends not to know who is doing the smashing. Bruno Marzloff, reported to be a sociologist of transportation, concedes that most of the thieves and vandals are angry African immigrants. “It is an outcry, a form of rebellion; this violence is not gratuitous,” he says. It’s no doubt all in the spirit of that favorite graffito of the immigrant suburbs, Nique la France (F*** France).
The Times story especially struck me because just the night before, I had been talking about bicycles with a charming lady who spends half the year in northern Montana. She told me that outside town she finds collections of unlocked bicycles at school bus stops. Children drop them off in the morning after they have ridden from home to take the bus, and their bikes will still be there when the children get off the bus to ride home in the afternoon.
Why does what works in Montana not work in Paris? Aren’t all people everywhere the same? No doubt Mr. Marzloff, sociologist of transportation, could explain it to me.
[Editor’s Note: Excerpts from the New York Times story can be read here.
Original article
(Posted on November 3, 2009)
Comments
“It is an outcry, a form of rebellion…”
Yep. I used to leave my own bike in the front yard when I was a kid. Now I live in a city that prides itself on the Dogma of Diversity. Not even a locked bike is safe.
Don’t worry, people of Montana. Soon, the sniveling white liberals of California will make their way to your state. When they arrive, they’ll sneer, “There’s no diversity here. We need to change that.” And that will be that.
They must be nuts to use $3500 bikes. A simple $300 bike would work equally well. These things must have carbon fiber frames and top of the line components. Of course underprivelaged minorities will steal them to put food on the table.
“Why does what works in Montana not work in Paris? Aren’t all people everywhere the same?”
40 years ago people would have no idea what this means. The people of Paris would have been as white as the people in Montana. But now Paris is a black city full of people who bear no resemblance to the native Parisians. Even worse - what will Paris look like in another 40 years?
D.B. Cooper wrote: Don’t worry, people of Montana. Soon, the sniveling white liberals of California will make their way to your state. When they arrive, they’ll sneer, “There’s no diversity here. We need to change that.” And that will be that.
No. It isn’t the liberals of California. Most of the people who leave aren’t the libs. Then again, it isn’t even the brainwashed libs behind flooding White America with dark invaders. It’s the elites, the Eastern elites. Period. Look who benefits, look at the money behind all of it. That said, one can’t help but notice that all-white areas are completely safe for the most part when it comes to leaving things like a bike sitting around, without much worry about theft. Japan is much the same. When I was there, I noticed that in Tokyo one could leave a bike unattended and not worry about it being stolen. Try that in the elites’ favorite cities of NY or LA. Hah.
what will Paris look like in another 40 years?
Thanks to the white inventions of photography, film, and video, the people of the future will have visual records of before and after.
Since most films today strive for urban reality, people in the future will watch older films and see the dramatic differences between what was and what is.
If reality can’t influence them, maybe art will.
It’s a small hope of mine…
I’m amazed in my mostly white town when I see that kids leave their bikes unlocked at the library, on their front lawns, and other places, apparently with the confident expectation that they will still be there when they come to get them later.
In contrast, I had three or four bikes stolen while growing up in Gary, Indiana, and every one of them was chained up or in some other way secured at the time it was stolen.
The moral is, in a largely black area, an object with any value whatsoever is unsafe no matter how well it is secured. Blacks make a sport of seeing what they can get away with stealing.
This story brings me back to my youth. My family wasn’t wealthy and with three kids to feed, certain luxuries like bicycles weren’t a priority. One day, to my delight, my mother brought home a bicycle that someone had thrown out in the trash. It was terribly rusted and had no hand grips so I always had to wear gloves all the time or else grab onto the rusty handlebars. It wasn’t a great bike; it wasn’t even a nice bike, but it was mine. On it I learned to ride and soon I was cruising the block, showing off my newfound abilities. I didn’t have a lock for it and since it was in such bad shape, I’d just leave it out, resting against the front porch. I figured nobody would even want a beat up bike like mine.
Then one day as I got home from elementary school, I arrived just in time to see three Black teenagers riding off with my bike; one riding while the other two ran along laughing. I ran after them as fast as my little six year old legs could carry me, but it was no use. My cries were only encouragement for their laughter. I stood breathless as I lost site of the three when they rounded the corner, their cackling echoing in my ears like hyenas that had just stolen my cub.
This taught me a valuable lesson at a young age. Blacks don’t need a reason to steal. They do it because they can. To suggest that they need motivation is to imply that they actually think their actions through.
I’m sure many of you AR readers are the same folk who raved, ranted,gnashed your teeth and tore at your hair because of Apartheid in South Africa.
2 — D.B. Cooper said:
I’ve also considered bulletproof glass: I would be willing to bet you will not find the amount of stores shielded with bulletproof glass in Montana, as you do Detroit for example. I have never, in my entire life seen one, single pane of bulletproof glass in a white neighborhood.
Folks if they are buying bicycles that cost $3500.00 then this is not private enterprise but a government program. But as a goverment venture this could be really a good deal for those selling bicycles. I wish I had a contract selling bicycles to Paris at 3.5K ea. and knowing that they would soon need to be replaced.
If you ever wonder why things happen as they do then follow the money and see who profits by it. I have no idea who is behind this but I’m sure someone is making a pot of money at tax payer expense.
Bernie’s comment is especially telling and dispiriting.
He’s right. Forty years ago people would have had no idea at all
Hmmm. There must be a common denominator in all these instances…
“It is an outcry, a form of rebellion…”
It’s persistent and irremediable, whatever you call it.
-5- Was NOT LANCE in Japan as a tourist?
Not Lance is WRONG …
In Sakai, South Osaka, my wife and myself and my wife’s sister had 3 bicycles stolen over an 11-year-period. ALL OF THEM WITH LOCKS ON.
However, the crime rate is generally low - bikes and umbrellas are theft-objects of almost-instant convenience - plus a secondhand bike can be fenced fast for $50 to $100. Enough for a shochu party or two or three for people who live to get trashed of cheap booze.
There IS an unsuccessful and unambitious criminal underclass in Japan. Almost invisible until one lives there.
Did you ever get one of those e-mail forwards talking about “the good old days?” “Remember when we didn’t have to lock our bicycles?” the e-mails say. “Remember when kids could actually play outside?” Everyone is nostalgic for those days. Everybody forwards the e-mails and nods their heads, thinking, “Yep, those sure were the good old days!” But nobody’s allowed to say…or even to THINK…about why we no longer *have* those “good old days.” Whites have turned into sheep, just passively and sadly accepting that they can no longer have the safety and security of their youths and thinking there’s nothing they can do about it. They don’t realize that THIS DIDN’T HAVE TO HAPPEN. And that it was done to us ON PURPOSE.
What I find amazing is the people of Paris didn’t realize this was going to happen.
6 — sbuffalonative wrote at 9:52 PM on November 3: what will Paris look like in another 40 years?
“Thanks to the white inventions of photography, film, and video, the people of the future will have visual records of before and after.”
There are shops and postcard stands in Paris that specialize in old postcards. These range up through the post WW2 years to about 1960. It is very noticeable for anyone with an open mind and open eyes to see, that all the faces in Old Paris are white. Not a single exception. What a startling contrast to what one sees there today!
This transformation has taken place in about the last 40 years or less, within the memory of anyone under forty or fifty. Ditto for London. In other places, like Stockholm, the changes are much more recent.
The one thing in common is that nowhere does one hear any discussion of this obvious fact, nor is any objection allowed.
Billy, I think you’re going overboard. People that posted about Japan in this thread and the other thread about Paris currently running that covers much of the same subject are for the most part correct. There are of course criminals in Japan, Iceland, in all European and E. Asian countries. That’s not the point. The point is that the levels of crime are much lower. The odds are that in Japan or Stockholm you can leave your bike parked without a lock and it will not be stolen. In NY, Los Angeles, Paris, London, any formerly white area that the elites have stuffed with darker folks is not an area where a bike or anything else worth more than two cents can be left unattended. Your having 3 bikes stolen in 11 years in Japan is nothing. Three bikes left unattended here in L.A. wouldn’t sit still for 11 minutes. That’s no exaggeration.
Graham R. at #9…
You are an idiot. This must be the first time you have read AmRen. Maybe you are a troll seeking to inflame.
Your observations are correct. You just happen to be on the wrong site for them. AmRen doesn’t present your target audience. AmRen doesn’t present or represent or support or enable the criminal class to which you refer.
The reason bikes never got stolen in the good ol` days is that the milkman and the physician making his house calls would have seen em do it!!
Tim in Indiana-
The moral is, in a largely black area, an object with any value whatsoever is unsafe no matter how well it is secured.
You’re right, except for that bit about the items stolen needing to have value. Example:
I used to fish often at the Choptank river pier in Dorchester county Maryland. The pier itself is simply what used to be the U.S. Rt. 50 bridge over the river, and the people using it are predominately black, as is the town.
One of the big downsides of fishing there is that there are no trash receptacles. A couple years ago the county went and put cheap metal trash cans out, and within a few days every one of them had walked. I’ve been told this happens every single spring. Last year they actually did fasten the cans to the pier with some pretty heavy chains. They still walked. If it’s there, it gets stolen.
Of course, this really doesn’t pose a problem for the blacks on the pier. They’re more than satisfied to simply throw their wrappers, soda/beer cans, paper, line, fish hooks, broken bottles, etc., on the pier or in the water. The place is usually filthy. It’s like someone decided to recreate Baltimore out in the countryside.
re:Graham R.-“I’m sure many of you AR readers are the same folk who raved, ranted,gnashed your teeth and tore at your hair because of Apartheid in South Africa.
You are preaching to the wrong audience. The people here on Amren were not the ones to force South Africa. It was the socialists in the USA, Europe and South Africa. You forget that there were many White South Africans who were for this. You also forget a similar thing happened in the southern USA. Americans, especially in the South, are well aware of living with different races. It’s nothing new.
Anonymous:
It wasn’t just “socialists,” it was Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich that threw ZA under the bus.
“It wasn’t just “socialists,” it was Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich that threw ZA under the bus.”
Anonymous again here, that’s true too. Conservatives were right in there and are in bed with the socialists, certainly here in the USA, in this regards.
I remember a story about a “fresh air” kid (remember them?). An inner-city black kid was picked to spend the summer in a White suburban/rural area, rooming with a volunteer White family. He was literally unable to believe that people left bikes on their lawns and didn’t lock their houses. The whole concept was alien to him. No one is meaner to black people than black people. They are their own worst enemy. Only constant anti-White propaganda keeps them unaware of that.
I worked in a heavily enriched area of London. I was concerned about the dogs being left outside the store in the heat when we occasionally had warm weather. I chained a dog bowl to the post next to the front door. The bowl disappeared within one hour.
