(CNN)It's
no secret that we Americans love our outlaws, from the legends and lore
of rebellious (and illegal) acts by our Founding Fathers, to the
bushwhacking and bank-robbing capers of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid, to the "bad boy" music of Elvis Presley, the Rolling Stones and Dr.
Dre.
American culture and
mass media have led inexorably to characters that embody this bad-boy
attitude -- like Jax, the heartthrob outlaw biker star of the TV show
"Sons of Anarchy."
Americans
have a long established canon from which they "learn" about society
from fictional dramas. And the more we watch shows like "Sons of
Anarchy," the more a news story will seem to fit our mental construct of
"how those people are." The same is true of popular TV crime dramas'
portrayal of American minorities' involvement in violent crime.
And it seems that every time outlaw motorcycle clubs are portrayed in the news, it's because of something terrible, such as the 2002 incident in Loughlin, Nevada, or the recent deadly events in Waco, Texas.
But here's the thing: As we watch more crime drama, we perceive that crime is more prevalent than it actually is.
And
when the media fail to represent or report the average, everyday
activities of motorcycle clubs and the workaday lives of their members,
media consumers have nothing against which to compare how those people
might really be.
Add to this the
fact that the outlaw biker narrative has been largely controlled over
time, not by members of the culture, but outsiders and the
misconceptions grow. Case in point: the Waco incident. Sgt. Swanton of
the Waco Police Department effectively controlled the story of what
happened on May 17, 2015, and it appears that story has already begun to unravel.
Regardless of what ultimately is shown to be the truth about the events
in Waco, if history tells us anything it's that that story will not
likely be broadcast as widely as the law enforcement narrative was ...
if at all.
An old criticism about the media goes, "if it bleeds it leads."
Biker bureaucracy
I've
spent 15 years researching America's biker culture and I can say with
some authority that the reality of everyday life in motorcycle clubs is
neither dangerous nor exciting.
One might even call it boring.
Meetings
run on for hours. Committee work is less than exciting, no matter the
organization. Raffle tickets have to be sold, charitable events have to
be planned, staffed, provisioned and the grounds have to be cleaned up
afterward. Clubhouses have to be maintained; the yard has to be mowed,
the roof needs to be patched, someone has to clean the bathroom, and so
on.
Most of the time, MC members -- called patch-holders -- hang out at one another's homes or shops talking about motorcycles.
Countless
hours are spent riding their motorcycles from one state to another,
stopping only for gas, regardless of the weather, which after the first
1,000 miles can dampen the spirits of even the most ardent rider.
When not together, patch-holders mostly work and spend time with their families (and most families spend time with the MC).
But what about the claim that motorcycle clubs are gangs?
Motorcycle clubs are born
of a love of the machine, racing, riding and from military service.
Gangs began for various reasons as well, but largely as a form of
protection for ethnic immigrants residing in inner cities.
Motorcycle
clubs' social structure is overwhelmingly democratic from the local to
the international levels. Officers are democratically elected and hold
office so long as they meet the memberships' needs.
Actually,
it was a surprise research finding that most MCs adhere strictly to
Robert's Rules of Order during official meetings, with fines for being
found out of order ranging from $20 to $100.
In
contrast, gangs can be seen as more autocratic than democratic, where
leaders emerge more for their charismatic leadership and illicit earning
abilities than for their abilities to run organizations.
Motorcycle
clubs are organized hierarchically, with strictly defined chains of
command and lines of communication. MCs elect secretaries whose jobs are
to maintain meeting minutes, keep track of committees and chairs, and
see that old business is complete and new business is on the agenda.
Treasurers
also are elected officials and they attend to fiduciary
responsibilities such as collecting membership dues, paying clubhouse
expenses and financial planning for the future. Both secretaries and
treasurers are required to produce written documents for the membership
to review and approve during each meeting.
It
seems laughable to believe that gangs do the same. In addition to a
decade-and-a-half of research, I have lived my entire adult life around
bikers and MCs and have yet to encounter a motorcycle gang. I have,
however, witnessed several occasions where MCs run street gangs out of
the communities in which the MC clubhouses are located (MCs usually can
only afford to buy or lease properties in the cheapest parts of town
where gang crime is most prevalent.)
Not hiding behind charity work
Perhaps the singularly most important distinction between outlaw motorcycle clubs and gangs is evidenced through philanthropy.
It's
been widely reported by local, state, and federal law enforcement
organizations that MCs support charities, mainly (if not entirely) for
positive public relations in order to offset some negative public image.
This interpretation does not fit
my field observations. I've found two primary reasons why motorcycle
clubs are so closely intertwined with charity work: MC family members
are or have been affected by the maladies the charities seek to
eradicate, and members of the local community are in legitimate and
immediate need.
MCs support a wide
variety of local, national, and international charities that seek to
end cancers, poverty, hunger and children's diseases, but especially
supported are disabled veterans organizations.
Charity
is to members of motorcycle clubs as gasoline and oil are to their
machines. For some, it's a major reason why they join and stay in MCs.
I've
observed MCs providing 24/7 security at battered women's shelters,
holding motorcycling events such as Poker Runs to raise money for local
families whose homes were destroyed by fire or natural disasters, or to
help families stricken by some other tragic event get on their feet.
If a member of the community is in legitimate need, and the MCs are able to help, they almost always do.
Even
if it's just "Passing the Hat," where patch-holders literally pass
around a baseball cap into which members place what cash they can spare.
This might not seem like much,
but to a family in desperate need of short-term assistance, this can
mean the difference between having electricity and water and going
without.
And this happens all the time.
Why people join MCs
Over the years, I've come to understand that identity may be the main purpose people join MCs.
It's
not easy becoming a patch-holder. Many have compared "prospecting" --
the process of earning full membership -- to that of military basic
training, where the individual is broken down in order to be reformed
into a part of a collective: To think not of one's self but of others,
and to understand that one's actions or inactions impact the team and
the organization. But prospecting takes months and sometime a year or
more (5 years for one MC).
Prospecting
is physically, emotionally, and intellectually demanding and not
everyone can do it. A significant amount of social status is conferred
upon those with the steel to make it. Perhaps this is the only obvious
similarity between MCs and gangs.
That
sense of brotherhood was on display at a funeral for a patch-holder
slain at Waco. I witnessed members of the Hells Angels, Bandidos,
Mongols, Vagos and more than 50 other motorcycle clubs come together in
peace to mourn the passing of a man who touched the lives of so many in
his community.
To them, he was much
more than a biker or a patch-holder -- he was their Brother, with all
the familial love, respect, and honor that that word conveys. To my
knowledge, such a gathering has never happened before.
This
convergence of contrasting MCs was no media stunt. There were no media
in the funeral that day (although there was one white, unmarked van, out
of which came uniformed men clad in body armor and armed with assault
rifles).
What is most worrisome to
me is that we as Americans don't really know these people and yet we
readily accept one-sided narratives as they pop up in the news. Certain
law enforcement officials and organizations have labeled outlaw motorcycle clubs as a domestic terrorist threat.
As
one who earns a living studying and teaching about threats to national
security, it concerns me greatly to think that precious time, money, and
manpower are wasted on targeting the wrong people. We have very real
dangers to our society, our American way of life, but MCs are
unequivocally not among those dangers. In my experience, patch-holders
represent the very people who protect us from those threats.