LA's bicycle coalition director on how the way we think about cities needs to change As a civil rights lawyer who is now Executive Director of the Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition, Tamika Butler has spent years working on transportation equity issues. And much of that work is rooted in her experiences as the ?black queer kid? in her mostly white, mostly straight Nebraska high school. ?I couldn?t figure out why all the black kids were sitting together in the cafeteria,? she says.
Butler talked about the feeling of ?looking around and not seeing anyone else that looks like you? as part of her keynote address ?Planning While Black? at last month?s National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) conference in Seattle, where she delivered some incredible, impassioned remarks on race and urbanism.
In the keynote, Butler interweaves her own story with emotional moments from the Black Lives Matter movement, elegantly connecting contemporary conversations about race and public space.
Here?s Butler on the death of Eric Garner, the 43-year-old father of six who was choked to death by police for selling cigarettes on the sidewalk:

The whole point of what everyone in this room does is to make places that people feel happy and healthy and safe. But you can?t even be a black man on a sidewalk and feel those things. Maybe you?re thinking: ?But I?m a planner, but I?m an engineer, but I?m an elected official?I'm not a police officer. I don?t have that problem.?
But...