From: byron@athena.mit.edu (Jack Miller)
Newsgroups: alt.skate-board
Subject: Re: Boston Globe re. inliners
Date: 18 Aug 92 14:37:24 GMT
Organization: SKaters At Massachusetts Institute of Technology

In article <Bt55I3.9oz@monitor.com> michael@monitor.com (Michael Johnson) writes:
>For those who don't live in Boston and those who missed the article (god  
>knows it hurts to read the Globe but I force myself) I just wanted to mention  
>that a SCARY article was just printed about what a tough time in-liners are  
>having trying to "skate" in Newport & Middleton, MA without getting citations  
>from the boys in blue.

	I missed the article.  What day?  I'll try to get a hold of it
an type it in for the net.

>
>What really makes it scary is how the article treats the skateboard-rights  
>battle as though it is lost and long gone (and deserved to lose because they  
>got in the way of self-righteous, shoot-me-I'm-a-yuppie in-liners!) All due  
>to the "no TOYS on the street" safety ordinance being adopted by many towns  
>and cities that ignores the fact that bicycles are all over the street and  
>are just as much a toy as any kind of skate.

	The best argument, if you ask me, is the non-polluting
transportation argument.

>
>Okay, okay, I know--same old shit. But these people have serious clout--6.5  
>million in-liners nationwide and a group in Newport that's got 500 signatures  
>supporting compromise for in-liners, but NOT FOR SKATEBOARDERS. Important  
>issue: these people are fighting for and apparently winning back their rights  
>but they're leaving us behind. Their logic says that in-lines are  

	Well it's in their best interests, innit?  They get to "skate"
without having to put up with us obnoxious skateboarders.  They have
no obligation NOT to leave us behind.  If we want to continue skating,
WE have an obligation to keep it legal.  The problem is, 6.5 million
rich respectable yuppies have much more clout (financial if nothing
else) than however many skaters there are.  The average Thrasher
reader is 11 years old.  Skaters have few ties to big-time
corporations and tie-in deals with other big products as far as I can
see, but inlining has become the next yuppie thing so you're going to
see things like Mountain Dew Roll-a-thon '92.  Think of it this way,
folks... as far as the big corporations go, there's money to be made
off of inliners, who are on average mid-twenties and fresh out of law
school.  There's no money to be made off of skaters, who are young,
have no jobs or money, and buy all their stuff from actual skate
companies, isolated from non-skate company big business in their own
little business world.  Guess which nuisance gets run off the streets?

>maneuverable enough to be exempt from skateboard laws. All I'm saying is  

	Bwahhahahahahaha!  I hang out and skate with skateboarders ALL
THE TIME and have had maybe two collisions (mild ones, like a tenth
the force that I felt in the grrls' pit at Green Day)(actually, come
to think of it, the guys' pit was weaker and THAT was a tenth of the
force of the collisions, like we didn't even fall off the boards) in
two years, and that was in a situation where ninety skaters all
sessioned a tiny area before a demo.  I get run into by inliners ALL
THE FUCKING TIME here!  Maneuverable?  The vast majority don't know
how to STOP!  If they allow inlining to continue on this basis, then
cool, we can show them how skaters can usually stop in less time than
inliners, and bang, they have to let us skate too.  They're gonna have
to find a better excuse than that.

>skaters need to keep fighting and not let stuff like this go unchecked. 
>
>Party for your right to fight!
>
	Definitely.  Hence SKAMIT and the recent case that was posted
about a month ago regarding the failed skate ban somewhere else.  It
can be done, so let's do it.

				--Halloween Jack.