The boy on the bicycle in Andrew Wyeth’s 1950 color lithograph looks as if he is the freest person on earth. Dressed in 1950’s-cool style with rakish hat, he casually pedals along a level, hard-surface road (surely not of his own building), across a wide-open landscape, a red, white, and blue-dyed feather tethered to a front fender brace and flying high above his head. He turns his head, perhaps looking toward the distant horizon.
What, or who, could more accurately represent Young America, one of the two names I find assigned to this picture?
The world is his to see, to imagine, to explore, and perhaps to conquer. He is more than a Boy on Bicycle with Feather; he is Young America.
In recent weeks I have been looking with new eyes at my print of this picture. New eyes, after seeing it for some 50 years. New eyes, on this, the 244th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence.
What if the boy on the bicycle were Black, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Native American, or visually identifiable as anything other than European? Would he be as relaxed as this boy is out here all by himself? Would he need to be sure to keep his eyes glued to the road just ahead lest he be picked up for reckless riding? Would he dare to look at any horizon beyond his immediate experience? Would he proudly attach our nation’s colors to his bike?
What if the boy on the bicycle were not a boy at all, but a girl? Could she dream of a future that was hers to choose to follow, unhindered by sexism, fear, and any sense of inadequacy inculcated in her because of her gender? Could she fully honor what the colors of her homeland represent?
What if the person on the bicycle were LGBTQ…would they need to keep glancing back over their shoulder to see if someone might be coming up behind them to frighten, intimidate, even to kill them? Might they show colors they do not really trust in an attempt to keep themselves hidden, even while in plain sight?
What if this boy were Jewish, or Moslem, or Sikh, or atheist, or any other of the many varieties of religion and non-religion that belong in our nation? If he is anything but Christian, might he be riding away from the school where he is forced to declare his differentness because he cannot pretend to pray in the name of Jesus Christ? Might he display the colors in defiance of the American popular religion that mixes patriotism and quasi-Christianity?
If this Boy on the Bicycle with Feather were any of the above, or more, would they be certain that the laws of their homeland and the practices of their neighbors would allow them to see, to imagine, to explore…to at least give them a fair shot at conquering some piece of their worldly existence?
Most likely, not.
My eyes—forced opened by the frustration and anger of so many who were not white boys on bicycles in America’s 1950s—my eyes are examining the assumptions of my own experiences against the realities of their experiences. I assumed everyone could, if they wanted to, ride the same kind of road I have ridden to take their own version of the kind of journey I have taken, all the while gratefully waving the red, white, and blue without a second thought. What I have assumed was wrong.
I love Wyeth’s print, hanging near the door into the room in which I am writing this. It speaks to me, to my memories of growing up on a bike in Iowa. But it also speaks of the privilege that has been and is mine by accidents of my birth. What it says to me this 4th of July unsettles me.
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