I miss Leverage.
Bikers Against Child Abuse make abuse victims feel safe
These tough bikers have a soft spot: aiding child-abuse victims. Anytime, anywhere, for as long as it takes the child to feel safe, these leather-clad guardians will stand tall and strong against the dark, and the fear, and those who seek to harm.
The 11-year-old girl hears the rumble of their motorcycles, rich and deep, long before she sees them. She chews her bottom lip, nervous.
They are coming for her.
The bikers roar into sight, a pack of them, long-haired and tattooed, with heavy boots and leather vests, and some riding double. They circle the usually quiet Gilbert cul-de-sac, and the noise pulls neighbors from behind slatted wood blinds and glossy front doors.
One biker stops at the mouth of the street, parks in the middle of the road and stands guard next to his motorcycle, arms crossed.
The rest back up to the curb in front of the girl’s house, almost in formation, parking side by side. There are 14 motorcycles in all, mostly black and shiny chrome. The bikers rev their engines again before shutting them down.
The sudden silence is deafening. The girl’s mother takes her hand.
The leader of this motorcycle club is a 55-year-old man who has a salt-and-pepper Fu Manchu and wears his hair down past his shoulders. He eases off his 2000 Harley Road King and approaches the little girl.
He is formidable, and intimidating, and he knows it. So he bends low in front of the little girl and puts out his hand, tanned and weathered from the sun and wind: “Hi, I’m Pipes.”
“Nice to meet you,” she says softly, her small hand disappearing in his.
The unruly-looking mob in her driveway is there to help her feel safe again. They are members of the Arizona chapter of Bikers Against Child Abuse International, and they wear their motto on their black leather vests and T-shirts: “No child deserves to live in fear.”
I’ll admit - this made me tear up. I’d never heard of BACA before. Now I want to find the WA and OR chapters, and give them some money. I can’t give them a lot - I live hand-to-mouth - but they deserve my support. Surviving abuse is not - *not* - easy. These bikers have taken on a nearly-impossible task, struggling to make it a little easier. Amazing. Absolutely wonderful.
The bikers aren’t looking for trouble. They are there so the kids don’t feel so alone, or so powerless. Pipes recalls going to court with an 8-year-old boy, and how tiny he looked on the witness stand, his feet dangling a foot off the floor.
“It’s scary enough for an adult to go to court,” he says. “We’re not going to let one of our little wounded kids go alone.”
In court that day, the judge asked the boy, “Are you afraid?” No, the boy said.
Pipes says the judge seemed surprised, and asked, “Why not?”
The boy glanced at Pipes and the other bikers sitting in the front row, two more standing on each side of the courtroom door, and told the judge, “Because my friends are scarier than he is.”
This is the most beautiful, awe-inspiring thing I’ve read in a long time. I wanna write a book about these guys, Jesus Christ. Where’s the blockbuster movie about these badasses?
I’m, honestly, sobbing.
What wonderful, kindhearted people. Once again just proves that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
((I come from a family of bikers. And I just have to say that BACA is an amazing organization. They often participate in rides and fundraisers to benefit local children’s charities, as well as the things mentioned above. This is their website if anyone wants to visit their faq to learn more about their cause :) ))
My grandad’s family are bikers and this ligit made me cry gvdjdhvdc
![tastefullyoffensive:
[dierythmus]
That’s a f’n classic](http://25.media.tumblr.com/6928f25a4a82c7e7816d89aa0805ee8f/tumblr_mk6rkqnTLN1qewacoo1_500.jpg)
My little sister is getting made fun of at school because she’s adopted.
This is what she responded with “Well, my parents chose me. Your parents are stuck with you.”
If this makes you as angry as it makes me, then contact his publishers and/or sign this petition calling for him to be fired from his £700k a year job as a writer.
Lucy Meadows was a primary school teacher who did nothing other than to transition while keeping her job in the school. Unable to get her fired under the equal rights act, the more bigoted members of the community contacted the Daily Mail, and Richard Littlejohn wrote a column personally attacking her. He used the young children that she taught as a weapon, insisting that the transition would “damage their innocence”, referring to Miss Meadows as “he” throughout and declaring that she was putting her own wants above the well-being of the children she taught.
She was subsequently harassed by the press, all because she dared to transition and keep living her life like any other normal human being.
The Daily Mail only removed all mention of Miss Meadows from its article after she killed herself this week.
