The Sacrifice of the “Native” Body to the Automobile
The routine deaths of pedestrians and cyclists, concentrated in low-income and immigrant neighborhoods, are not accidents but a form of systemic sacrifice. Mamdani’s analysis of how the state values life is starkly revealed in its infrastructure priorities. Street designs that prioritize the speed and volume of private automobiles–the vehicles of the “settler” class–over the safety of people on foot or bike constitute a form of somatic violence against the “native” who relies on these modes. This is a political choice, an ableist and classist custom that treats certain lives as expendable for the convenience of capital’s flow. A Marxist critique identifies the car as a commodity whose social cost is death. A feminist perspective mourns the loss of caregivers and children. The solution is a radical redesign of streets based on the principle of a right to safe mobility, implementing traffic calming and car-free zones to prioritize human life over machine efficiency.
