As one of the many Americans still holding out hope for much-needed changes in this country, I had very low expectations when the Occupy Wall Street protests first began in NYC.
Like any marginally internet/social media-savvy person with a healthy distrust for politicians and cable news (cough, FoxNews) I was able to set aside all the criticisms of the protesters and keep an open mind prior to setting foot in Zuccotti Park. But I remained skeptical that this was more than a flash in the pan moment of American societal self-awareness.
At face value it seemed less like history in the making and more like a random gathering of frustrated New Yorkers squatting in a park to voice their discontent with an economy that refuses to improve, a government that can’t or won’t do anything about it, and with watching a tiny minority of fat cats continue to rake in the dough while the rest of us scrape by. I saw it as essentially a more rational, less xenophobic version of the Tea Party.
But as the movement continues to gather steam, it’s clear that something worth seriously examining is happening at Broadway and Liberty Street.
This past weekend I decided to hop on the C train downtown and check it out for myself and, despite several reports to the contrary, found some inspiring, very sane activists from nearly every walk of life. Perhaps most interesting of all was the amount of young people in attendance, which stands in stark contrast to the Tea Party Movement.
Those with whom I spoke at length included a homeless 19-year old, a pair of female graduate school-educated grassroots activists and a group of high school students who ventured to the park in support of their 17-year-old classmate who was arrested during the protests.
After listening to these young men and women share their opinions on the state of our Union, passionately critique the failures of our government as a whole and voice specific demands for change, it became clear that Occupy Wall Street has the potential to develop into a true movement, not just one in name only.
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The most common question the media is asking the Occupy Wall Street protesters is “what do you want, specifically?”
Mark, a student in his early twenties, explained what brought him to Zuccotti Park:
“From our work and our dollars, all the way to our pensions, we’re supporting wars when we should be supporting peace and we should be using that money to create jobs, and education and helping the homeless.”
When asked his opinion of the media’s criticism that the movement lacks a clear message, Mark said, “I think the media’s being a little bit myopic to be honest, because there’s someone here who’s protesting about the bank bailouts, there’s someone here protesting about homelessness … these are all related issues.”
A few minutes later I ran into Black Feather, a 19-year-old Black former engineering student from the Bronx who voluntarily left home to live amongst his fellow protesters at the beginning of the demonstrations and has been living in the park ever since.
“This is a community. People getting together, ignoring skin color [and] not trying to push their political view on another person. It’s real in the sense that community-wide, everyone here understands each other. We might not share all the same views and goals, but we respect each other. What attracted me here was the equality. Yeah, some of us still have our jobs, some of us still have our homes, but we don’t treat that person any different.”
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As his friend nearby rolled a joint, Black Feather went on to explain the kind of change he’d like to see.
“I want to see our resources, the world’s resources pulled together because there never was this government’s oil or that government’s oil, but the world’s oil. But the governments sprang up and started claiming shit for themselves and now we have countries out there starving, countries literally starving, because they don’t have the cash to pay for resources that they don’t have. That’s not right, that’s not equal and that’s not humane. We’re humans, there’s no subcategories. That’s it. So as one species we have an obligation to each other to help each other prosper and grow. Not beat each other up to have more.”
Not exactly a realistic goal for the movement and probably something that would make a lot of conservative Republican heads explode. But many struggling people around the globe would without a doubt agree with his values. When asked if it’s fair to compare the Occupy Wall Street Movement to the Tea Party Movement, Black Feather, whose friend was now puffing away in public in broad daylight, had this to say through a thickening cloud of smoke:
“No. First off the media hasn’t been here for almost a week straight. And when they do come by its for about 2-5 minutes of their time. Also the coverage they have is mostly of negative stuff – the cops beating up on us – which they twist into headlines like ‘Wall Street Fight’ or ‘The Brooklyn Bridge Fight’ or ‘the Wall Street Brawl.’ There wasn’t a brawl…these are peaceful people who got beat up and cornered by cops!”
One of the incidences he mentioned was from day 8 of the protests, the same one also witnessed by Mark, who moments earlier described the scene as “people being pulled over fences and beaten to the ground and handcuffed for doing nothing when they were peaceful.”
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After chopping it up with Black Feather, I stood up to take in the scene as a whole, avoid a contact high, and push further into the mass of people ahead of me. There was a considerable buzz and energy emanating from the crowd as a group of live bloggers debated amongst themselves and typed frantically on their laptops to my right. A man in his 40s held high a sign reading “Crimes Against Humanity –> Wall St.” to my left.
Even further in lay a huge area with sleeping bags, bicycles and plastic bags full of clothing piled high amid more protest signs and American flags. At the other side of the park were 6 men sitting on steps playing bongos for a crowd of smiling women and men, aged 15 to 50, dancing like Flower Children of the ’60s Woodstock. Signs reading “RONALD REAGAN sucked balls” and “I AM HERE FOR MY 3 KIDS’ FUTURE” bounced up and down behind them. To their right was a group of 8 chanting individuals holding signs who looked far too young to understand the issues of the day. I was wrong.
“Mary,” a 16-year-old from Stuyvesant High School, spoke to me about what brought her down to the park on several consecutive days.
“One of our friends (17 years old) recently got arrested when he came over here and so we got interested in the movement. [It was] the only reason at first I came and because all the videos of the girls getting maced and people being attacked and that’s not what we should be doing. Of course the police are not trained to deal with situations like these where people are protesting. They’re not prepared for this kind of situation so I guess it’s understandable on some level, but at the same time it’s still not okay to attack people. In our constitution if we have an issue with the way our government is being run then we should be able to protest. We are the people… We should be able to protest safely because that’s what being a democracy is about. That’s what drew most everybody [with me] in.”
While her friend’s legal situation initially pulled her in, her investment in the movement became stronger as the crowds grew and her negative first impressions broke down:
“At first it was just a bunch of hipsters basically playing the bongos and I was like ‘I’m not really into this’” she said with a laugh. “But you can see more and more people are joining because even though there are differences – there are Republicans and Tea Party members here, everybody’s here – it’s a democracy.
There are people who I don’t agree with everything they say but I can still agree that our ideas should matter and right now it doesn’t matter what the majority think, it’s about what the top 2 percent think and there’s something wrong with that.”
“I don’t think it’s fair to compare us to the Tea Party. I think that we might not agree on everything but we have a fair point when we say that corporations run our government. We might not agree on everything but that message stands firm.”
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Darkness began to fall and two women holding signs reading “We are all lazy hippies!” arrived. One, a grad school-educated patient navigator at a not-for-profit house and a reproductive health trainer, explained why she chose to participate and reiterated Mary’s view that the protesters do share identifiable common bonds.
“Like most people here I’m very frustrated with the economy and the fact that most politicians are doing nothing to fix it,” she said. “There’s a lot of talk and not a lot of action…I think it is cohesive because we’re all out here because something’s wrong with the way the country is being run. And that doesn’t just pertain to the economy, it pertains to everything. Social services, education, it touches everything. We’re not just here saying “just create more jobs.”
Everyone is out here with a different agenda but it’s all related to the fact that we’re frustrated with the government not listening and the fact that all of the services that the government should be providing for us – you know like helping us pay for school so that we can continue to be a world power – instead of doing that they’d rather just make the rich richer. Which they don’t realize, in the long run, everyone is going to get poorer because America will fall.”
Her friend, a current graduate student studying nonprofit management at The New School, had come to the park for the first time two days earlier with an organized student walkout at her college.
“I came out with a bunch of students frustrated that there are so many people who don’t have jobs and we are the 99 percent and it’s so frustrating that there are people sitting on all this money… with tuition at schools going up and it being so difficult to get a job even after [graduating] I definitely wanted to come down and continue to support it.”
Millions across the country share her sentiments:
“I really hope that it doesn’t just end after all this fun protesting – that actually something comes of it – start organizing a movement that’ll actually bring about change, and actually force our government and that 1 percent to really re-evaluate what’s going on.”
Only time will tell if Occupy Wall Street will bring about the changes the vast majority of Americans desire. After witnessing the spirit of the movement in person and speaking with those who comprise it, my perception of OWS has certainly changed. The energy and passion of the young men and women at Zuccotti Park gives us all reason to remain hopeful for the future.
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Local high schoolers hold up signs during the Occupy Wall Street protest in Manhattan.
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A protest sign is mounted near several belongings of protesters who have camped out at Zuccotti Park.
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A protester holds up a sign reading “Wall Street occupies our government – Occupy Wall Street“
