Wall Street Occupied

I have been deliberately quiet about the Occupy Wall Street protests. I have friends over there. Sarah, one of my closest high school friends, was arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. Sex Workers Project was going down for the legal workshop. SWOP-NYC / SWANK had a sex worker contingent. Stacey from SWOP-LA has been reporting from #OccupyLA. My former co-workers at Whole Foods are facebooking about it in Chicago. Hell, even my childhood babysitter is posting links in support. And I just can’t get into it. Esther Choi wrote exactly what I’ve been feeling succinctly and eloquently:

But try as I might, I couldn’t seem to connect to the whole thing. It wasn’t a matter of being jaded or cynical – my ideals easily and constantly compel me into action, but nothing about Occupy Wall Street seemed to compel me. In fact, what I was seeing and hearing about it made me feel even more disempowered.

I don’t mean for this to be a litany of everything I don’t like about the protest. I don’t want to discourage anyone from being involved or detract from the very real power this holds for a lot of people. But I don’t feel like this is my movement, let alone my revolution.

I can’t camp out for days at a time. I can’t get arrested right now. I can’t make food for a big group of people. Because I can’t afford it. I have a job where I clock-in from 8-5 and I cannot afford to lose it. It’s the job that pays for me to eat, sleep in my apartment, and funds more of SWOP-LA than I like to admit. And while I realize that part of the point is the high rates of unemployment, I can’t help but wonder where this leaves the working poor. Or the rest of the 99% with one, or more, jobs that barely allow time to take care of themselves, let alone attend an occupation. I realize that those of us with time constraints can spend a couple hours here and there. But the message I’m hearing is “we, the organizers of Occupy Wall Street, will organize this movement on behalf of everyone, but you’re free to come support this revolutionary work we’re doing for you” I can’t connect with that. It makes me extremely uncomfortable.

And the issues of racism and white privilege compound my discomfort even more. The targeting of Wall Street as the epicenter of economic oppression ignores the history of economic disparity, not to mention the continued history of slavery, and economic ravages against people of color. This isn’t a new phenomenon.

I was extremely glad to see this letter from two white men around saying similar things. I hope it has an impact, and inspires more white organizers to take similar actions. The media images of the protest show a largely young and white population. And that’s a problem. Among other things – the 1% is predominantly white. These lines are racial, and that needs to be at the forefront of the protest, otherwise it doesn’t really make sense. Capitalism and the current economic policies are bad for everyone, but they’re even worse for people of color. I’ve seen multiple people point out “there’s people of color at Occupy Wall Street!” or “there’s people of color organizing, speaking at the general assembly, and have their own working group!” That’s great. But that feels a little too close to “but my best friend is black!” to me. It doesn’t take it out of a racist social structure. It doesn’t change that white voices are privileged in the media regarding OWS. It certainly doesn’t make it an anti-racist event.

Issues of exclusion based on race and class are important. And if anyone tells me again “but ANYONE can come and get involved!” I’m going to roll my eyes so hard I may need them surgically removed from the back of my skull. That is not being inclusive. That is a condescending cop-out, and places the burden on marginalized groups.

I don’t think young white girls should get maced by the cops. I don’t think anyone should have been arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge. But I think any talk about police brutality and incarceration that does not explicitly address about the way people of color are disproportionately targets for both is fucked up. I think the testimony of justin adkins of NYPD’s discriminatory treatment of him needs to bring up a larger conversation of police abuse against the trans* community as well as police abuse of protesters. I think it’s all too easy for Occupy Wall Street to get myopic, so focused on what’s happening with this one moment of protest that other forms of oppression are lost, or worse, perpetuated.

Another moment of this is the undertone of nationalism I’m hearing. Jessica Yee posted a brilliant piece on the problem with fighting capitalism without colonialism (with more links in her post to read!) that also addresses the issue of an “American” revolution. It was something I wasn’t sure how to address until I read Edward Murray in the Huffington Post share a lot of what I think is hopeful about this protest and ends with “Honestly, I wouldn’t expect anything less from the United States of America.” *facepalm* I know the protesters and organizers can’t control everything that’s taken from their messaging. But capitalizing on nationalism to build energy seems counterproductive. And further pushes me away.

I am deeply disturbed to see some of the same critics who jumped all over SlutWalk with such vitriol comfortably forgive what are incredibly similar problems with Occupy Wall Street.  Some wonderful and essential dialogues came out of those criticisms that made SlutWalk continue to get BETTER and changed the way people involved felt. It laid groundwork for better organizing. I think it’s blatant sexism that a protest run largely by women that has vague goals and clear failures when it comes to race and class is dismissed, but when a protest is run largely by men that has vague goals and clear failures when it comes to race and class is lauded as the coming of the revolution. When women of color spoke up in support of SlutWalk they were told that they were being tokenized. When women of color speak up in support of OWS they’re thanked for doing the hard work of entering an alienating space. Reactions were not unanimous in either case, and I’m obviously generalizing, but the discrepancy is there. It feels like class is being blatantly prioritized over gender, and it feels all too familiar. I am sick of being told that class warfare should take precedence over everything else, that other concerns can wait. I am sick of feeling alienated in radical spaces. And I’m sick of having these arguments over and over again. Of course the radical community is fucked up, and that’s ok. But if we’re going to inspire real change we need to at the very least be honest about who we are, and then try to be better than that.

And I am still hopeful. I believe in the potential OWS has. I hope this becomes a space where people learn about new issues, about communication, about activism, about each other, and about themselves. I hope that I’m proved wrong and Occupy Wall Street manages to address all my concerns and those of the rest of the 99% and turns into a glorious movement that starts rebuilding a better world for all of us. I sincerely hope it at least contributes to that project. This is not a protest I feel connected to, but that doesn’t diminish the power it can have in other spaces. I certainly don’t want my disconnect to detract from anyone else’s enthusiasm.  Manissa McCleave Maharawal’s expresses the hope I have here:

This is important because I think this is what Occupy Wall Street is right now: less of a movement and more of a space. It is a space in which people who feel a similar frustration with the world as it is and as it has been, are coming together and thinking about ways to recreate this world. For some people this is the first time they have thought about how the world needs to be recreated. But some of us have been thinking about this for a while now. Does this mean that those of us who have been thinking about it for a while now should discredit this movement? No. It just means that there is a lot of learning going on down there and that there is a lot of teaching to be done.

and here’s Sarah S-K giving me even more hope for what that kind of space could mean:

But it’s important also to stress that what’s happening in the park isn’t some sort of culmination, or ending point in our struggle against oppression.  Spaces like that are created organically everyday, but go unrecognized as part of a movement.

Sex Workers Are The 99%

We are the 99%

Links Referenced:

EDIT: Naturally, right after I finish writing this, I find a blog that’s collecting critiques of OWS. Figures. None of what I’m saying is new. And more is being written every day. And I’d like to emphasize that I really really hope that the reports I’m hearing about it being organic and changing and taking turns for the better are true. I haven’t written this off yet – I’m just pissed right now. And I won’t apologize for that. But here’s: http://disoccupy.wordpress.com/

Among The 99% – Esther Choi

An Open Letter From Two White Men To #OCCUPYWALLSTREET

Police mistreatment of a transgender man – Brooklyn Bridge Occupy Wall Street Protest Saturday – justin adkins

OCCUPY WALL STREET: The Game of Colonialism and further nationalism to be decolonized from the “Left” – Jessica Yee

The Hidden Power of Occupy Wall Street – Edward Murray

SO REAL IT HURTS: Notes on Occupy Wall Street – Manissa McCleave Maharawal

Beyond the Bridge – Sarah SK