Occupy Wall Street

Note: This post has nothing to do with food but I decided to share it here anyways. 

In response to people who believe that the Occupy Wall Street protests are nothing but people whining, I’ve decided to share my own experience at OWS in the hopes of showing another perspective on this movement. Or should I say “movements”? The energy of OWS continues to spread across the nation and the world. These are not isolated events but rather part of a larger shift in consciousness—a global shift that can encompass people of different ages, genders, sexual orientations, nations, races, religions, languages, and countless other categories we create to divide ourselves from one another.  

So then what is happening at OWS with all these people converging together? Is it really just a “bunch of whiners” or “a joke” to quote two recent naysayers on my Facebook page?

No, it is not.

Remember, this is a movement of many people. It is unfair to take one face or one image and place it as an essential representation of the OWS movement. People come and go at OWS—some have signs, some have questions. Some are protesters, some are observers, some teeter on the brink in between. Some have jobs, some are in poverty. Some are purposively unemployed, some were forced into it. Some are students, some are teachers. Some are atheist, some are agnostic, some are deeply religious. Some are parents, some are single. Some can walk, some are in wheelchairs. Some are adults, some are kids. Some are there to meditate in quiet contemplation, some are there to shout their concerns to the world. Some are reading the Constitution, some are singing songs of resistance.

Amidst all these people is a library, a sanitation area, food supplies, and a medic station.

The main theme of OWS is that “We are the 99%” of the world as opposed to the 1%—“the banks, the mortgage industry, the insurance industry.” There is a general consensus that capitalism and corporations are damaged and that they have evolved into a phenomena that plagues culture, society, and the everyday occurrences in individual lives. As a dear friend of mine recently summed up, “You can’t get the 1% without oppressing somebody.” And that oppression is so widespread and occurring at so many levels that it seems impossible to maneuver the matrix of uncertainty and illusion.

Despite variations on what is actually being protested, there is one thing—everyone is present there. For whatever reason, these particular people have come together at a particular moment in time. They carry with them the idea that the world can be better than what it is right now, and that if we are truly to make it a better place we need to stop doing it at the expense of human life. The suffering around the world can be eased to some degree if we work together, collaborate, and talk.

It’s as though there are two Americas—one that is a concrete power structure built on debt, people getting fired and losing their homes, people unable to put food on the table, prisons packed to the brim, school that neglect students, people suffering without health care, and countless individuals oppressed for difference. And then there is another level to America, one that hovers and glistens above the experiential America that we’ve created. It rings with notions that all people are created equal and that we can live in peace, freedom, and equality. As both a student and a professor of American history I have come to love that ideal of America—those ideals do indeed motivate and inspire me. But the reality of America falls much too short of that ideal, which ends of blinding people from seeing just how distorted that reality is. The thing is—we created that supposedly real power structure, but in actuality it is just as illusory and transparent as the ideal.

We have the power to create a world that we want—we can do it together but first we need to deal with the systems that perpetuate such drastic inequality and suffering.

We can’t do it until we’ve seen clearly through those confusing, dehumanizing, and oppressive structures that currently dominate our world. OWS creates a space for dialogue to occur. In a world increasingly connected by on-line communication one can still enter into an physical environment of like-minded (and sometimes not so like-minded) people just to talk about what they think needs to be addressed in America and around the world and maybe come up with a solution. While the internet is critical for the spread of this movement, there is something refreshing about seeing people coming together for both fleeting and sustained moments where the idea of revolution doesn’t seem so distant.

For all of you out there who think Occupy Wall Street is a joke—well, you’re perfectly welcome to think what you want. But just be aware that something is happening right now. There is no way to tell exactly how events will unfold or what the effect of OWS will be. We could see immediate results or we might not know just what OWS’s impact will be until far into the future. But that doesn’t matter—what matters is that right now you can make your voice heard and listen to others. Do you really want to miss out on that? I’ve waited a long time for that opportunity—a long time since I used to sit alone in my room and wonder why the world seemed so disturbed; why people plastered corporate logos across their bodies, paying to literally drape themselves with advertisements; why no one else seemed to think “oh shit, what is the government going to do now?” after the planes hit the twin towers and the nation exploded into a disgusting display of false patriotism. While I did find some people in college and afterward who also questioned the status quo, now it’s clearer than ever that there are others, many others, around the world who also see through the façade. They’ve been there all along, and OWS provides an opportunity to come together.

Today I walked by a young man who was being interviewed. All I heard him say was “I’m not here to create a policy, I’m here to create a culture.” Well, I found a new culture today—complex and unclear, yes, but one still striving for a different world—and I, for one, am embracing it.

Peace.