Anti-Police Brutality March, March 24, 2012
Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I
heard on the news that folks had gathered here in the park that week in
September and followed it in the news for the week. I came for the second week
and hung out and wandered around. I didn’t really engage too much with people,
but I was so intrigued by what had brought them all together and the fact that
they weren’t making demands and that there had very quickly sprung up this
community of people who were serious about calling attention to the vast,
systemic problems in the financial sector, the greed and corruption, and the
inseparable, deeply detrimental nature of politics and the corporate world.
I kept gravitating
toward the park, and I’m not an extrovert at all, so it was hard for me to
engage with people. I wasn’t quite sure where I fit in. I joined the Education
Working Group, and I didn’t feel like that was a good fit. One night I came
down and was talking to somebody at the info table, and I said, “I don’t know
what to do,” and she said, “Well, how about sitting here while I go to the
bathroom,” so I sat down and started learning how to work the info table, which
also helped me learn more about Occupy. I started meeting people, and I loved
doing that sort of outreach. The public would walk by and say, “What are you
all about? What’s going on here?”
After the eviction, I became far more involved. I never camped down here. I would come and hang out until the wee hours, but I didn’t feel very actively engaged until after the eviction. I came down that night. I got the text blast, and I came as quickly as I could, and by the time I got here, the riot police were in the streets and doing the pepper spraying and all of that, so I couldn’t get close. After that, I was really basically aflame, inspired, outraged. I joined Direct Action shortly after the eviction. With OWS, I feel like I finally found the people I was looking for, people who are brave and smart and creative. As for DA, in particular I love the creative component of our actions. I feel like we’re figuring out who we—OWS—are and that’s going to take time. We’re learning about each other and how we work best together and how we can be unified yet still contribute our own individual ideas and talents. I feel like I have a new family. I feel dissatisfied when I’m unable to do Occupy-related activities and have to go to my day job.
I think from an environmental perspective, we’re in great danger, and we have to intervene in a really radical way right now; a part of the problem is that there’s no regulation of industry with regard to the environment. They can pollute endlessly, with impunity. They can keep digging coal. They can keep trashing the earth. We need to call a halt to all of the excess and corruption and the degradation of the environment, and I suppose of the collective consciousness too. We are all programmed in a way to be accepting of the status quo because we’re either fearful, or we’re hopeful that we might somehow become part of the really small minority that possesses nearly everything; for so many people I think there’s this tiny flicker of hope that they might get there, become part of that tiny minority of the super-wealthy or at least the leisure class, which is shrinking nonetheless. I think that people persist in believing in some kind of illusive and completely mythical American dream.
After the eviction, I became far more involved. I never camped down here. I would come and hang out until the wee hours, but I didn’t feel very actively engaged until after the eviction. I came down that night. I got the text blast, and I came as quickly as I could, and by the time I got here, the riot police were in the streets and doing the pepper spraying and all of that, so I couldn’t get close. After that, I was really basically aflame, inspired, outraged. I joined Direct Action shortly after the eviction. With OWS, I feel like I finally found the people I was looking for, people who are brave and smart and creative. As for DA, in particular I love the creative component of our actions. I feel like we’re figuring out who we—OWS—are and that’s going to take time. We’re learning about each other and how we work best together and how we can be unified yet still contribute our own individual ideas and talents. I feel like I have a new family. I feel dissatisfied when I’m unable to do Occupy-related activities and have to go to my day job.
I think from an environmental perspective, we’re in great danger, and we have to intervene in a really radical way right now; a part of the problem is that there’s no regulation of industry with regard to the environment. They can pollute endlessly, with impunity. They can keep digging coal. They can keep trashing the earth. We need to call a halt to all of the excess and corruption and the degradation of the environment, and I suppose of the collective consciousness too. We are all programmed in a way to be accepting of the status quo because we’re either fearful, or we’re hopeful that we might somehow become part of the really small minority that possesses nearly everything; for so many people I think there’s this tiny flicker of hope that they might get there, become part of that tiny minority of the super-wealthy or at least the leisure class, which is shrinking nonetheless. I think that people persist in believing in some kind of illusive and completely mythical American dream.
Anyway, the need
for radical change is urgent; beyond urgent. Once somebody has been given leave
to be excessive, to take at the expense of others, there’s nothing that’s going
to stop them, certainly not a sense of morality, so we have to stand up and say
“Enough!” and fight for what’s right, what is just. OWS has been criticized for
being somewhat homogeneous, which is not true, and all of us who are members
know that we are a very diverse group, but we’ve been criticized for being a group
of privileged people who are trying to assert that we are the voice of the
oppressed. It's just not true, and those of us who have been more privileged
than others also have the opportunity that those more oppressed groups don’t
have to stand up and raise our voices. We’re getting beaten down more and more.
Nevertheless, it’s far less problematic for me as a white woman from a middle
class family to face off with the cops than it is for a black woman or a black
man or a Latina or a transgender person. My point is it’s critical for us to be
united and not to let those people who want to make us fearful make us also
incredibly divisive.
I hope this will bring about a world where the individual isn’t central in the social unit, where others are considered as much as oneself, where we have a sense of the potential strength and solidarity of a collective, not that we have to think alike or be alike or anything, but we consider that when one of us is oppressed or ill that it affects the rest of us. I hope for a world where we have a sense of responsibility to take care of one another. I don’t think that’s cultivated these days, true altruism or compassion of community. I think people might be more outraged if they were more deeply affected, but they haven’t been yet, so until they are directly affected, they don’t stand up and say, “Enough already!”
I hope this will bring about a world where the individual isn’t central in the social unit, where others are considered as much as oneself, where we have a sense of the potential strength and solidarity of a collective, not that we have to think alike or be alike or anything, but we consider that when one of us is oppressed or ill that it affects the rest of us. I hope for a world where we have a sense of responsibility to take care of one another. I don’t think that’s cultivated these days, true altruism or compassion of community. I think people might be more outraged if they were more deeply affected, but they haven’t been yet, so until they are directly affected, they don’t stand up and say, “Enough already!”
It’s a terrible
shame that people can’t have the kind of empathy that they should have. My life
is pretty good still. So far, I’m very fortunate to have an education, a job,
but I don’t think that I deserve either more than the next person. It grieves
me, and it always has that people suffer. So many people suffer when a very
small number of people claim the resources for themselves. I think that’s
unconscionable, and I’ve never understood it. I think I’ve always had a real
inherent sense of social justice, and I’ve always gravitated toward activities
that helped me interact with people who aren’t like me to try to understand the
plight of others or the perspective of others. A new society would look like
people taking care of each other rather than competing with one another.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/