Fight Back Bank of America, March 15, 2012, Liberty Square
Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I personally wanted revolution for quite a while or at least
some form of change. One day on my way to work, there was a guy in a suit
handing out the Occupied Wall Street Journal. It was the first time I heard
about Occupy Wall Street. I read the whole paper and decided that the next time
I had a day off of work I was going to check it out. It took me a while to
find the park. Once I got there, it was really awesome. It was a bunch of
people who wanted to change the world together, and they were living as a
commune amongst themselves. Even though there were disagreements between people
in the park, everyone wanted the same thing at the end of the day, and I was
like, “Fuck yeah! I want to be a part of this.”
To me it’s important because I grew up an anarchist, and I
kept learning more and more about the failures of the system and the lies that
the government has told its people, not just here in America but throughout the world. I
always wanted to change it, to go from what we are right now to something
better for everyone. I never had that growing up, so I decided to take a part
in it and do my best to try and change the world.
I hope for a world where people are no longer worried about
their gender or skin color, where we just see everybody as people. That’s what
we all are at the end of the day. Whether we have money or not, we’re all
people. We all breathe. We all go to the bathroom. We shouldn’t treat each
other as lesser beings because some of us have more money or some of us have less
money. We should try to help each other out. I’d like a world full of mutual
aid and respect for everyone and what they believe in.
I’ve been to five occupations and met a lot of people, and
I’ve learned that by helping people out, you will get helped out in the end. I
was out in Boston
with not a dollar to my name. They gave me money to come back to New York , and they had a
place for me to sleep while I was there. People do have good values in them. We
just need to show the world that it’s okay to do that. There is nothing wrong
with being good to your neighbor and being good to strangers.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon