Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I grew up in New
York City in very lefty, progressive circles. I’ve
been on marches since I was a baby. I think that over time I got a little jaded
about it because you get a permit, go on the march, and everyone has the signs.
It’s just the same thing again and again. You don’t feel like it’s changing
much. It’s just the same group of people. It’s a little bubble of safety. We
all mostly agree with each other. I had become pretty jaded over the years. I
had thought that one day I would want a child, but I was thinking, “That’s not
going to happen. There is no future. This is like the apocalypse. It’s all
coming to an end.”
I heard about Occupy through the magazine. I was already plugged into all these circles that knew about Occupy.
When I joined and became a part of it, it just felt totally different from
everything else. It felt like a space of real hope. I actually had hope for the
future and what we were doing. As the community grew at Zuccotti, it became
this home away from home. I never actually slept there except for the night that
they were being threatened with eviction when so many of us showed up. It was
still a home away from home for me. I went there, and there was this positive energy.
Everyone was doing lots of different things, but everyone was immediately your
friend. They were all there with the same purpose to be human beings. We were
not stuck being a male or female or a certain ethnicity or a certain social
class or education or belief system. We were just there to be with each other
and to support each other and create a real community that we don’t see
anymore. It’s all advertizing and shopping and isolating.
I feel that it’s the most important thing that’s going on
right now. Most of our daily life is about unimportant things. People are like,
“I’m going to go to school. Then, I’m going to college. Then, I’m going to grad
school. Then, I’m going to get a job and have a family” and be this robotic
person or this lemming or this zombie. Within the Occupy movement, there are so
many ways to be a part of it and to express dissent. I think it’s the only real
way right now to protest the powers that be, protest the way that things are,
the way that the earth is being destroyed, the way we are destroying people’s
livelihoods. The reason it’s important is because it just disrupts everything
that we take for granted, everything that is told to us. All of our history is
written by white men or the powerful countries or whoever is the colonizer.
I
feel like what’s the most special thing about Occupy is that it didn’t start
here. There are occupations and actions and people rising up all over the
world. I feel like we’re all finally connected. Through media and Twitter in
2012, we are able to truly be connected and talk and say, “Oh, you’re doing
this thing over in Quebec or Germany or
wherever. Well, we’re going to support you here.” It’s not like we’re all
struggling by ourselves.
I hope for a world where money doesn’t exist. I think that’s
what it really comes down to because that will affect everything. The only
reason we have jobs to make money is so that we can have shelter and food, and
so we can be happy. I think that one of the things that we saw at liberty Plaza