Bigsofty

Occupy National Gathering, July 4, 2012, Philadelphia

Photo: Stacy Lanyon

As a student activist, I had been involved in Georgia Students for Higher Education (GSPHE), United Students Against Sweat Shops and Students and Workers in Solidarity at Emory University. In February of 2011 with United Students against Sweat Shops, we started trying to kick out Sodexo from public universities. Thirteen of these universities had Sodexo kicked off of their campus for human rights violations. I think there were 71 total arrests nationally and maybe 10-12 total arrests internationally. I was involved in trying to help students against rising tuition and help workers get more benefits, a living wage and free metro passes in the spring of 2011 when I was arrested on Emory’s campus during a four day tent city. The Occupy Movement was still months away at this point. Later, a lot of those involved in the student resistance joined Occupy resistance.

I was not so sure if our student movements were having a deep impact. Little direct action had started to pop up the rest of the year. Then on October 1st, on livestream, I saw the Brooklyn Bridge shutdown by Occupy Wall Street and all the arrests, one of them a thirteen-year-old young lady. I believed we were on the brink of a revolution. Superheroes were real just like in the comic books and we were just about to gain major powers and take direct action again the 1% that controlled all of our lives. Occupy Atlanta started October 7^th, and Occupy GSU (Georgia State University) started on January of 2012.

Students that once could afford public education can no longer afford it. This is absolutely unfair, and I don't think that a lot of us in school have a solution. I believe the alternative is to just make public universities absolutely FREE… education free... institutions free... As far as the Occupy GSU context, it’s very important that students recognize that they are not only the catalysts of the movement but that they are the movement. The 99% is represented by a lot of young people. A large percent of those are students, workers and moms. I believe the power comes in strategy and action. In the context of Occupy, those actions usually involve shutting down public spaces in order to take over public spaces.

I hope that the Occupy movement creates a revolution. If it doesn’t create a revolution, I hope it brings about more free speech. In America at this time, even amongst the activists, there is censored free speech, which says that we’re allowed to speak, but we don’t want to offend people. I believe we should all just work harder to offend people because only in them being offended will they start to talk about what their needs and goals are also, so offend them now, and stand in solidarity with them later. A few weeks ago, I came up with the idea that Occupy is different from the Civil Rights Movement and the other past revolutions. It’s a revolution of friends and enemies. Friends and enemies are the superheroes this time fighting against the 1%. 

I would love to live in a world without superheroes, where everyone is just trying to help each other.  In the world that we have the superheroes, the people are needed to remind everyone that the world does not mostly play fair and that we must keep fighting and continue to try to save the world. Our freedoms are worth saving, protecting and creating.

Post revolution, I believe there will be no need for superheroes to save education, to save teens, or to save schools because people will have the kind of education, the kind of city and neighborhoods that they desire. It is very important that communities be heard especially when it comes to decisions that will have an everlasting effect on the young people of the world. Post Occupy, I believe students will have time to communicate and talk about the new world instead wondering about the price tag on their ongoing education.

I have become the superhero that I’ve always wanted to be. I will not save the world like Captain America or Robin, but I will have an impact because students are united now. Former friends and enemies are now the student movement. We will continue to dig the direct action knife deep, to the point that liberty and consciousness bleed back out into our world where they are supposed to be.

Interview by Stacy Lanyon

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