Sunday, August 5, 2012

Katherine Ramos

June 28, 2012, Union Square
Photo: Stacy Lanyon

What drew me to Occupy was fear for my son’s future, honestly, and seeing the dire situation around us, around friends. My friend from Spain sent me this invite through Facebook. It was for Occupy Wall Street. He said to me, “Since I can’t be there, you gotta represent for both of us.” I was like, “Absolutely!” I couldn’t make it on September 17th, but I made it down on September 24th. It’s been a love story since then. Just seeing all the signs and seeing a mom with a child, I knew that we were all together for this. I’m here more for my son who is five then I am for me. I’m really afraid for him. I’m scared for him, or I was. Now I have hope. Now I have faith in humanity.

I initially went down to the park with the intention to bring donations and to just kind of stay there and see where the energy took me. I went down and brought water and stuff. I went to give the donation, and the occupier had this spark in his eye, and he was so grateful that I came down to give this donation, and he gave me this big hug. It was welcoming and a little bit shocking because I have never been a part of an activist situation where it was so warm. That warmth just kept me there, so I stayed.Then, we went on the march. It was beautiful to walk with people who were energetic and very full of convictions, and there was a sense of anger in there, but it didn't necessarily overtake them, which was beautiful. You can be angry, and you can have your conviction, and you can have this resolve to change things, but it doesn't have to be overwhelming and scary. It was a beautiful energy, which obviously made me want to keep going. We just kept marching, and I was among the group that got corralled at East 12th and 5th Avenue. That was the first big arrest for Occupy, 70 some odd people. 

 I've been friends with the people I got arrested with ever since and have made even more connections from there. I then did the action at Duarte Square on D17, and my cellmates from that action have become close friends with me. It started out with, “Oh, let me check this out and see what’s going on,” and now I’m part of this community with beautiful relationships. Seeing it evolve from a park with just signs all over the ground to being a real sustainable community with an info hub and a media hub and a kitchen and a library was beautiful. It looked like a tribe. I wanted to be part of the tribe, and I became part of this tribe. Now, I want to create more tribes all over the world and show the system that we don’t need it, that the people can make their own thing, that my son can live and prosper in that, and that the all mighty dollar is not as all mighty as people want to make it out to be.

 It's important because of  the brutality that I've witness, that I’ve been in the middle of. It has been something in neighborhoods I've grown up in on a constant basis. This small group of people have a stronghold on the futures of so many. It is important to wake more people to the atrocities of not just this government but that this global system is creating all over the world. Other economies have fallen because of the decisions made on Wall Street. There’s so much hypocrisy, even in the president himself, speaking against the repression going on in Egypt, while in his own backyard, people are being beaten to a pulp. All of those things make it important to me. My son was born with debt. The moment you’re born, you are born into debt. He may not ever see social security. He may not ever be able to attain health insurance, at least with the way the system is now. 

 The important thing for me is to develop the anti-system, a community that’s not based on money but based on mutual aid and respect, based on real understanding and horizontal democracy. We can be the alternative society and make it the main society. That’s the only way that my son will have a chance. That’s the only way that the future of this country and the world will have a chance at survival. We need to take our globe back. The fact that this movement has so many different parts to it, so many different perspectives to it that touch on every basic need makes it so important to me because I fit everywhere in it. I kind of label myself the anar-hippy because I’m a big, firm believer in peace and love and the absence of government as it is now. That makes me an anarchist hippy. 

 I don’t want my son to wake up and be 18, 19, 20 years old and the situation be the way it is now or worse for him, where he has no clue where his next meal will come from or has no ability to obtain education because it’s just not in the cards with regards to money for him. He’s so bright now. He’s so amazing now. To see that disappear because we don’t have the financial means for him to gain further education is horrible to me. I want him to know his neighbors. I want him to love his neighbors. I want him to really be able to reach out and know his community. This movement is so important because it forced us into being that community. When you sleep in a park, when it’s cold as all hell, and you need food or you need a cup of coffee, you turn to your neighbor, “Hey, let’s go get a cup of coffee.” “Hey, so what’s your story?” “This is why I’m here. Why are you here?” It’s a real bond that you form. That’s why it’s important. We’re getting back to being human again, that connection, that plug in. We're unplugging from that stupid capitalist society and plugging into humanity again.

Every time I describe  The world that I hope it will help bring about,  I’m labeled a Utopian for thinking that way. I want a world where children have free education. I want a world where I know my neighbors, where I feel like I can walk down a street and smile at them and connect with them on the most basic of levels. I want a world where we are not divided by class, not divided by the color of our skin, not divided by what label we’re wearing on our clothes, which happens to be made in third world countries anyway. I want a world where my child doesn’t have to fear saying what’s on his mind for fear of being persecuted or prosecuted in any way, a world where everybody is free to love whoever they fucking want regardless of what gender or race they are, without scrutiny or judgment or criticism. I just want a world full of love, love for humanity, love for the earth, love for animals because seeing it in the small scale makes me believe that it can happen on the large scale. 
We show solidarity with people all across the globe that we’ve never met or seen before, but we know their struggle. We’re bonded because of that struggle. I think that we can grow into that society or community that’s bonded because of love. That’s what I want. I want to see us all prosper because we help each other, not because we hurt each other, not because of competition. “I’m here on top of this hill, and you can get here too. Let me help you.” That’s the world that I want. That’s the legacy I want for my son. I want my son to inherit that. I don’t want him to inherit debt. I don’t want him to inherit hatred. I don’t want him to inherit bombs or drones. That’s what we have now, and we don’t need that. We can change that. There’s my Utopia.  
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
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