Photo: Stacy Lanyon
I came down on September 17th to Bowling Green
just to take photographs, to find out how many people would be down there, what
was going on. I had never really done activism before, and I ended up staying
the first night in Zuccotti. I never ended up leaving. I came down every
single day all the way until the raid. I was working in Brooklyn at the time. I
had an apartment. The day of the Brooklyn Bridge, I was at work. I
was getting tweets, and my friends were texting me about what was going on, and
I felt like I was missing out on these really important events. I put in my two week
notice that day. My sublet was over at the end of September, so on October 1st,
I moved out to Zuccotti. I lived there for a month and a half until the
raid.
I loved the sense of community. I remembered that from my
childhood. It was a sense of something that had almost been lost. People were
caring for one another and feeding each other. There was empathy and a sense of
comradery. I feel like a lot of the people that were in the park felt their entire lives like they
didn’t belong anywhere, like they were outcasts from normal society. I know that I
tried to fit in all of my life, and it just never worked. I was always
different. The park was really a space where people were coming together, not just for a sense of belonging but for a sense of purpose. Troughout the day, people would go to their own meetings or their
own actions, but we would come together at the end of the day and just be
together.
Every day we wake up, there is injustice going on
in the world. We have the Stop and Frisk policy that’s going on in New York
City, which is really going on nationwide. We just have a name for it here in
New York City. What’s going on with Fracking and the environment is really scary. There are so
many things that are wrong with the world. We’re in the
belly of the beast. The United States really is the center for all of the
destruction that is being caused in the rest of the world. The United States feels
like it needs to occupy, in the negative sense, the rest of the world. We have military bases in different countries all over the world, strategically placed.
Living in a capitalistic society, things are very destructive. It’s all about
money. It’s all about profit. It’s all about power.
I’ve been writing about and thinking about what kind of world would I
like to live in. I don’t believe in my life I’ll actually see the kind of world
that I’d like to live in, but I’m hoping that our efforts will help bring about
a world where people can see each other’s differences and be okay with that. I’ve
evolved so much, and I’ve learned so much in the last couple of years. One of
the most prominent things that I hear is, “Oh, I don’t see color. Everyone is
the same to me.” I used to say that myself, but I now realize that we have to
see color. Everybody is different. I think that our differences are beautiful,
and we have to embrace them. I’ve also learned the difference between charity
and solidarity. It’s easy to donate money, and there is a place for that. It’s
necessary in the society we currently live in.
Hopefully, in the future we will have mutual aid networks all over the world, like we do with each other at Occupy and other activist circles, where people feed each other and care for each other. How many times a day do you pass somebody you know and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” Then, you pass them by before actually hearing what they have to say. I’ve love to live in a world where we are not in such a hurry, where we could stop and speak with people and really, genuinely ask, “How are you doing?” Where the reply isn’t just “good” or I’m doing well.” I want a world where we have dialogue, open communication. I want to live in a world where money isn’t what we revolve around. Money creates so many problems in marriages and relationships and friendships. I’d love to live in a world where people don’t get thousands of dollars of debt for having a medical problem. I want to see a society where the people are participating more in what goes on in their daily lives, where we have more community. I want people to be able to have a say in what’s going on in their world. I think our potential once we bring that about is happiness.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/
Hopefully, in the future we will have mutual aid networks all over the world, like we do with each other at Occupy and other activist circles, where people feed each other and care for each other. How many times a day do you pass somebody you know and say, “Hey, how are you doing?” Then, you pass them by before actually hearing what they have to say. I’ve love to live in a world where we are not in such a hurry, where we could stop and speak with people and really, genuinely ask, “How are you doing?” Where the reply isn’t just “good” or I’m doing well.” I want a world where we have dialogue, open communication. I want to live in a world where money isn’t what we revolve around. Money creates so many problems in marriages and relationships and friendships. I’d love to live in a world where people don’t get thousands of dollars of debt for having a medical problem. I want to see a society where the people are participating more in what goes on in their daily lives, where we have more community. I want people to be able to have a say in what’s going on in their world. I think our potential once we bring that about is happiness.
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
http://buildingcompassionthroughaction.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/stacylanyon
https://instagram.com/stacylanyon/
https://twitter.com/StacyLanyon
http://stacylanyon.com/