Saturday, December 3, 2011

Bad Form: Dividing the Occupy Movement

Bad Form: Dividing the Occupy Movement

 

By Carl Bloice,

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

December 1, 2011

http://www.blackcommentator.com/450/450_lm_driving_occupy.php

 

Wherever Stacey Patton lives she might consider moving

because, judging from what she wrote in the Washington

Post last Saturday ("Why African Americans aren't

embracing Occupy Wall Street"), she's been listening to

the wrong people. She's taken to citing someone's

dubious and quite dated headcount and finding only

limited black faces at some of the Occupy protest sites

and boldly concluded that African Americans don't

support the new movement.

 

Patten draws her conclusion from a report she read on

the webpage Fast Company, citing as its source one

Harrison Schultz whom MSNBC's Al Sharpton once

introduced as an "organizer" of Occupy Wall Street.

 

It seems over a month ago Fast Company writer Sean

Captain reported on an email, received from Schultz

about the demographics of the original Occupy encampment

in Lower Manhattan, "And so far, according to the

survey, Occupy Wall Street would qualify as stuff white

people like," wrote Captain. "The sample of non-white

people, according to Schultz, is too small to even

analyze. One thing he noticed, however, is that some

people identify with nationality, rather than race --

another item to keep in mind for target marketing. And

in the vein, the organizers have been discussing doing a

`non-white media day,' in which everyone who speaks to

the media is of another ethnic background. They have

also discussed doing an over-40 day."

 

"On a personal note, I have noticed plenty of both at

the park and the marches," added Captain.

 

On that Patten hung her tale.

 

(Aside: as a black senior I can attest: not too many of

us are into sleeping on the ground.)

 

Clearly, what Patton has written doesn't reflect the

situation around here where the protests do indeed,

"resonate" with the African American Community, where

most folks are cheering them on. I had to check myself;

could it be West Coast exceptionalism? So I called

friends in New York and Chicago. Same there.

 

Yes, the proportion of African Americans and Latinos

taking part in the daily actions of the occupiers is not

equal to our proportion in the population as a whole.

As Patten notes, progressives in minority communities --

like Occupy the Hood -- are working hard to connect the

issues and draw more support. And succeeding.

 

I have no way of knowing whether the words Patton cites

are full reflections of the views of her interviewees

but I was intrigued by the opinion ascribed to Leslie

Wilson, a professor of African American history at

Montclair State University. "Occupy Wall Street cannot

produce enough change to encourage certain types of

black participation," Wilson told her. "The church

cannot get enough blacks out on the streets. Some

students will go, but not the masses."

 

Didn't he notice that the white "masses" aren't setting

up tents either?

 

"Black folks, particularly older ones, do not think that

this is going to lead to change."

 

We heard that in the early sixties when the sit-ins

started. Things have a way of changing.

 

"This generation has already been beaten down and is

hurting," Wilson is quoted as saying. "They are not

willing to risk what little they have for change. Those

who are wealthier are not willing to risk and lose."

 

That was true back then too.

 

I can only wonder why Patton, who has worked at the

NAACP Legal Defense Fund, didn't seek out the opinion on

the occupation of the Chair and CEO of the NAACP, Ben

Jealous, or his predecessor Julian Bond (or writer Alice

Walker, Rep. Maxine Waters, civil rights veteran Judy

Richardson, Rev. Cecil Williams, or West Coast

waterfront union leader Clarence Thomas)?

 

Patton rightly criticized Jay-Z but failed to mention

the other hip-hop artists who support Occupy. The Bay

Area's Boots Riley, who's performing in Paris, posted a

message on the net Saturday that read: "I'm in Paris,

doing shows. When I say I'm from Oakland, many say `Oh!

Caleeforneea!', but half say `Oui! Occupy Oakland!'"

 

Patton can't seem to make up her mind whether black

participation in the Occupy movement is a positive or a

negative. First she decries the "lack of leaders to

inspire them to join the Occupy fold," and then says

"blacks are not seeing anything new for themselves in

the movement. Why should they ally with whites that are

just now experiencing the hardships that blacks have

known for generations? Perhaps white Americans are now

paying the psychic price for not answering the basic

questions that blacks have long raised about income

inequality." How a-historical is that?

 

Patton then quotes New Jersey comedian John "Alter

Negro," who must have been still joking when he told her

that the banks' "bad behavior just gets lost in the

sauce, so to speak" and "High joblessness and social

disenfranchisement is new to most of the Wall Street

protesters. It's been a fact of life for African

Americans since the beginning. I actually think black

people are better served by staying out of the protests.

Civil disobedience will only further the public

perception that black people like to cause trouble."

 

Like those Egyptians.

 

Here's what healthcare provider and community activist

R. Dafina Kuficha wrote about the Occupy Oakland's

November 2 General Strike:

 

     It was a most auspicious day, with Oakland's

     infamous diverse population gathered in unity to

     support a Peoples' march and rally on behalf of

     enacting a true occupation. Some of those marching

     came with groups, organizations, family, friends,

     co-workers, alone, but they came. It was an awe-

     inspiring sight and experience. I marched with

     Angela Davis. She was bombarded with people who

     knew her place in the Movement was iconoclastic.

     She didn't feel that way at all. She was thrilled

     to see the people united and empowered to provoke,

     inspire, motivate and march for change.

 

     Let the world see the spectacular example of a city

     unified in Solidarity. Look at the number of people

     who walked and protested peacefully and powerfully.

     The violence only served to make folks think the

     overall Strike was a fiasco. NO! It wasn't! There

     were over 50,000+ marchers! They were marching to

     close down Oakland's Port, and they did! This was

     my experience, People Empowered to Stand in Unity!

     Power to the people!"

 

It was not the first time Davis had connected up with

the Occupy movement. In late October she addressed the

occupiers who had set up hundreds of tents on the plaza

outside Philadelphia City Hall.

 

"In the past, most movements have appealed to specific

communities -- workers, students, black people,

Latinas/Latinos, women, LGBT communities, indigenous

people -- or they have crystallized around specific

issues like war, the environment, food, water,

Palestine, the prison industrial complex. In order to

bring together people associated with those communities

and movements, we have had to engage in difficult

coalition-building processes, negotiating the

recognition for which communities and issues inevitably strive.

 

"In a strikingly different configuration, this new

Occupy Movement imagines itself from the beginning as

the broadest possible community of resistance -- the 99%,

as against the 1%," Davis went on. "It is a movement

arrayed from the outset against the most affluent

sectors of society -- big banks and financial

institutions, corporate executives, whose pay is

obscenely disproportionate to the earnings of the 99%.

It seems to me that an issue such as the prison

industrial complex is already implicitly embraced by

this congregation of the 99%.

 

"Indeed, it can be persuasively argued that the 99%

should move to ameliorate the conditions of those who

constitute the bottom tiers of this potential community

of resistance -- which would mean working on behalf of

those who have suffered most from the tyranny of the 1%.

There is a direct connection between the pauperizing

effect of global capitalism and the soaring rates of

incarceration in the US. De-incarceration and the

eventual abolition of imprisonment as the primary mode

of punishment can help us begin to revitalize our

communities and to support education, healthcare,

housing, hope, justice, creativity and freedom.

 

"There are major responsibilities attached to this

decision to forge such an expansive community of

resistance. We say no to Wall Street, to the big banks,

to corporate executives making millions of dollars a

year. We say no to student debt. We are learning also to

say no to global capitalism and to the prison industrial

complex. And even as police in Portland, Oakland and now

New York, move to force activists from their

encampments, we say no to evictions and to police violence.

 

"Occupy activists are thinking deeply about how we might

incorporate opposition to racism, class exploitation,

homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, violence done to the

environment and transphobia into the resistance of the

99%," continued Davis in the November 15 commentary in

the Guardian (UK). "Of course, we must be prepared to

challenge military occupation and war. And if we

identify with the 99%, we will also have to learn how to

imagine a new world, one where peace is not simply the

absence of war, but rather, a creative refashioning of

global `social relations'."

 

There is nothing Pollyannaish about Davis' approach to

the Occupy movement, about the urgency of supporting it,

about the need to make it even more inclusive or the

need to stand up to those who arrayed against it. "The

most pressing question facing the Occupy activists is

how to craft a unity that respects and celebrates the

immense differences among the 99%," she wrote. "How can

we learn how to come together? This is something those

of the 99% who are living at Occupy sites can teach us

all. How can we come together in a unity that is not

simplistic and oppressive, but complex and emancipatory,

recognizing, in June Jordan's words that `we are the

ones we have been waiting for'."

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