From the NYT:
Two weeks into Occupy Wall Street’s takeover of Zuccotti Park, a group of Bronx community organizers and friends rode the subway down to Lower Manhattan to check out a movement they supported in principle.
When they got there, they recalled, they found what they had suspected: a largely white and middle-class crowd that claimed to represent “the 99 percent” but bore little resemblance to most of the people in the group’s own community. That community, the South Bronx, is one of the poorest areas of the country and home almost exclusively to blacks and Hispanics.
“Nobody looked like us,” said Rodrigo Venegas, 31, co-founder of Rebel Diaz Arts Collective a center for political activism and hip-hop run out of a warehouse in Mott Haven. “It was white, liberal, young people who for the first time in their life are feeling a small percentage of what black and brown communities have been feeling for hundreds of years.”
Even as the Occupy Wall Street protests have spread and grown, many critics have pointed to the visible scarcity of blacks and other minorities in the protesters’ ranks, notwithstanding the occasional infusions of color, whether from black celebrities like Kanye West, or from union members who have rallied with the protesters, or from a Muslim prayer service at Zuccotti Park last week.
But that reality has begun to change, with minorities and people of color increasingly taking to the streets, as the movement responds to the criticism that a people’s movement should look more like the people.
A survey conducted at Zuccotti Park by Fordham University a month into the protests, from Oct. 14 to Oct. 18, found that 68 percent of the protesters were white, 10 percent were black, 10 percent were Hispanic, 7 percent were Asian and 5 percent were from other races.
And, many critics have noted, the black and Hispanic protesters participating in the protests have tended to come from the middle class, just as the white protesters have.
The reasons that minorities have tended to be leery of the protests are complex and deeply rooted.
Minority communities, said Gonzalo Venegas, 26, Rodrigo’s younger brother, “have a history of resistance but also a history of fear.” (Both brothers have remained involved in the protests.) In a cheeky but ultimately serious Village Voice piece on blacks and Occupy Wall Street, the black essayist Greg Tate mused that a blacker protest movement would have drawn harsher treatment from the police. “Thanks to our overwhelming no-show of numbers,” he wrote, “49,000 shots haven’t been fired at OWS yet.”
Some critics have also accused the protesters of being reductive in their claim to represent the majority and oblivious to their own privilege, and argue that racism, rather than capitalism, continues to be the main problem for many minority Americans.
... Earlier this week the N.A.A.C.P put out a statement in support of Occupy Wall Street, which is planning a civil rights rally and an event with Harry Belafonte over the weekend.
Wow, that will definitely heighten awareness among Today's Youth of Color: Harry Belafonte! Don't let anybody tell you the NAACP is the National Association for the Advancement of Certain People resting on their laurels.
Sonny Singh, 31, a Sikh musician from Brooklyn who joined Occupy Wall Street early on, recounted the scene in Zuccotti Park the day the general assembly drafted its “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City” — the closest thing to a political manifesto the protesters have put out thus far.
Mr. Singh said that he and a few other “brown” people at the assembly were appalled by what was going to become the first paragraph of the declaration: “As one people, formerly divided by the color of our skin,” the document began, “we acknowledge the reality: that there is only one race, the human race.”
“That was obviously not written by a person of color,” Mr. Singh said, calling the statement naïve. “Race is a reality in the lives of people of color, you can’t put out a statement like that without alienating them.”
Mr. Singh and others pushed back, and eventually got the phrasing changed to be more sensitive to racial realities within the movement.
How could they have forgotten America's litany of historic crimes against Sikhs?
Anyway, let me take a stab at a general theory of Occupy Wall Street. There's been much criticism of the movement for not having a coherent manifesto of political demands. What exactly are they doing during all these endless meetings with their weird hand signals if not coming up with a political agenda?
What they do spend time talking about is how to keep everyone housed, fed, safe, healthy, and entertained. With this protest, logistics are political too: By creating a self-contained, self-governing, radically transparent and egalitarian community, they’ll model how the rest of society ought to work.
So, they are organizing the logistics of their campout: How many different kinds of recycling bins should we have? That sort of thing. Middle class white people find this kind of self-organizing to be pretty fascinating. It also bores the heck out of most minorities and non-middle class whites, which has the salutary effect of driving away undesirables.
The obvious model for this is the successful Burning Man campouts that take place each September on a godforsaken dry lake bed in Nevada. A bunch of naked white hippies do a pretty fine job of setting up a huge community for one week each year. (My cousin, the tough hippie, goes there every year, and now his octogenarian mother, a lifelong outdoorswoman, wants to go to Burning Man, too.)
Burning Man started out in San Francisco, but moved to the middle of nowhere for various reasons, one unmentionable one being: barriers to entry. Ticket prices are now a few hundred dollars for entry, plus the cost of travel and camping equipment. That keeps out the petty criminals, homeless guys, gang-bangers, and other predators, parasites, and losers. Old San Francisco hippies remember, even if they won't mention it, what kept the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love in 1967 from continuing: criminals, especially black criminals from the Fillmore district, discovered, to their delight, that drugged-up white hippie chicks were easy prey. So Haight Ashbury went from a utopian middle class scene to a dystopian underclass one in weeks. Hence, it's really expensive to get to Burning Man now.
But, it's still on a dry lake bed in Nevada, where nobody would want to live for more than a week. Wouldn't it be awesome if we could set up a permanent self-organizing Burning Man-like community in a high rent district, such as Manhattan? But without paying any rent! I know, we'll claim it's a political protest! But how do we keep out the low-lifes? Well, how do some convenience stores keep juvenile delinquents from hanging out in front? By playing classical music. Similarly, OWS tries to keep losers away by boring them with endless public debates on minute administrative details about sustainability.
Still, undesirables can put up with a lot of yakkety-yak for the sake of tasty food. Hence, according to the not-unbiased New York Post:
The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.
For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.
They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day.
The good news for Occupy Wall Street is that there really aren't that many derelicts and hoodlums left in Manhattan anymore. If this were 1990, there'd be rapes, drive-by shootings, and maybe an outbreak of cholera.
In summary, I think one of the stronger emotions in the world right now is the desire for restrictive communities where people with something in common can exclude everybody else, such as what Burning Man achieves for a week each year. But 21st Century people lack any kind of vocabulary for explicating their forbidden desires for exclusion.
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50 comments:
"How could they have forgotten America's litany of historic crimes against Sikhs?"
And again, don't forget that Hispanics themselves played and are playing identity arbitrage.
The fact of the matter, is that all the racial spoils group won't show up unless this movement is explicitly about THEM, and that is probably a good thing for the whites who are trying to protest.
At the same time, having the "correct amount" of non-Whites particularly Blacks signals to the SWPL crowd moral superiority and enhanced status. This is critical in an endless mating market (one that never ends, even in marriage, since that's just a "short term rental contract" that anyone can get out of at any time).
That stuff also has appeal mostly to women. It does have some appeal, to some men, but most guys prefer status based on accomplishments and deeds, ala Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, etc. Whereas women are more prone to "the Help" type status-mongering.
What limits OWS is ... class. Most lower class and middle class women don't have the money and don't find the image (smelly, dirty hippies) too exciting. There's no celebrity, no hunky guys, not much of anything. Not even Oprah, the average White woman's imaginary Black best friend.
...co-founder of Rebel Diaz Arts Collective a center for political activism and hip-hop run out of a warehouse in Mott Haven.
More like a center for bilking excess cash out of the hands of gullible middle-aged yentas who want to appear hip.
"...even in marriage, since that's just a "short term rental contract" that anyone can get out of at any time)."
But not everyone can get into it. Not even if their lives depended on it. Exhibit A: Whiskey.
If Jerry Garcia was still alive or Phish was still touring, these kids would be at the concerts.
As for non-whites feeling alienated from OWS, it's like the French protests about reforming hiring/firing practices were dominated by white middle class kids, not by immigrant kids.
White kids are more likely to read Naomi Klein and go to college(an learn about social justice). Non-white kids don't read books and probably don't even know where WAll Street is.
In the 60s, most of the protesters in US, Europe, and Japan were middle class kids. It's a rite-of-passage of middle class kids in the modern West to go to college, attend rock concerts, be radical for awhile, and then later get nice jobs and settle down.
Degaulle found got support from the French working class, not from the French middle class.
It's perfectly permissible to say OWS is 'too white', but it's not permissible to say Wall Street and Washington are disproportionately Jewish.
When they got there, they recalled, they found what they had suspected: a largely white and middle-class crowd that claimed to represent “the 99 percent” but bore little resemblance to most of the people in the group’s own community
On the other hand, Whites are a minority in New York. Why not try to make Whites more at home rather than just leer at them?
Nobody is keeping Blacks or Hispanics from joining the protests! As Steve points out, it´s more a case of self- selection.
Ah, Whiskey, it always comes down to women, doesn't it? Those scheming cabals of Oprah watching housewives in Macon, Georgia are conspiring against Western Civilization.
LOL only white liberals are actually deracinated.
By the way why was the opening paragraph on a "declaration" supposedly about economic problems about race, anyway?
Never far from a liberals mind. BUT DON'T SAY IT EXISTS!
There really should be OCCUPY WELFARE STREET too. So much tax money has been leeced by the underclass made up of black, brown, and white trash.
But who's got the courage to walk into da hood and tell Negroes to act responsibly. And peckerwoods with guns aren't exactly pleasant either.
It seems like the media is divided on OWS. On the one hand, media folks are liberal and ideologically share something with OWSers. On the other hand, people who run WS also own the Big Media. Also, NY/WS is the center of globalism and cosmopolitanism. Whether WS bankers are greedy or not, they dole out the money that makes globo-progressivism possible. The Soroses of the world, not hippies and anarchists, pay for guys like Obama.
Anyway, the media was NOT divided on OCCUPY THE BORDER people. When 'minutemen' went down to the border with bricks and demanded government to enforce border security, the big media portrayed them all as 'white supremacists' and 'crypto-nazis'.
And I'm sure if the Tea Party had had the guts to occupy Wall Street, the narrative would have been 'Nazis protest liberal NY Jews'.
In a way, liberals are probably relieved that OWS has been owned by their side. Because if not, it could well be owned by the dreaded Right.
With liberal ownership of OWS, liberals can have the cake and eat it too. They get funded by Wall Street but put on a show like THEY are opposed to greed.
I think Teddy Roosevelt pulled the same schtick with 'progressivism'. Though hardly anti-capitalist, he made enough noises that were critical of capitalism so that Republicans could steal some of the reformist thunder from the left.
Occupy Wall Street proves once again that even when it's mis-directed white people have far more empathy than other races. What happened to that toddler in China would never have happened on a road next to a Tea Party Rally or an Occupy Wall Street Protest. Empathy is the key ingredient to why Western Culture has far surpassed other cultures. It's also the reason we let endless non-Western immigrants come to the U.S. to ruin our society. It's a paradox.
"In summary, I think one of the stronger emotions in the world right now is the desire for restrictive communities where people with something in common can exclude everybody else, such as what Burning Man achieves for a week each year. But 21st Century young people lack any kind of vocabulary for explicating their forbidden desires for exclusion."
That's one of your best insights- you should get a prize for that sentence and the cholera line was hilarious
Dan in Dc
Whiskey said:
Oprah, the average White woman's imaginary Black best friend.
Gotta admit, Whiskey, thats a damn good line. But did you make it up all by yourself?
I live in NYC. I work in NYC. I am a white native New Yorker. I have family and friends and co-workers and neighbors, who range from upper class to working class.
I have not had one single conversation about OWS. I have not overheard one conversation about OWS. Tbe average white New Yorker is as bored with it as the average black or brown or Sikh New Yorker. I don't even think the average liberal New Yorker is interested.
I think you're right that it is a rite of passage, but most of the young people I know aren't paying attention either.
The media loves it. I'd love you to figure out why. Part of the reason is, undoubtedly, that it is cheap to cover, being in their back yard.
Now, if only the predominantly white Tea Partiers and the predominantly white Occupiers could come to an understanding of their mutual interests, they could be a powerful political movement. A group representing 65% of the population and 75% of all voters would be nigh unchallengeable.
Nah, they'll probably just fight over how high taxes should be.
Old San Francisco hippies remember, even if they won't mention it, what kept the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love in 1967 from continuing: criminals, especially black criminals from the Hunter's Point projects, discovered, to their delight, that drugged-up white hippie chicks were easy prey. So Haight Ashbury went from a utopian middle class scene to a dystopian underclass one in weeks ...
I grew up in SF around that time, and I've never heard that interpretation, and an old hippy I just now queried, who says he was at the "Be-In," violently disagrees. Is there any source? Like Tom Wolfe or someone? Not that I put it past the brothas, ya unnastan', but still.
Does the NY Times have "black and brown communities" in an office macro now? Can we just shorten it to blackbrowncom, you know, in furtherance of Ingsoc?
Old San Francisco hippies remember, even if they won't mention it, what kept the Haight-Ashbury Summer of Love in 1967 from continuing: criminals, especially black criminals from the Hunter's Point projects, discovered, to their delight, that drugged-up white hippie chicks were easy prey.
The black criminals discovered this after the hippies had.
The whole point of the counterculture and Summer of Love for a lot of the hippie leaders was to get with the Midwestern blonde shiksa transplants.
The people serving free food at OWS have had to switch to Spartan fare like brown rice and beans, not because they ran out of money, but because the fancier fare they'd been serving was attracting too many skells.
Peter
In summary, I think one of the stronger emotions in the world right now is the desire for restrictive communities where people with something in common can exclude everybody else, such as what Burning Man achieves for a week each year. But 21st Century young people lack any kind of vocabulary for explicating their forbidden desires for exclusion.
Parasites are terrified of being exposed to empirical discovery. That’s why they have to keep uniform global law in place that imposes their social dogmas on everyone without exception—so as to prevent any control groups from forming anywhere. That’s why their Orwellian definition of “diversity” is to make every point in the world “look like the world” and is, in truth, global homogenization thus guaranteeing zero diversity. Zero-tolerance for “intolerance” is, in fact, zero tolerance for diversity out of fear that differences may be in actual evidence. The fact that this violates consent is easily dealt with: Those who are not “persuaded” by propaganda are merely accused of “hate”. Problem solved.
Like all theocracies they are viciously anti-science hence anti-truth. The power of argumentation is not to be infringed by experimentation.
too funny: "as the movement responds to the criticism..." If you're skimming the piece you might accidentally think it's the routine story of the heartless multinational shoe/cookware company attempting to address the concerns of Al Sharpton or whatever. Add in the quote from CUNY professor about This Much-Noted Trend In The Industry and you're set.
to the NYCer above: yes, the only reason we are seeing OWS is because it's a local inexpensive topic. Newsrooms have to watch the bottom line same as anyone; fashioning their own Tea Party to play with was an efficiency breakthrough.
According to Andrew Breitbart, OWS is operating from the Hamas playbook:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8jPfbhYniY
"As for non-whites feeling alienated from OWS, it's like the French protests about reforming hiring/firing practices were dominated by white middle class kids, not by immigrant kids."
Actually, the French kids were attacked by mobs of blacks during the protests.
"They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day."
So, the entire OWS crowd?
Excellent article Steve-
The desire for ethnocentrism and exclusion remain latent in everyone ... a universal part of human nature
but only the Jews can express it openly
"and argue that racism, rather than capitalism, continues to be the main problem for many minority Americans."
If that's the case, then minorities should stop being so racist.
Charles Manson was of course the most famous criminal to pick up hippie chicks in the San Francisco Bay area in the summer of 1967.
It's also the reason we let endless non-Western immigrants come to the U.S. to ruin our society.
This is simply not true, but gets repeated all the time.
Immigration to the US is imposed, and has been imposed by the elite. It's not a result of the general desire or sentiment of the majority. The polling data show this clearly.
"They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day."
So...the OWSers don't want to pay for freeloaders, either? Are they actually suggesting that some people belong in the bottom 99% because they deserve to be there?
Well, how do some convenience stores keep juvenile delinquents from hanging out in front? By playing classical music.
I wonder if the rhythmically challenged drum circles drive away African Americans?
Nobody seems to get why OWS is so white.
Answer: because its at least as much a protest of the forces on the so-called left that got Obama into power, and continue to support him, as it is against anything identifiably right wing or Republican.
And what got Obama into power, and continues to support him? Identity politics.
The basic political fact, well supported by polls, is that the protesters in OWS are, in the main, disaffected Democrats who are disgusted with Obama.
But the ongoing support of Obama, his true base, are the identity politics people; and blacks -- a major component of that bloc -- continue to support Obama at near 80% levels.
The point is, the identity politics bloc has its guy, Obama, he continues to deliver on his identity, and they continue to love him for it.
The OWS people are, at long last, expecting and demanding something else entirely: jobs for, and attention to, the middle class -- which is to say, in the great majority, the WHITE middle class.
The two sides are natural enemies.
Of course, as usual, no important truths are allowed to be spoken about such matters; and so the obvious is never observed.
"bellyfeel said...
Does the NY Times have "black and brown communities" in an office macro now? Can we just shorten it to blackbrowncom, you know, in furtherance of Ingsoc?"
It's funny how run-down, burned-out ghettos populated by minorities are referred to as "communities", while neat, orderly white suburbs are just deemed to be soulless deserts.
What does N.A.A.C.P stand for these days? National Association for the Advancement of.....Canadian People?
Very interesting perspective Steve. This is why you need to keep on doing your thing.
The MSM just doesn't get it. The OWS could be *worse* than the Tea Party in terms of diversity and they won't get called on it. It's assumed that they want to more diverse, or want to want to be more diverse, or know they should be (but can't quite get there). The Tea Party is just, well, Nascar. Harummph!
This is so brilliant. And it hits home, too, because I know a lefty, Lesbian Jewish chick who lives in Brooklyn, goes to Burning Man every year, and has of course glommed on to OWS.
"If this were 1990, there'd be rapes, drive-by shootings, and maybe an outbreak of cholera."
i did read that the murder rate went up 150% in new york city during this protest. this has only been going on for a few weeks now, so i wonder if the murder rate will stay at those levels if the protestors continue to "occupy" for months and months.
sailer pointed out the ncapp and laraza are teaming up with banks for another round mortgage hustling... so why would they OWS?
Absolutely correct, Polichinello. I constantly read stories in the Globe and Herald about the 70-something Semitic hausfraus bringing food and blankets to the Occupy Boston idiots.
Not A Hacker, you need to remember Stokley Carmichael's famous quote that the only position for women in the movement was prone. Did you think that the "old hippie" would cop to anything that wasn't rainbows and unicorns when reminiscing about the glory daze?
"But 21st Century people lack any kind of vocabulary for explicating their forbidden desires for exclusion."
Israel.
I'm waiting for someone to say that Wall St is too Jewish.
OWS doesn't have an agenda or manifesto and that is more than ok by me. They are not political economists after all.
Still I have a minor quibble with the way OWS frames the issue in terms of the so-called 99%. My quibble is this: it isn't the top 1% who are so different than you and me. It's the top .01% or, roughly speaking, the 10,000 wealthiest families in America (together with their counterparts overseas). These are the families that NYT financial reporter David Cay Johston labels "the donor class" because they bankroll both political parties and thereby control the political agenda, on issues of trade, immigration, and tax policy particularly.
Why is this distinction important? Well, mainly because you don't want to multiply your opponents unnecessarily. There's quite a difference between families with a net worth around $5 million and those whose net worths are $50 million and up.
In the first place the first group generally pays its taxes. The second group does does not. According to Johnson as of 1996 they escaped paying roughly $300 billion annually which they legally owe. (It's no doubt a good deal more than that now -- enough, in fact, to close the annual budget deficit of our federal government in ordinary years.)
How do they do it? Principally by concealing most of their incomes in in a nest of shell corporations and overseas tax havens, using a small army of lawyers and tax accountants to bring it all off. Plus of course by buying off both political parties, thereby making sure our elected officials don't even think about sicking the IRS on them in any serious or systematic way. That NYT reporter spells it all out.
Those million families worth $5 million on the other hand are, thanks to inflation, today's haute bourgeoisie. They are your typical Main Street business people, local merchants, small factory owners, the decayed descendants of former wealth.
Now the fact is these Main Street millionaires don't wield near the influence on our political process as the super-rich do. Which leads to the question: How can we identify members of that more exclusive elite?
Well, there are only about 200 of them per state on the average. It is not a big group, and if you've lived very long in any typical metropolitan area in America you can probably name half of them just by reading the local society pages. They "are" local society for all intents and purposes. You can even find out where they live if you just ask around (hint, hint).
But if instead of targeting this upper-upper crust you target the million or so families who compose the haute beorgeosie, then you are asking for a lot of unnecessary trouble. Particularly if your idea is to make them "pay" for the sins of their betters.
These people will fight you with every fiber of their being and, based on historical experience, will probably prevail. For which reason their betters will be more than happy to encourage you in your misguidedness, the bigger guys hiding behind the littler ones as they always have.
Bottom line: Know your enemy. That's the first rule of war, including class war. And that, gentle reader, is the sum and substance of my quibble. Change those signs to 99.99%!
"I think one of the stronger emotions in the world right now is the desire for restrictive communities where people with something in common can exclude everybody else, such as what Burning Man achieves for a week each year. But 21st Century people lack any kind of vocabulary for explicating their forbidden desires for exclusion."
THIS is the challenge of our lives, at which we must succeed, or our children will be doomed. We MUST create this vocabulary, ideally trademark all of it, then promote the hell out of it.
EVERYONE ON EARTH wants to live this way.
Luke:
One way to make this distinction graphic is Private Jet v. Private Plane.
With liberal ownership of OWS, liberals can have the cake and eat it too. They get funded by Wall Street but put on a show like THEY are opposed to greed.
They've been eating their cake and having it for like 50 years then.
Empathy is the key ingredient to why Western Culture has far surpassed other cultures. It's also the reason we let endless non-Western immigrants come to the U.S. to ruin our society. It's a paradox.
No. Western populations are kept in the dark and fed shit. An inherent paradox, that does not make.
The media loves it. I'd love you to figure out why. Part of the reason is, undoubtedly, that it is cheap to cover, being in their back yard.
The Tea Parties made the media jealous. Remember how grudgingly they covered them, and how biased they were? Now they get their tea party.
Why is this distinction important? Well, mainly because you don't want to multiply your opponents unnecessarily.
Which makes you wonder why they'd do something as dumb as forgetting where to put the decimal point.
Oh, and OWS IS racist.
I mean, if we're going to talk about inherent racial paradoxes, how about the fact that Whites create societies that are so wealthy and pleasant that everyone wants to live there?
1. Whites are rich and egalitarian, so they create enviable societies.
2. Whites are rich and egalitarian, so they attract precisely the sorts who will destroy their enviable societies.
Paradox?
ows down in zoccoti park reflects a young college student, underpaid white male, hipster crowd, something that is by far only a fraction of nyc in general as a population, until that grouping downthere changes which i doubt it will, then ows zoccoti park version will not be a true reflection of the nyc population. Camp on!
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