Occupy SD - 11/17/11

On Wednesday evening, I visited the Civic Center where Occupy San Diego is being held. When I first arrived, my friend and I talked to two policemen who were part of the large security force guarding the area. The policemen expressed disapproval of the movement, but they were very cautious and selective about making negative comments. They are glad that citizens are exercising their First Amendment rights, but they feel that these individuals do so in an ineffective way, by lashing out against the wrong groups and by lacking a coherent set of objectives. One lieutenant said that "there are two types of people who come to this sort of thing" - those who are truly there to assemble, and those who are homeless and perhaps mentally ill and are just trying to find food and a place to sleep. This statement bothered me because I perceived contempt in the officer's voice when he spoke about the homeless. A part of me wanted to tell him that there really is only one type of person here - those who are trying to survive any way they can. Nevertheless, I could understand many aspects of the policemen's perspective, and I was glad I got a chance to hear both sides of the story.  

A General Assembly meeting was taking place while we there, and the protesters reported that they had had a full day of events due to it being the two-month anniversary of the start of the movement. I can understand what other people are saying about the movement lacking organization, but from a systems theory perspective, these people are fighting an almost impossibly uphill battle. Several people I spoke to related the fact that two months earlier, the area had been covered with hundreds of tents, food sources, medics, and other resources. However, the group has been subject to repeated police raids and what one participant referred to as "psychological warfare" and has lost many of its provisions. I was disappointed to learn that apparently the police have gone so far as to strip homeless individuals of their only possessions during these raids. In addition, the occupiers are fighting to create a coherent message, but they are struggling to find a message that will get through to an upper-class population that, quite frankly, largely wants to pretend the group doesn't exist. As one eloquent participant put it, "It's easier for the 1% to keep ignoring us, because the second they hear what we have to say they'll realize that we're people too, and suddenly they won't be as comfortable with their comfortable lifestyle."  

I spoke with a number of individuals about how they got involved in Occupy SD, what the movement means to them, and how the economic recession has affected them. The first person to whom I spoke was named William, and he was a college-aged student from Sacramento. The first thing that struck me about William was that he is incredibly intelligent and articulate. He explained that he had been attending college in Sacramento and had had a job repairing cracks in windshields. When he and some friends moved down south, they were unable to find work due to economic conditions. When William's friends became homeless, he did as well, and this event coincided with the beginning of the Occupy movement. He quickly became enmeshed in this group and says that the group represents his first real experience with human beings truly acting together as one. He claims that it would be difficult to return to mainstream society and face a country in which people are absorbed in their own worlds, with their own technology, and largely avoid rather than seek out human contact. William has undertaken a project in which he has asked over 100 occupiers for their names and contact information, and has had them write in a journal the answer to the question "Why do you occupy?" Some of these people answered in a single meaningful sentence, while others wrote several pages. William says that he hopes that the journal will be a way to help personalize the movement, and that he wants to take all of these responses into consideration to help the group come up with a coherent mission statement and/or set of objectives. William says that his experience with Occupy SD has been the best of his life and that he is "houseless but not homeless - I have everything I want in a home here."  

Another individual with whom I interacted was named Curtis. Curtis says that the movement represents "equality" and "justice" to him - concepts that he asserts should be more important than money to anyone. This man reports that the economic recession did not adversely affect him because, as he puts it, "I learned how to live without money a long time ago." Curtis says that he knows he will always be poor whether or not he participates in mainstream society, so he has chosen not to work for a system that he feels is fighting to keep him poor. He reports that he has worked on and off throughout his life, but that his lifestyle does not change significantly when he is making minimum wage versus when he is unemployed. Curtis is optimistic about the future of the movement and believes that organizing and building a foundation is an ongoing process that takes time. "We've only been at it for two months," he points out, "and we're fighting a lifetime of corruption and inequality. I think it's a sign of our solidarity that we've survived the last two months in spite of everything we've been through." Curtis believes that the movement will continue to spread across the globe and that people will eventually realize that it is a war - "right now it's a verbal war," he says, "but it's a war."  

 Other participants have been less personally affected by the economic recession but instead became involved because they passionately believe in the cause. One such individual is Cliff, who says that his whole life was a journey leading him here. Cliff has been involved in advocacy, he claims, since he was "a toddler," and he currently works for Greenpeace. He says that in this movement, he has found people and ideals that are more important to him than living among his middle-class peers is. "I have a very nice apartment in City Heights," Cliff remarks, "that I've been to twice in the last two months. My roommate keeps blowing up my phone asking where I'm at, but it's hard to make him understand that I've found something bigger than all that." Cliff says that he coordinates many small, practical goals for the group, such as securing food and - now that they are not allowed to sleep out there - shelter. He is also involved in outreach, spreading the word on college campuses, online, and throughout the city. Cliff says that one of his primary goals is to reduce internal conflict within the movement so that the group can move forward toward a common goal.  

 Attending this event was definitely a fascinating learning experience for me. It is so different to experience the movement firsthand than it is to see or read soundbites about it in the media. Ultimately, this group of people is passionate, cohesive, and empathetic, but they have not yet found a way to effectively communicate their message to a larger audience. Although they claim to represent the masses, their movement is not yet accessible to mainstream society. In addition, the occupiers across the globe have not yet found an appropriate way to band their movements together and fight for change in a unified way. I will be interested to follow Occupy San Diego - as well as the Occupy movement in general - as it progresses and to see if these people become able to articulate and accomplish the goals that inspire them so much.