It’s not the most popular opinion of late, but it needs to be said: The Occupy movement in its current form isn’t going to work.
Some are going to be mad at me for that. They’ll accuse me of being out of touch. They’ll say I don’t support “the people” or, the most ironic of them all, that I “don’t get it.”
Even if those things were true, it wouldn’t change the fact that Occupy misses the mark. Never was that more evident than over the weekend, when the local effort, known as Occupy Seattle, called for people to fill up Westlake Park.
But Occupy Seattle is failing at its mission: “…to focus elected officials and the voting public on the majority’s desire to take our government and country back from the big money interests that currently hold undue sway over decisions affecting us all.”
No comparison at all
Participants in the Westlake occupation say the location is critical because the area around the park — the shopping district — is Seattle’s Wall Street. Only, Seattle’s protesters aren’t impacting Seattle’s economy or the ability of businesses to function, just like New York’s protesters aren’t impacting the ability for corporations to make money on Wall Street.
If the goal of Occupy Seattle is really to focus elected officials on the plight of — and demands for change/accountability by the people — the campout at the park is a failed strategy. The cost of police overtime and city hall resources put into this matter is absorbed by the taxpayers, not corporations.
That’s not all. For some foggy reason, Occupy Seattle calls itself a “leaderless movement.” This strategy is the most self-defeating of them all. A movement without leadership lacks clear vision, strategy and message. Yet, for some reason, they claim leaderlessness and wear it like a badge of honor.
Many have claimed they mirror this effort on the “Arab Spring.” Newsflash: The revolution in Egypt had clearly defined leadership. They had a strategic plan. They had specified spokespeople.
In fact, there isn’t a single popular social-justice movement on the planet that succeeded while leaderless. It’s time to get real.
Occupy is something — I won’t say it’s not. But it cannot and should not be compared with incidents that persecuted, tortured and murdered countless people around the world in the fight for absolute freedom from military dictatorship.
No one is walking through the streets of Seattle or any other Occupy city with AK-47s, opening fire on random people. Neither is Occupy Seattle the “new” civil-rights movement, the Watts Riots or Tiananmen Square.
Doesn’t represent everyone
Finally, and this is crucial, even if ironic: The Occupy effort claims to represent the 99 percent of the population who are not the richest people in the country.
But ask yourself this: What percentage of the 99 percent is deciding the trajectory of a movement that claims to represent nearly every human being in the entire country? A very small percentage is the answer, and it is not diverse; it is predominately white.
In the last week and a half, criticism of the lack of authentic diversity at Occupy Seattle has increased, with groups of people of color coming together to talk about it. Yet, the more it is brought up to the leaders of the leaderless movement, the more they fumble the issue.
Instead of working to find ways to genuinely include people of color in the process, Occupiers have turned to rationalizing the lack of color in the crowd. After all, Seattle is 70-percent white, so it’s only natural so few black and brown people would be there, right? And heck, race doesn’t matter, because we’re all in the same situation, right?
Wrong.
Just because a person of color is not in the top 1 percent, and a white person is not in the top 1 percent, does not mean they are in the same boat, and yes, race is an uncompromising factor.
People of color suffer at a disproportionate rate to their white counterparts. Take blacks, presently buried under nearly 17-percent unemployment and rising. Unemployment for whites is at 8 percent and falling.
People of color are feeling the brunt of the economic downturn, yet, particularly in Seattle, they overwhelmingly feel Occupy Seattle doesn’t represent them or their issues. They don’t want to sit in the park, either, because they don’t feel comfortable, they don’t feel included or they don’t feel it will make a difference. It’s certainly not because they “don’t get it.”
Time for ‘direct action’
Symbolic protests of solidarity do nothing to abate suffering. It doesn’t put people to work, feed children, keep the heat on or a roof overhead. It doesn’t help older members of our community stay in their homes or pay for their prescription medications.
To be sustainable, Occupy Seattle must take direct action on the specific issues impacting the city’s people — all of the city’s people.
Short of that, it’s time to leave the park.
SABLE VERITY covers social and political issues for KBCS Radio and a number of on-line and print news outlets.
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