Unexpected Occupations, Unexpected Successes
The Occupy Wall Street movement has been, if nothing else, a surprise.
It came seemingly out of nowhere, and in less than one month, brought about the following results: 1) It created an unexpected coalition between liberal whites and activists of color; 2) It changed Americans’ understanding of history and class; 3) It illuminated the failures of the Professional Left; and 4) It showed the shortcomings of traditional political strategy.
For those that still doubt Occupy Wall Street, take a deeper look at what they’ve done — they’ve accomplished a lot, and in some pretty unexpected ways.
Created an unexpected coalition between white activists and activists of color
Occupy Wall Street has accomplished what civic NGOs have been trying to do for the last 40 years: create a coalition of the willing amongst different interest groups. Occupy Wall Street did that by going from issue-based organizing to systems-based organizing, and it did so by using class as the messaging frame. As a result, Occupy Wall Street has shown that most Americans are (and have always been, for that matter) part of the 99%. Shortly after the “We Are the 99%” tagline came out, Chicano, Native American, and other activists creatively tied in the ‘occupy’ theme with their historical struggles for recognition and inclusion. They have produced posters like these:
And although there was concern at first that the ranks of Occupy Wall Street were mostly white, it was the first time in a while that we had seen middle class white kids identifying with the struggles of people of color, because they had started experiencing them. It is refreshing to see structural unemployment, structural inequality and housing discrimination become mainstream concerns, and to see class serve as the bridge between issues that had split white activists and activists of color for decades, such as carbon emissions vs. childcare, and organic food vs. food security. As The Nation magazine noted, hippies stood next to hard hats. With the demographics of its base, Occupy Wall Street has had the accidental affect of changing the national perception that social “issues” only affect people of color, and shown that what affects some of us, affects all of us.
Changed American’s understanding of history and class
In asking for an America that is fair, equal, and within which everyone has an opportunity, Occupy Wall Street is bringing more of the American public to the interpretation that America’s “best” years were the years in which that was a reality: the brief 30-year period from 1945-1975.
Those years witnessed the government-sponsored creation of the middle class through the GI Bill. Those thirty years — and not the other 370 in which America didn’t have a middle class – made America the envy of the world. The post-World War II Pax Americana is really what qualified us as the ‘new’ world, a world in which anybody could succeed, in which the everyday guy seemed to have a piece of the pie. America wasn’t a beacon of hope because it copied the classist structure of old Europe; it was a beacon of hope because it offered an alternative to that. Today, America has gone back to its old tendencies, and Occupy Wall Street helps us admit that those tendencies are bad ones.
Illuminated the failures of the Professional Left:
Occupy Wall Street’s success — IN SPITE of its messaging ambiguity — forces us be crystal clear about what the failings of the mainstream activist movement are. For all of our heated e-mails, and marches, and lobbying, and rallying the base, we weren’t able to create the substantive, sustained dialogue about inequality and power in this country that the Occupy movement has. The fact that even the liberal public has a hard time understanding the political vocabulary of the occupiers speaks to the degree to which the left has failed to frame the political debate, and the fact that the liberal left is largely absent at Occupy Wall Street speaks to its archaic structure and its measure of disconnect. That disconnect is not so much ideological as it is economic: much of the top leadership of the Professional Left is part of the 1%.
Showed the shortcomings of traditional political strategy
Occupy Wall Street has more of a social media strategy than a legislative strategy. Its language is cultural (its logo is a tiny dancer suspended on a large bronze bull), and it’s also kind of cloudy. But that’s okay: Progressives had a ton of political strategy surrounding the 2010 mid-term elections, and we all know how those went.
Besides, what we call “lifestyle” movements here in America (liberal lifestyles, gay lifestyles, organic and vegan lifestyles) have their roots in cloudy, cultural things like poet Allen Ginsberg dressing up in his underwear, blowing on a seashell, and announcing himself a “Yippie.” That transformed into the hippie movement, which founded the notion of a counter-culture, and years later, a man named Steve Jobs made a personal technology revolution around the theme of ‘Think Different.’
So there you have it. What can come of Occupy Wall Street? Who knows. Let’s abandon expectations. The old tricks don’t work anymore, so let’s try something new.
This has been an unexpected occupation, and so far, it’s been delightful. Let’s let people get confused, and try to figure out why class matters. Let’s let people get mad about 99% of this country being structurally excluded. Let Occupy Wall Street kids “convert the middle” and have the hard conversations.
We might not get the results we expect, but we might get the ones we need.
Emily Goulding is a Washington, DC based writer and activist. Tweet her @emilygoulding1.
(Poster by Ernesto Yerena)
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