Every time I see protests erupting in London or France I always wonder why Americans never start major protests anymore or have a movement that completely changes the political discourse. The truth is most Americans are completely apathetic towards government and civic engagement. The Occupy Wall Street protests that have attracted hundreds of thousands of protesters is a uniquely American protest that is gaining momentum and turning into a movement.
What started as a few dozen college students in a park in New York has evolved into the Occupy Wall Street movement that has moved hundreds of thousands of people to protest. They are protesting what they view as the tremendous inequality of the distribution of wealth in the United States. The people that comprise these protests are from all backgrounds and there is no single label that can be used to describe them.
The protests also spread to Tampa on Oct. 6 at Lykes Gaslight park. Over 600 people showed up to use their rights to peacefully assemble and protest.
I have been to quite a few protests but never one so well organized or of this size in Tampa.
After reading about potential arrests for holding a protest in Lykes Gaslight park without a permit, I showed up expecting a large crowd and dozens of police surrounding them. What I actually saw was very far removed from that.
The event was a very peaceful gathering with only a few police in the neighboring area monitoring the protest. The Tampa Police Department even let protesters use the restrooms in the police headquarters across the street.
The protest was broken down into several divisions that participants volunteered to run. Each division had separate goals that helped the entire group as a whole work. The several divisions were legal, medical, nonviolent direct action, media, social outreach and artistic expression. Legal consisted of lawyers who advised protesters what we could do and what we couldn’t do and observed the events to ensure that no rights were violated.
The rest of the divisions did the following: medical treated anyone who became ill or was injured, nonviolent direct action led the marches, social outreach helped to organize the events, media put well spoken protestors to articulate our views to the news media and artistic expression helped create the posters and signs. There was a sense of the surreal when the general assembly occurred at noon. Contrary to almost every sense of our social understanding there was no direct leader. Everyone had the chance to speak and every action was decided by consensus, there was no one who decided for everyone what the group would do.
The entire event was entirely grassroots; there were no large corporate funded organizations such as Freedomworks or Americans for Prosperity organizing the event, which is a very common occurrence in Tea Party events. An aspect of the protest that struck me immediately was the diversity of the group. Contrary to the media’s opinion that these protests were composed entirely of liberal college students; almost every age, race, ethnicity and creed were represented. The leader of nonviolent direct action was a very inspiring older woman who had been involved in dozens of protests in the 1960s.
The media narrative of the protests has been a condescending one; many have questioned the purpose of the protests and the character of the protesters themselves. Some pundits have dismissed the protests as un-American while simultaneously holding the Tea Party protests as patriotic. Protesting, regardless of the content and views expressed, is the most patriotic thing an American can do because they are using the rights given to them by the constitution and defended by countless soldiers who sacrificed everything.
Wall Street has responded to the protests by attempting to buy the police. JP Morgan Chase donated $4.6 million to the New York Police Department Foundation on Monday, Oct. 3. This was the single largest gift ever given to the NYPD in one donation. The day after the park where Occupy Wall Street was held, was barricaded and the entrances to the park were limited to the corners.
The mantra that is often repeated by the movement is “we are the 99 percent” which is used to imply that the top one percent who control 40 percent of this nation’s wealth are rigging the system in their favor. The donation by JP Morgan Chase is an example of them trying to rig the system.
The Occupy Wall Street movement is not about any particular political ideology but rather the belief that everyone should have an equal opportunity to succeed regardless of who you are.
It is also about the belief that the middle class is the foundation that this country is built on and the rising wealth disparity is destroying the middle class and turning America into a nation of the impoverished and the wealthy.
Alex Caraballo can be reached at acaraballo21@gmail.com