You Are The 99%

“They’re very comfortable. They enjoy shopping. It brings them a lot of pleasure.” I was listening to my friend Danny describe his recent visit to a town in Westchester County, home of many of this country’s top 1%. I thought about my trips to the store; nervous excursions laced with anxiety over pressure from corporations seducing me into giving them money I can’t afford to waste. I’m sure a lot of other people feel the same as I do these days. If it isn’t shopping, it’s the job market, or the labor dispute, or the dwindling clientele, or the overbearing debt that feels like your world and your potential are growing smaller with every day. It could be the dearth of dignity in tightening your belt while others let it slip another notch.

After my talk with Danny, I rode the subway down to Fulton Street and walked the rest of the way to the Occupy Wall Street protest grounds. It’s the protest that too many people don’t realize even represents them. While spending the previous week across the country in California, I took the opportunity to gather a few sample opinions from the West Coast about what is going on. “I’ll represent myself, thank you very much,” said my sister. She’s injured and can’t afford health insurance, so she has resorted to prayer. “I don’t really understand what they’re protesting,” said my uncle.

Last week, I also read the words of an officer who worked the barricade at Occupy Wall Street; he didn’t know and he didn’t care what the protest was about, it was just a job to him. Little did he know that he was a single labor dispute away from stepping across the line to join it.

The media has been doing their best to downplay the protests, even as they pop up around the country, by passing the crowd off as a bunch of hippies, punks, druggies and lazy students. I didn’t have to try very hard to find that wasn’t true.

Mark Bray, a PhD student in History at Rutgers, is a member of Occupy Wall Street’s press team. He stood under the Press Area sign, patiently and eloquently answering questions from the news crew from ABC 7. As I listened, the reporter was asking him to comment on the law enforcement expenditure that the protest had resulted in. It was just another tactic to marginalize the movement; get the public angry at them for spending their money. The response: “As you see, we are here peacefully and aren’t breaking any laws, but we are surrounded by police officers. We can’t control how much the city spends.”

City Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez was there in the press pit, advocating for the movement. He strongly expressed to me his dissatisfaction with the cuts from an overextended budget that resulted in 2 billion dollars taken away from education, immigrant services, and creating jobs. “This is the biggest movement that ... has happened in this nation, in our generation,” he said. “We cannot have 99% of the people living in these conditions.” He continued, “We cannot expect Wall Street, which has been doing so good financially within the past few years, to make profits without making contributions.”

There has been a lot of confusion about the message of the protest, but Council Member Rodriguez was quick to give his input on that. “The movement has a message. The millionaires should contribute more to this city. We should increase taxes on millionaires, that’s one. Second, when we balance the budget on the local level, we should not only cut on the working class people, or only cut on education. It is time for the wealthy in this city to be more responsible and to increase their level of contribution.”

Of course, everyone has their own gripes and their own solutions. That’s what makes this such an identifiable movement. I met Gregory, a mortgage banker who saw the crash happening from the front line. His solution was to end the debt attrition by offering debt forgiveness on mortgages on the condition that buyers move out of their homes. “That sounds like putting a band-aid on an internal hemorrhage,” I told him, but he was not swayed. He was angry, as we all should be.

A college professor was using the “human mic” to make a speech in one corner of Liberty Park. He spoke only a few words at a time, waiting for those immediately around him to repeat them so that those outside of his range could hear. He gave the protesters a history lesson, talking about examples of government corruption and giving them encouragement by describing past successes in peaceful protest. Though the top-down view of the crowd showed dyed hair, dreadlocks and piercings here and there, many stood in their work clothes, in their suits and ties, and cheered after every line.

America, there is life at Occupy Wall Street. Though you may not have been given the complete story about why they’re protesting and what they hope to get out of it, they’re trying to represent you. They’re trying to get you a better life. So if you’re feeling anxious when you pay your bills or when your boss calls you into their office, or when you look at your bank statement, just realize that everyone at Liberty Park is just like you. That’s because you are the 99%.