Nov 14 2011
Occupy Wall Street and The Struggle for Racial Justice
The Occupy Oakland encampment was dismantled by police today with officers in riot gear arresting dozens of protestors in a raid beginning early this morning. Occupy Oakland put out a call on its website yesterday for supporters to turn out to swell its numbers in anticipation of the police. The AP reports the Oakland PD did not employ the violent tactics used on October 25th, when they used bean bag guns and pepper spray to disperse the crowd, seriously injuring a number of protestors. That incident led to a one-day general strike in the city on November 3rd and was followed by Oakland Mayor Jean Quan expressing support for the camp. However Oakland authorities are contributing last week’s change of heart toward Occupy Oakland to a shooting that left one man dead just outside the camp perimeter in downtown Oakland’s Civic Center. Occupy Oakland participants don’t believe the shooting was related to their protest but Oakland police over the weekend identified the 25-year-old slain man as a person who had been staying in the camp. Over the weekend Police arrested protestors at encampments in Albany, Denver, Salt Lake City and Portland while attempting to clear public spaces. Nationwide Occupy camps are facing antagonism from local governments and falling winter temperatures, testing the resolve of a movement that is nearly two months old and has grown larger than most expected, with recent polls suggesting that about half of Americans support the cause. Organizers within the movement are also faced with tough decisions around strategy, and still face criticism regarding the racial make-up of the movement, namely whether people of color are discouraged from joining and fully participating. Last week in an article for The Nation magazine Rinku Sen weighed in on the topic, writing that racial justice, not simple diversity, was the key to greater success.
GUEST: Rinku Sen Executive Director of the Applied Research Center, Publisher of Colorlines.com; author of The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization and Stir It Up: Lessons in Community Organizing.
Read Rinku Sen’s article on Race and Occupy Wall Street at www.thenation.com/article/164212/race-and-occupy-wall-street
Read Colorlines.com’s coverage of the Occupy Movement and other news at www.colorlines.com.
One Response to “Occupy Wall Street and The Struggle for Racial Justice”
As Americans, we are being subjected to a police state where dissidence is not being tolerated. These evictions exemplify the suppression of our civil liberties including the right to organize, one of the basis rights set forth by our founding fathers. Police brutality is running rampant under orders from Governors who have their pockets lined with Wall Street and Special Interest monies. Stand up and lend your voice to the global protest with the information sources and art listed on my artist’s blog at http://dregstudiosart.blogspot.com/2011/09/occupywallstreet.html