I've been walking around my everyday stops — campus, classes, home — today in a daze, a disconnected daze. I suppose that before I really jump into what I'm about to write, I should likely note that all the thoughts I'll be spilling here are raw and unprocessed. Going to classes, doing school work and "work" work today, I haven't gotten a chance to write at all about what I experienced yesterday, and writing is my usual method of understanding. So, here, I'll be writing to understand as well as to describe, and this is an important process. I'm firmly against disclaimers, but I'm posing this here paragraph as more of an explanation. Now, back to Oakland.
I arrived in Oakland shortly after four p.m. on Wednesday. A friend and I had raced to catch a bus from Berkeley, pounding the pavement in excitement. We caught the 1R, which had to be rerouted somewhere down the line because of the sheer mass of people in downtown Oakland. When my friend and I asked the bus driver about the best stop to get off at on the new route, he kindly let us know, told us he would love to be able to get off his bus and march with us.
Wednesday was my first direct encounter with the Occupy movement. My sister had gone and visited the Oakland site a couple weeks ago and told me excitedly about it. I had only been following the movement minorly in the news until quite recently. I'll admit that I was quite cynical about the movement — about the possibilities it held, about the determination and stamina of those involved, as well as a number of other issues that I'm still turning over in my mind — and decided that I really wanted to see it firsthand before deciding what I thought. I had to see it before I could think anything at all.
What I saw as I marched to the Port of Oakland on Wednesday amazed me.
The streets were so packed with people — behind me, around me, in front of me — that I am not sure I could tell where I was walking even if I were the sort of person who has a sense of direction.
An older couple told me that the marchers and folks gathered at Oscar Grant Plaza today were much more diverse ethnically than they had been just the week before — something I found particularly heartening. Two big concerns of mine (that have not been completely alleviated, but which I am feeling more positively about now) were the ethnic diversity of participation in the movement and localization.
Something that I feel is necessary if Occupy is to represent itself as a movement of "the 99 percent" — and that is necessary if it is to grow as a mass movement — is representation. The fact that I saw this yesterday was a huge relief for me.
Another major concern for me was (is?) the localization of the movement. By this, I mean, the question of whether those at Occupy Oakland are from Oakland, or folks from somewhere else who are occupying Oakland.
I know that this may be ironic of hypocritical considering that I went out to Oakland from Berkeley, and it's still something I'm trying to understand myself, but hear me out. The main reason why I'm concerned about this is gentrification. Oakland is quickly gentrifying — the North Oakland/Temescal area is hopping in a way I don't remember it doing last year, when I first arrived in the Bay Area. Reading about issues of gentrification in Brooklyn, the way that well-intentioned "pioneers" moved into urban areas and transformed them into desirable living spaces for the well-off, has made me think more critically about the fact that intentions and consequences of actions do not always parallel on another. As good-hearted as we are, are those of us who migrate to Oakland from the outside doing the right thing or are we co-opting or adulterating a movement?
This brings up questions about the structure of the Occupy movement that are too numerous and detailed to bring up now, but that touch on ideas of localization of goals and actions and the way that they fit within the movement as a whole. The movement's still trying to figure itself out, so it's really amazing to be here on the fringes trying to figure it out as well.
Marching down to the port was spectacular. There was a distinct feeling in the air, an energy emanating from everyone there that I have never felt before. To say that I felt like a part of something ... that I felt connected to everyone there ... is to put it too plainly, is too prosaic.
Let me put it this way.
The port was like a great lung, drawing in great breaths of thousands of people, and softly breathing them out again in friendly little puffs. There is no other way to properly put it. The movement felt utterly organic in this way. When I arrived at the port, I could see from my perch on a bridge above railroad ties (I'll explain this later) that bodies stretched out in the thousands in front of me, and that more folks were still arriving.
It was incredibly beautiful to look behind me at the highway covered in bodies milling around, walking forward together.
Instead of cars, the streets were packed with people talking to one another, engaging in dialogue, shaking hands, exchanging stories and smiles. Suddenly, the streets were a place of convergence and conversation for people, rather than a pathway from compartmentalized place to compartmentalized place, all in the comfort of a car. To see another possibility for these streets was jarring in the best way possible, and gave me heart. I can't help but believe that this is what the street is made for. And that we should have the time to use them this way every day ... should have time to talk to one another and be merely human every day, rather than being merely their respective occupations.
There is so much more that I want to write, and that I will, but I've bitten off more than I can chew for now, so I'm just gon' post this up.
I arrived in Oakland shortly after four p.m. on Wednesday. A friend and I had raced to catch a bus from Berkeley, pounding the pavement in excitement. We caught the 1R, which had to be rerouted somewhere down the line because of the sheer mass of people in downtown Oakland. When my friend and I asked the bus driver about the best stop to get off at on the new route, he kindly let us know, told us he would love to be able to get off his bus and march with us.
Wednesday was my first direct encounter with the Occupy movement. My sister had gone and visited the Oakland site a couple weeks ago and told me excitedly about it. I had only been following the movement minorly in the news until quite recently. I'll admit that I was quite cynical about the movement — about the possibilities it held, about the determination and stamina of those involved, as well as a number of other issues that I'm still turning over in my mind — and decided that I really wanted to see it firsthand before deciding what I thought. I had to see it before I could think anything at all.
What I saw as I marched to the Port of Oakland on Wednesday amazed me.
The streets were so packed with people — behind me, around me, in front of me — that I am not sure I could tell where I was walking even if I were the sort of person who has a sense of direction.
An older couple told me that the marchers and folks gathered at Oscar Grant Plaza today were much more diverse ethnically than they had been just the week before — something I found particularly heartening. Two big concerns of mine (that have not been completely alleviated, but which I am feeling more positively about now) were the ethnic diversity of participation in the movement and localization.
Something that I feel is necessary if Occupy is to represent itself as a movement of "the 99 percent" — and that is necessary if it is to grow as a mass movement — is representation. The fact that I saw this yesterday was a huge relief for me.
Another major concern for me was (is?) the localization of the movement. By this, I mean, the question of whether those at Occupy Oakland are from Oakland, or folks from somewhere else who are occupying Oakland.
I know that this may be ironic of hypocritical considering that I went out to Oakland from Berkeley, and it's still something I'm trying to understand myself, but hear me out. The main reason why I'm concerned about this is gentrification. Oakland is quickly gentrifying — the North Oakland/Temescal area is hopping in a way I don't remember it doing last year, when I first arrived in the Bay Area. Reading about issues of gentrification in Brooklyn, the way that well-intentioned "pioneers" moved into urban areas and transformed them into desirable living spaces for the well-off, has made me think more critically about the fact that intentions and consequences of actions do not always parallel on another. As good-hearted as we are, are those of us who migrate to Oakland from the outside doing the right thing or are we co-opting or adulterating a movement?
This brings up questions about the structure of the Occupy movement that are too numerous and detailed to bring up now, but that touch on ideas of localization of goals and actions and the way that they fit within the movement as a whole. The movement's still trying to figure itself out, so it's really amazing to be here on the fringes trying to figure it out as well.
Marching down to the port was spectacular. There was a distinct feeling in the air, an energy emanating from everyone there that I have never felt before. To say that I felt like a part of something ... that I felt connected to everyone there ... is to put it too plainly, is too prosaic.
Let me put it this way.
The port was like a great lung, drawing in great breaths of thousands of people, and softly breathing them out again in friendly little puffs. There is no other way to properly put it. The movement felt utterly organic in this way. When I arrived at the port, I could see from my perch on a bridge above railroad ties (I'll explain this later) that bodies stretched out in the thousands in front of me, and that more folks were still arriving.
It was incredibly beautiful to look behind me at the highway covered in bodies milling around, walking forward together.
Instead of cars, the streets were packed with people talking to one another, engaging in dialogue, shaking hands, exchanging stories and smiles. Suddenly, the streets were a place of convergence and conversation for people, rather than a pathway from compartmentalized place to compartmentalized place, all in the comfort of a car. To see another possibility for these streets was jarring in the best way possible, and gave me heart. I can't help but believe that this is what the street is made for. And that we should have the time to use them this way every day ... should have time to talk to one another and be merely human every day, rather than being merely their respective occupations.
There is so much more that I want to write, and that I will, but I've bitten off more than I can chew for now, so I'm just gon' post this up.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment