16 Oct Race, Gender, and Occupy
I just read the most beautiful piece called Pinto Beans, Wall Street and Me at JoNubian.
I also hold a bit of disdain for the Occupy movement, but i have also been disappointed in the claims against it. I’ve been equally perturbed by its whiteness and yet fiercely protective of what it is that the movement is attempting to accomplish. I am ambivalent – drawn by the promise of a new experiment in an un-led dis-organization and perturbed by the whiteness, maleness, and apparent middle-classness (who has time to protest?).
I think this partially comes down to who has the privilege to protest? Who has the political language? Who has the populace language? Who is included and who is excluded? And while the movement has worked furiously to make room for “all voices”, does it make room for all histories?
Yesterday, when i finally went down to Occupy Seattle at Westlake, i found that a Latina woman was MCing the open mic, a South Asian was organizing speaker order, and a young African American man was speaking about the war on people of color that is happening in America. Behind the stage, a Native American woman began banging on a trashcan, screaming angrily and crying. A group calling themselves the Peace Team quickly moved in and offered her kind words, space to speak.
This is not meant to be a tally of The Number of People of Colour i saw yesterday. I just happened to walk up at a strangely diverse moment – particularly strange as it was in downtown Seattle. So what is my point?
I avoided the marches and protests, even as my colleagues went en masse from the university campus to downtown, and again as they tried to organize amongst departments and schools. I wondered where my people were – the brown folks whose land was stolen to make this country. Where are the women of color – where are the working mamas, the grandmothers who will never retire? Where are the disenfranchised – my brothers and sisters who make up 16% of the US population and only 5% of the graduate programs at my school?
So… do we make this our movement? Do we take up this struggle, or do we turn away and simply wait it out? What is that balance in the ambivalence?
I decided that there is one thing i can do: teach. It turns out that there are a number of people who feel the way i do and are organizing a teach-in. Many of the people i met yesterday had no understanding of the histories of oppressions that have occurred in this country or by this country. Many of their histories reach back three years to the economic collapse. Their frustrations are based on anecdotes and charts, shocking numbers and liberal soundbites. And that is not to take away from the absolute enormity of what we are facing as a nation and as individuals. But what can we do to make it more meaningful, to last longer, to have a greater impact?
We are the 99%, but we are also the 14%, and the 16%, and the 35%, and the 51%.
ryan burns
Posted at 16:53h, 18 Octoberhey tish,
please don’t take this the wrong way, i don’t mean this offensively. but it sounds a bit as if you formulated your conclusions before having any evidence… pretty dangerous, if i’m correct (and i may not be). for instance, in my read of this post, it sounds as if you were disdainful of the movement’s whiteness before you’d gone down to see how white it is…?? and the “middle-classness”, in my experience, is completely off-base: many, if not most, of the people i saw, had time to protest because they were laid off, homeless, or under-worked (e.g., part-time). i dunno, i’ve been down a couple times and it would be impossible to characterize any of my experiences as white, male, middle-class (not to say that these weren’t a strong presence). and wait a sec – can’t white people be oppressed by capitalism?
perhaps more importantly, however, is that *isn’t this a common struggle?* not only was the march cancelled because of a native american protest (sorry, can’t remember the exact name), but native americans were the strongest presence on stage that day. seems to me, thinking about gibson-graham, nancy fraser, and maron-young, that struggles against capitalism can be simultaneously struggles against systems of race and gender oppression — they’re part in parcel of the same forces. it’s not only politics of redistribution, but politics of recognition.
of course, your questions about who has the privilege and language to protest are very, very, very important questions, and of course the linked blogger was right to notice that when white people start protesting, people of color have long reached the limit. but instead of disdaining a movement (not the OWS movement, for reasons i’ve already mentioned), shouldn’t this be a cause for celebration? final-fucking-ly white people are in the streets demanding change instead of safe in their secure jobs and suburban homes (well, this in itself is a rather limited view to begin from, for starters)…?
anyway,
ryan burns
Posted at 16:58h, 18 Octoberand just so my own comment isn’t misunderstood (ha!), i want to make clear that i’m 100% behind you in your motivations, your ethos, your political goals. my comment was more about the empirics of the situation than the underlying ideas.
if there’s a white, lower-middle-class male anti-racist, anti-classist, anti-capitalist in the world, it’s me! 🙂
maoquai
Posted at 20:02h, 18 OctoberI totally appreciate your appreciate your point about empirical, but you miss the point that movements, no matter how grounded in empirical are still very much dependent on the emotional frame of understanding of those both participating and not participating. A student sent me a series of emails sent to the Occupy Seattle listserv that highlighted the implicit racism in the protest, including threats to arrest people of color (made by white people) and the exclusion of voices of particular people. Beyond that, if there is a feeling of exclusion no matter how perceived, still reflect an affective reality of those feeling that way. The question that I’m posing is not south Why are people of color being excluded, as it is a question of, in light of the feeling of exclusion, what do we do about it? And by ‘we’, I mean all of us – you, me, people I color, people who lack social and political capital, those with capital to spare.
If you read my earlier post, you would know that, in fact, I did not pre-formulate my idea of te movement. I wrote this post after I’d actually been there. In fact, I scoffed at a colleague who made a comment about the white middle classless of the protest. The truth is, the Occupy Seattle movement has not only been rife with racial tension, but also gendered tension. As a spectator, this might be difficult to see or understand, but as organizers an participants have pointed out, the movement has made manifest the implicit frames of white superiority and class privilege, even in the face of crisis.
But the reality is, who gets to frame ‘crisis’? People of colOr have been in crisis for 200 years. We have known this – we are born with it, live in it, die in it. This particular crisis hit everyone else in ways that we exist in. This crisis became a national issue when it hit the middle classes, the white, those with social and political capital to say something about it, to do something about it. We’ve been yelling from the sidelines since the 30’s.
I get your point about it being about everyone, but its much easier to say from the fresh voice of dissent. Those of us with voices hoarse from shouting feel a little differently. Because, as was pointed out, it’s not till the white people show up that anyone listens…
maoquai
Posted at 20:05h, 18 OctoberAnd excuse bad typing, this was all done on a phone. 🙂
ryan burns
Posted at 21:54h, 18 Octoberhey there,
yeah i didn’t see your other post, but it doesn’t mention you being there anyway… and you’re partially right – i have actually *participated*, i wasn’t only spectating, although my role shifted between these a couple times…
i’m totally with you on the question of what ‘we’ should do about feelings of exclusion, particularly from the most vulnerable. but let me turn that around, in reaction to what we’ve seen: “in light of these feelings of exclusion and even danger, why are *so many* women and people of color still so actively involved”? because keep in mind, and this is very important: not only are women and people of color very, very active in the seattle movement, but this isn’t just about seattle – OWS started in NYC and is now a global phenomenon. is it still a white middle-class movement in Madrid, Manila, or Tokyo? (Of course, places like Manila, Santiago, and San Juan all have interesting historic relationships with upper-class white US politicians, but that point is coming further down)
ryan burns
Posted at 21:56h, 18 Octoberoops, didn’t mean to blockquote that whole thing! 🙂 we’re having tech issues tonight!
so yeah, again, i’m behind your motivations, politics, and so on, believe me! it’s just that once again, the empirics force me to think through a modified explanatory lens…
ryan burns
Posted at 23:09h, 18 Octoberoh, and by the way, i wouldn’t bother commenting/discussing if i didn’t enjoy our conversations and your blog so much! 🙂 please keep it up!
maoquai
Posted at 09:52h, 19 OctoberThere are two issues that remain, regardless of where either of us stand (and i’m still ambivalent):
1. If people feel left out – what should be done to address that?
2. Simply saying, “We’re all in this together” does not wipe out 100’s of years of history – no matter how much we’re “all” feeling it now, we’re all still feeling it from different roots. It doesn’t wipe out systemic and structural frames of oppression that, to recognize is not to take away from what is happening, but is to ensure that they do not become further entrenched simply by dismissing them. What is it that is being done to ensure that this movement doesn’t go where the civil rights movement of the 60’s went, or the women’s movement of the 70s went: all kinds of solidarity until there wasn’t any?
I totally appreciate your problematizing my post – it’s forcing me to consider a more nuanced and less reactionary frame through which to approach this subject. And i am so glad you’re willing to have this conversation. 🙂
Here’s another great post (from Racialicious.com) that i think does a much better job explaining the range of racialized issues and the difficulty with simply declaring “we’re all in it together”: http://alturl.com/5gaus