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Old 05-02-2012, 02:44 PM   #85
Despanan
 
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Join Date: May 2008
Location: Sugar Hill
Posts: 3,887
Seriously guys, just put him on ignore

Sorry this took so long, I was out marching on Mayday. HOLYSHIT Mayday was awesome (I'll post a thread about it later).

Quote:
Originally Posted by Versus View Post
I should rephrase my question. "How has OWS addressed the concerns of non-whites about OWS? Where has that discourse come to?"
Well first of all, that's going to depend on what you mean by OWS. Once again, the Occupy Movement is not a political party, nor is it an ideology, it's an umbrella term for multiple communities around the world setting up their own camps.

Certain occupations, like Occupy Oakland, Occupy DC, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Boston, Occupy Denver, Occupy Seattle, etc., are in contact with each other. HOWEVER it's not like OWS tells OO what to do, nor is Occupy Newfoundland obliged to listen to Occupy Denver.

If a bunch of Tea Party guys decide to camp out in a park in Louisiana and declare themselves "Occupiers" who am I to say that they aren't? Who is the NYC General Assembly to say they aren't and who are they to make policy for them?

Occupy is a lateral movement. We have no official hierarchy, no official demands, and no uniting principals other than what is colloquially understood to be an occupier.

Occupy is not a political ideology, it is not a philosophy, it is not a party, nor is it a confederation, Occupy is a behavior.

You want an example as to how serious we are about this? There's a crazy woman named "Nan" who's probably on the payroll of some conservative group who shows up at our GA's and Spokes Council meetings. She blocks everything, she tries her best to waste as much time as possible, she makes up stories about being attacked, she has said numerous times that her goal is to destroy the movement through this behavior, and we haven't banned her from the movement because we can't.

Don't believe me? Here are the minutes from her temporary ban from Spokescouncil. <--*Nan is recorded as "Visions and Goals" in this for some reason.

It's likely that the whole point of her being there was to force Occupy to ban her, to FORCE the General Assembly to abandon it's lateral principals and instead behave like a traditional hierarchical, top-down group, as opposed to a bottom-up lateral movement. The whole point is for her to goad us into abandoning our principals so that the conservative press can declare "Direct democracy doesn't work!" and cite her banning as a representative example.

You mentioned "No-True-Scotsman" before. You might assume that I'd say that Nan is not a "True" Occupier. It's quite the opposite, Nan is an Occupier, She's just a crazy Occupier that no one listens to trying desperately to destroy Occupy from within. When I criticize what Nan does in the meetings, I don't criticize her behavior as something that is representative of the Spokes Council, or the General Assembly, I criticize her behavior as being representative of fucking CRAZY PEOPLE.

Now, that that's out of our way, let's get back to your question:

Quote:
I'm interested in the internal struggle to fight racism within the movement.
Well there's alot of things that we're doing. Beyond the previously mentioned training sessions and teach-ins, our facilitators are actually trained to prevent even unconscious racist/sexist/privileged behavior in the spokescouncil, GA, and workgroups. For instance, Kontan and I went to Occupy Congress a few months back. After the General Assembly, we all split off into different discussion groups, Kontan and I went to Vision and Goals. We were the first ones there and the first ones to indicate that we wanted to speak. The facilitator (Who was a woman) informed us that we would not be speaking first because we were white men, and in fact we had to wait until every other woman and person of color had had their say.

This was annoying, but we understood, and we eventually got our chance to speak, after every other minority had gone first.

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I could reference a few things that say otherwise, but I hope that at this point, that's not necessary. Is it okay for me to just say that it's not as specific as you think, and that my comparison was not inaccurate?
I would actually like to see these things you're referencing.

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Because when OWS makes a mission statement or a general intent, it is OWS's responsibility when OWS does not adhere to it. I don't know if you consider other occupy pronouns as OWS, but I would assume so because you used Occupy Boston and Occupy The Hood as examples of what OWS has done to address the concerns of non-whites. I also think that you have to take credit for the crazies and stupids, too. I'm not really sure how you can have a consensus when their actions don't reflect the movement as a whole. I don't think there is a consensus like you think there is.
Consensus is the way we make our decisions in our GAs

Consensus does not mean that everyone in the movement agrees with everyone else in the movement.

I find this video is helpful for figuring out how consensus works, it also illustrates how our decision making process ITSELF combats racism and sexism: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=6dtD8RnGaRQ

Quote:
As far as what you're supposed to do about it? I don't know. I'm not an activist, and I don't have any experience with it. I'll try to look into it and come back with an answer, though. I'll tell you that "Nothing" isn't a good one, though. At least if you're interesting in drawing people to OWS.
Well there's a couple of things that we ARE doing about it (as much as we can without abandoning our lateral model) On a policy level there's our principals of solidarity, which have been in-place since the first month of the occupation:

Quote:
Originally Posted by NYC GA
Principles of solidarity – working draft

Posted on September 24, 2011


What follows is a living document that will be revised through democratic process of General Assembly.

On September 17, 2011, people from all across the United States of America and the world came to protest the blatant injustices of our times perpetuated by the economic and political elites. On the 17th we as individuals rose up against political disenfranchisement and social and economic injustice. We spoke out, resisted, and successfully occupied Wall Street. Today, we proudly remain in Liberty Square constituting ourselves as autonomous political beings engaged in non-violent civil disobedience and building solidarity based on mutual respect, acceptance, and love. It is from these reclaimed grounds that we say to all Americans and to the world, Enough! How many crises does it take? We are the 99% and we have moved to reclaim our mortgaged future.

Through a direct democratic process, we have come together as individuals and crafted these principles of solidarity, which are points of unity that include but are not limited to:

Engaging in direct and transparent participatory democracy;
Exercising personal and collective responsibility;
Recognizing individuals’ inherent privilege and the influence it has on all interactions;
Empowering one another against all forms of oppression;

Redefining how labor is valued;
The sanctity of individual privacy;
The belief that education is human right; and
Endeavoring to practice and support wide application of open source.

We are daring to imagine a new socio-political and economic alternative that offers greater possibility of equality. We are consolidating the other proposed principles of solidarity, after which demands will follow.
Now beyond this there's also how we deal with racists and sexists on an individual level, in cases where it's really blatant a few things can happen. When an Anti-Semite showed up at the park with a giant sign calling on people to "Google Zionist Control of Wall Street" a few Occupiers took it upon themselves to make a giant sign which read "This guy does not represent Occupy Wall Street" and follow him around with it. When Neo-Nazi Skinheads tried to join our Mayday March, they got beaten up.

But one of the biggest ways that racism and sexism in the movement is combated is by joining in solidarity with other groups - a terrific example of this was when we worked with the Labor Unions and the Immigrant's Right's groups to plan Mayday <--Read the article on the front page, and then read it's continuation on to page 4.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Teresa Gutierrez
Another discussion was around permits. OWS feels strongly about not applying for permits, an honorable position. Other organizers expressed their responsibility for representing a vulnerable population that, should there be a confrontation, would not just spend the night in jail but could be deported. Organizers from labor and immigrant rights groups explained that we could not consciously put the undocumented in harm’s way. This should not be interpreted to mean that immigrants are fearful or not militant. But it was clear that this was more an issue of privilege, especially by white youth. That swayed the OWSers to agree to apply for permits.
When dealing with privilege, usually the only way you can get someone to recognize it in themselves is through life experience. Once again, the OWS movement often times IS that experience. Things are hard because groups of the proletariat are kept alienated from each other because of capitalism.

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