JahFocus CS
Get It How You Get It
The national conversation regarding police brutality has grown and intensified and recent years. One thing that I've been disappointed in is the failure to link the experiences and consciousness of the Occupy Wall Street movement with the wave of activism that arose around Black Lives Matter.
OWS started in fall 2011 and mostly petered out in spring 2012 in terms of a physical presence. BLM started about a year after OWS ended. Before BLM, the last major conversations about police brutality were had with regards to the attacks on OWS encampments: Law enforcement and the Occupy movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 14 Specific Allegations of NYPD Brutality During Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street: police violence reveals a corrupt system | Laurie Penny, In day of protests, "Occupy Wall Street" faces police violence - CBS News, etc.
It seems the episode with Occupy has been all but forgotten, not only by the general public but also by intellectuals and many activists. I believe this to have been a terrible missed opportunity to link these experiences (OWS and BLM/movements with a similar focus) into a broader analysis of the socioeconomic system and how the institution of police protects and serves the interests of the powerful. Such an effort would yield better results than giving in to the media's construction of a Black vs. cac narrative. The fact is that we get it the worst and most often, but the system hits others with strays too and also targets them whenever they agitate.
Further, these could have also been powerfully linked to the Fight for $15, whose rank-and-file is largely comprised of Black and Brown workers who are disproportionately the victims of police terror.
OWS started in fall 2011 and mostly petered out in spring 2012 in terms of a physical presence. BLM started about a year after OWS ended. Before BLM, the last major conversations about police brutality were had with regards to the attacks on OWS encampments: Law enforcement and the Occupy movement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 14 Specific Allegations of NYPD Brutality During Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Wall Street: police violence reveals a corrupt system | Laurie Penny, In day of protests, "Occupy Wall Street" faces police violence - CBS News, etc.
It seems the episode with Occupy has been all but forgotten, not only by the general public but also by intellectuals and many activists. I believe this to have been a terrible missed opportunity to link these experiences (OWS and BLM/movements with a similar focus) into a broader analysis of the socioeconomic system and how the institution of police protects and serves the interests of the powerful. Such an effort would yield better results than giving in to the media's construction of a Black vs. cac narrative. The fact is that we get it the worst and most often, but the system hits others with strays too and also targets them whenever they agitate.
Further, these could have also been powerfully linked to the Fight for $15, whose rank-and-file is largely comprised of Black and Brown workers who are disproportionately the victims of police terror.
