JahFocus CS

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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.
 

Broke Wave

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I agree OP this was most certainly a missed opportunity for a paradigm shifting conversation to be had by the populace... but sadly the real lost opportunity was when Hilary beat Bernie :manny:

It solidifies 4-8 more years of totally unresponsive government at the highest level and alienates black people from standing up for themselves at the ballot box, where it seems to matter most.
 

MegaManX

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well everyone seems to forget only bernie sander got brutalized for you. Only bernie sanders called the cops terrorist on national television. Yet we all look at these other spineless politicians.

Bernie calls out Israel and he is jewish. He calls out the cops and he isnt black. WTF this guy gotta do to be GOAT of the millenium
 

Pitfalls0117

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well everyone seems to forget only bernie sander got brutalized for you. Only bernie sanders called the cops terrorist on national television. Yet we all look at these other spineless politicians.

Bernie calls out Israel and he is jewish. He calls out the cops and he isnt black. WTF this guy gotta do to be GOAT of the millenium
To be fair Bernie's criticism of Israel's treatment of Gaza was pretty tepid. He basically ventured to say that Gazans were human beings and deserved to be treated as such. It's more indicative of the political climate in the US/Israel that such an obvious, self explanatory statement was at all controversial. I will give Bernie credit for skipping that disgusting AIPAC ring kissing ceremony that all the other hacks went to.
 

NZA

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to be brutally honest, you cant ideologically link race struggle with the rest of these struggles to any meaningful degree. our particular problem is white supremacy. this can come from rich and poor cac alike. cacs who need a new minimum wage can enjoy calling the police on black people at walmart so they get shot. as a matter of fact, if the fight for 15 got more involved in BLM, it could start losing white members and sympathetic support by the middle class as a whole.

i have a feeling that if there was natural synergy, getting together would have happened already. OWS is probably now bernie or bust which has a very mixed record on race (at least on the internet, the white bernie or busters can be very condescending to blacks)
 
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