Occupy Movement and

Social Justice
By:
Citizens in the middle who live
comfortable lives, luxurious lives in relation
to the rest of the world, often fear the
challenging classism will be their downfall,
that simply by expressing concerns for the
poor they will end up like them, lacking the
basic necessities of life (Hooks 1)
Those who described themselves as actively
involved in the Occupy movement were
overwhelmingly white, highly educated and
employed, according to a new report from the
Joseph F. Murphy Institute for Worker Education
and Labor Studies at the City University of New
York.(source Huffington Post)
The report surveyed the participants at a
joint Occupy-labor movement May Day rally in
New York City and found that two-thirds of those
who described themselves as actively involved in
Occupy Wall Street were white, while 80 percent
had a bachelors degree or higher.
Many of these activists claiming to represent
the 99 percent were drawn to the Occupy
movement after the financial crisis left them
underemployed and burdened with student
loan debt. The survey found that while 80
percent of respondents said they had a job,
about one-third said their employment was
precarious,
Which means that they did not have a stable
job and could possibly soon be unemployed.
How many of you believe that you will
have a secure job after College?
For so long everyone has wanted to
hold on to the belief that the United
States is a class-free society- that
anyone who works hard enough can
make it to the top. (Hooks 5)
Although their frag-ile hold on
economic self-sufficient is slipping,
they still cling to the dream of a
class-free society where everyone
can make it to the top. They are
afraid to face the significance of
dwindling resources, the high cost of
education, housing, and health case.
They are afraid to think too deeply
about class. (Hooks 6)


Education

People who are entering the middle
class or coming out of the middle
class, and looking to college to put
themselves forward, are actually
graduating with excessive amounts
debt
When I was choosing a college to attend, the issue of
money surfaced and had to be talked about. (Hooks
25)
A lot of students become in debt their first year
because they have to take out so many loans that they
have to pay back
Mama urged me to attend any college nearby that
offer financial aid. (Hooks 25)
We live in a society where the poor have no public
voice (Hooks 5)
By and large poor people feel they have not been able to
take advantage of new economic opportunities because
of lack of connections and lack of information, skills and
credit. Unemployment and lack of food and money
appear as problems in many communities. The poor,
who work primarily in the informal sector, report
experiencing life as more insecure and unpredictable
than a decade or so ago. This is linked to
unpredictability of agriculture, jobs that are unreliable
and with low returns, loss of traditional livelihoods,
breakdown of the state, breakdown of traditional social
solidarity, social isolation, increased crime and violence,
lack of access to justice, extortion, and brutality from
the police rather than protection. Illness is dreaded and
lack of affordable health care pushes many families into
indebtedness and destitution.
Greed
Zillah Eisenstein notes in Global Obscenities: The extremes of
wealth and poverty within the united states also mirror the
extremes across the globe. The wealthiest 20 percent of u.s.
citizens received 99 percent of the total gain in marketable
wealth between 1983 and 1989. More than 38 million people
live in poverty in the united states, of whom more than 40
percent are under eighteen years of age. The rich are getting
richer and the poor poorer. (Books 64)

Radical young politicos from privileged backgrounds who
had sought to intervene on oppressive capitalism became adults
who were eager to find and keep their place in the existing
economic system. (Books 64)
Do you believe that hard-working
people deserve to make it to the top?
Since the radicals and/or liberals who had once repudiated
class privilege brought to their reclaiming of class power a
more open view toward the masses than their ancestors,
they were quite willing to let go of old notions, whether
rooted in racism or sexism, to exploit the material desires
of any group. More than any other group in the nation s
history, this group was and is willing to forego allegiance to
race or gender to promote their class interests. If they
could make a fortune promoting and selling a product to
any group, they were willing to play and prey upon any
need or vulnerability that would aid in their accumulation of
wealth (Hooks 65)
They were motivated more by the desire for ever-
increasing profit than by sustained allegiance to race or
gender (Hooks 65)
By the early eighties the idea that sexism and racism
had been eradicated, coupled with the assumption that
the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy could
work for everybody gained momentum and with it the
notion that those groups for whom it did not work were
at fault. (Hooks 66)

Opportunities for class mobility created by radical
political movements for social justice, civil rights,
and womens liberation, especially in the workforce,
meant that there were individuals who could serve
as examples of the popular truism that anyone can
make it big in America. Multi mass media has
played the central role as the propagandistic voice
promoting the notion that this culture remains a
place of endless opportunity, where those on the
bottom can reach the top

Where do you think most
American jobs went?

The economy has been unable to create
jobs due to Americas massive trade
deficit caused by failed economic policy.
Since 1975, the U.S. has imported more
goods than it has exported. In 2012 alone,
the U.S. had a trade deficit of $784 billion.
A large portion of this was oil imports, but
consumer goods are another area in which
the U.S. imports virtually everything.

Institute shows that for every $1 billion in
goods imported, the economy loses 9,000
jobs.
More than any other media, television
fundamentally altered the attitudes of poor
and working-class people, as well as those
of more privileged classes, toward the rich.
Largely through marketing and advertising,
television promoted the myth of the
classless society, offering on one hand
images of an American dream fulfilled
wherein any and everyone can become rich
and on the other suggesting that the lived
experience of this lack of class hierarchy was
expressed by our equal right to purchase
anything we could afford. (Hooks 71)


Questions to ask Yourself
How many of you believe that you may have a secure
job after College?
Do you believe every student should have a fair privilege
to pursue higher education?
Do you believe that hard-working people deserve to
make it to the top?
Where do you think most American jobs went?

Analysis

What all the bell hooks quotes were initially saying was,
that no matter how we look at it there is social
inequality, sexism, racism, and economical inequality in
the U.S. In the U.S there is always going to be the 1%
and the 99%, it wont change because the one percent
of privileged Americans, care more about growing wealth
within themselves.
Work Cited
Kandasamy, Ambika.Social Justice Groups
Engage Occupy Movement. New America
Media News Report. 10 Nov. 2011 Web. 25
March 2014.
Thu. Logo of We are the 99% Creative
Commons 3.0. 2011. Web. 25 March. 2014
Berman, Gillian. Occupy Wall Street Actually
Not All Representative of the 99%
Huffington Post. 29 January 2013. Web. 26
March 2014
Anonymous The Corrupt Fear Us Knowledge of
Today Organization. May. 21 2012.
Poverty: listen to Voices WorldBank
Organization. 2012. Web. 26 March 2014.
Work Cited Continued
John Olen. Lack of Jobs is Due to Trade Deficit
Economic in Crisis Organization. 8 March 2014.
Web 27 March 2014
Rasul Palmer. The Reality of Unemployment in
America Ki Eco Center. 2013. 27 March. 2014
The Occupy Movement Doesnt Need Black Bloc
Baffonery. Paul's Voyage of Discovery. 2
November 2011. Web. March 28 2014.
Bansky. Monopoly My Modern Met. 25 October 2011.
Web. 28 March 2014.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GknHtQ61v8M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCxLQMDBy-0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=235qHnTI8tI