Dear Occupy Wall Street: Please, please stop comparing yourself to the black civil rights movement
By Brendan O'Neill US politics Last updated: November 21st, 2011
Occupy protesters flatter themselves by comparing themselves to the civil rights movement
There are many irritating things about the*Occupy*movement, but probably the most irritating is its tendency to black up. Not literally, with boot polish, but politically, in the way its supporters continually crib images and slogans from the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Fantastically fancying themselves as the heirs to Martin Luther King and his million-strong march on Washington, the occupiers sing the songs and quote from the books of the civil rights era. When they were turfed out of Zuccoti Park last week, New York's sad-eyed middle-class occupiers sang "We Shall Overcome". When asked by the cops to give their names, occupiers have been known to reply: "Martin Luther King." One supportive article is headlined: “Occupy Wall Street protesters follow Martin Luther King’s arc of justice.”
The sight of well-off white kids rummaging around in black history for a few choice phrases that might make their public temper tantrums appear "with it" and historic is deeply embarrassing. It strikes me that there at least five key differences between the glorified Scouts camping trip that is the*Occupy*movement and the properly inspiring US civil-rights uprising.
1) Blacks in the American South faced serious repression. Denied full voting rights, educational rights, the freedoms of movement and speech and decent jobs, they were on the receiving end of an extreme form of what is these days called “social exclusion”. The same cannot be said for the well-educated youngsters cramming into Wall Street and the area outside St Paul’s Cathedral, who, schooled from birth in the importance of protecting and polishing their own self-esteem, are the most over-flattered generation in living memory.
2) Civil rights activists had to bear the full brunt of state violence. When they marched to demand equality, they were frequently water-cannoned and truncheoned off the streets or attacked with police dogs. In contrast, the occupiers have been treated with kid gloves by the cops (not to mention by politicians, the church and the media). They’ve been allowed to lounge around in public spaces for weeks on end, experiencing only the “tyranny” of polite legal notices asking them to think about vacating.
3) The civil rights movement was a mass movement. In 1963 it got a million people to march on Washington. The Occupy movement is an infinitesimally tiny clique in comparison. There are possibly 50 or so regular campers outside St Paul’s, and according to some reports journalists frequently outnumber activists at Occupy Wall Street. The masses’ distinct lack of interest in the Occupy movement isn’t surprising, considering the official Occupy website has published articles sneeringly claiming the masses have been “brainwashed by the mainstream media”. That’s another difference between old civil rights activists and modern-day occupiers: the former had faith in the goodness of the common people; the latter looks upon the common people as dumbasses whose brain cells have been fried by Fox News.
4) Civil rights activists were thirsty for freedom. If Occupy London’s “Safe Space Policy” is anything to go by, today’s occupiers wouldn’t know freedom if it accosted them in an alleyway. Aping New Labour-style “safe community zones”, the St Paul’s policy outlaws all forms of offensive speech, forbids the consumption of alcohol, proposes zero tolerance of “putting people down” and “competing with people”, and insists that everyone must get “explicit verbal consent before touching someone”. Whether one has to get explicit verbal consent before linking arms with another to sing “We Shall Overcome” is not made clear.
5) Probably the most important difference is that where black civil-rights activists were driven by a deep desire to be full, free, productive members of society, the occupiers have a deep disdain for the mainstream, or the “rat race” as they call it, for those hordes who cluelessly trudge to pointless jobs every day. Their posters and placards chastise Joe Public for being robotic, while graciously informing us that capitalism has turned us all into “chumps or tarts”. Where civil-rights protesters wanted in, the occupiers want out – they want to opt out of a society which in their minority middle-class view is too competitive and vulgar and stuff-obsessed. Consider the different clothing worn by the self-respecting civil-rights activist and the self-regarding occupier. The black marchers on Washington wore their Sunday best, suits and ties, to signal their respectability and desire to be part of society; the modern occupiers wear psychedelic leggings or fancy dress, to signal their scoffing disregard for the straights and squares who make up the vile mainstream world.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/b...-yourself-to-the-black-civil-rights-movement/
By Brendan O'Neill US politics Last updated: November 21st, 2011
Occupy protesters flatter themselves by comparing themselves to the civil rights movement
There are many irritating things about the*Occupy*movement, but probably the most irritating is its tendency to black up. Not literally, with boot polish, but politically, in the way its supporters continually crib images and slogans from the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s. Fantastically fancying themselves as the heirs to Martin Luther King and his million-strong march on Washington, the occupiers sing the songs and quote from the books of the civil rights era. When they were turfed out of Zuccoti Park last week, New York's sad-eyed middle-class occupiers sang "We Shall Overcome". When asked by the cops to give their names, occupiers have been known to reply: "Martin Luther King." One supportive article is headlined: “Occupy Wall Street protesters follow Martin Luther King’s arc of justice.”
The sight of well-off white kids rummaging around in black history for a few choice phrases that might make their public temper tantrums appear "with it" and historic is deeply embarrassing. It strikes me that there at least five key differences between the glorified Scouts camping trip that is the*Occupy*movement and the properly inspiring US civil-rights uprising.
1) Blacks in the American South faced serious repression. Denied full voting rights, educational rights, the freedoms of movement and speech and decent jobs, they were on the receiving end of an extreme form of what is these days called “social exclusion”. The same cannot be said for the well-educated youngsters cramming into Wall Street and the area outside St Paul’s Cathedral, who, schooled from birth in the importance of protecting and polishing their own self-esteem, are the most over-flattered generation in living memory.
2) Civil rights activists had to bear the full brunt of state violence. When they marched to demand equality, they were frequently water-cannoned and truncheoned off the streets or attacked with police dogs. In contrast, the occupiers have been treated with kid gloves by the cops (not to mention by politicians, the church and the media). They’ve been allowed to lounge around in public spaces for weeks on end, experiencing only the “tyranny” of polite legal notices asking them to think about vacating.
3) The civil rights movement was a mass movement. In 1963 it got a million people to march on Washington. The Occupy movement is an infinitesimally tiny clique in comparison. There are possibly 50 or so regular campers outside St Paul’s, and according to some reports journalists frequently outnumber activists at Occupy Wall Street. The masses’ distinct lack of interest in the Occupy movement isn’t surprising, considering the official Occupy website has published articles sneeringly claiming the masses have been “brainwashed by the mainstream media”. That’s another difference between old civil rights activists and modern-day occupiers: the former had faith in the goodness of the common people; the latter looks upon the common people as dumbasses whose brain cells have been fried by Fox News.
4) Civil rights activists were thirsty for freedom. If Occupy London’s “Safe Space Policy” is anything to go by, today’s occupiers wouldn’t know freedom if it accosted them in an alleyway. Aping New Labour-style “safe community zones”, the St Paul’s policy outlaws all forms of offensive speech, forbids the consumption of alcohol, proposes zero tolerance of “putting people down” and “competing with people”, and insists that everyone must get “explicit verbal consent before touching someone”. Whether one has to get explicit verbal consent before linking arms with another to sing “We Shall Overcome” is not made clear.
5) Probably the most important difference is that where black civil-rights activists were driven by a deep desire to be full, free, productive members of society, the occupiers have a deep disdain for the mainstream, or the “rat race” as they call it, for those hordes who cluelessly trudge to pointless jobs every day. Their posters and placards chastise Joe Public for being robotic, while graciously informing us that capitalism has turned us all into “chumps or tarts”. Where civil-rights protesters wanted in, the occupiers want out – they want to opt out of a society which in their minority middle-class view is too competitive and vulgar and stuff-obsessed. Consider the different clothing worn by the self-respecting civil-rights activist and the self-regarding occupier. The black marchers on Washington wore their Sunday best, suits and ties, to signal their respectability and desire to be part of society; the modern occupiers wear psychedelic leggings or fancy dress, to signal their scoffing disregard for the straights and squares who make up the vile mainstream world.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/b...-yourself-to-the-black-civil-rights-movement/
