Sal Alper sat casually in front of the Wells Fargo headquarters in downtown San Francisco, as if chaining herself to the banking giant’s front doors was a normal thing to do on a Friday morning. As one of the many Occupy San Francisco protests on January 20, Sal had joined dozens of people in blockading since 6:00 a.m., so by the time I arrived on the scene at mid-morning, she was smiling and relaxed. When I asked her why she was protesting the banks, however, her smile quickly faded.
“My parents lost their home to a bank foreclosure two years ago,” Sal said. “They moved in with my uncle, but then he lost his home too. So they all moved over to my grandma’s — and now she is being threatened too! And it’s all because of these banks right here.”
Such stories of anger and resistance were everywhere in San Francisco, as thousands of protesters took over the streets of the city’s financial district in their ambitious attempt to “Occupy Wall Street West.” In a daylong series of building occupations, marches, and civil disobedience, Occupy San Francisco organizers mobilized the biggest direct action in the city since the start of the Iraq War in 2003. While unable to fully shut down the business district, activists mounted the largest Occupy action in the country of 2012 so far, as they begin the next phase of the rising movement for social and economic justice.
As a member of the self-identified “slash profession” – writer/organizer/educator/whatever pays the rent that month – I have learned how to wear multiple hats. How to move between different worlds and code-switch my headgear to meet a particular place and community. Alright, I got this big event coming up tonight…should I wear the Kangol, the fitted, or the yarmulke? (Correct answer: all three.) Sometimes, though, it’s a struggle figuring out which slash to bring out in which situation. Take Occupy.
I got back in Oakland full-time last month, and immediately jumped into the beautiful chaos that is Occupy Oakland. I joined the big West Coast port shutdown on December 12, started attending the alternatively powerful and painful General Assemblies, and connected with the two committees I’ve begun organizing with, Occupy the Hood and Labor Solidarity. It’s been great, and I’ve gotten to stretch some of activist muscles that I hadn’t used in years. (Sometimes literally – holding one side of a 30″ banner with that wind whipping off the bay is harder than it looks.) But while I’ve been bringing my organizing and education experience to the table, sometimes I leave behind the thing I do that I’m doing right now on this laptop. Writing. Telling stories. Creating culture.
Last night, however, some of my cultural comrades and heroes reminded me what it means to be artist in the movement. Artists of the 99% organized a panel/workshop (oh artists, how we even have “slash events”) that dealt with strategies for artists participating in social justice movements. It was a power-packed room: Jeff Chang (Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop), Favianna Rodriguez (printmaker activist powerhouse), David Solnit (street theater artist/organizer), and ZephFishlyn (Beehive Design Collective). Plus 100 or so radical artists who love talking about radical art on a Saturday night. My kind of folks.
Jeff set it off with his thesis that “cultural change precedes political change.” Meaning, we need Jackie Robinson before we get Brown v. Board of Education, Ellen Degeneres before we get gay marriage (at least in seven states). I don’t fully agree with Jeff – I think culture and politics very much go both ways – but overall, yes: people connect deeper on a daily basis with beautiful flash mobs and Youtube videos than with congressional committees and talking points. The question is, how do we get that flash mob’s message to those congressional committees and make the changes we need? (And yes, I know the obvious answer is to do the flash mob IN the committee itself…but I just don’t think Bernie Sanders has the dance moves to pull it off.)
Or maybe the point of cultural organizing is direct our energies more towards the 99% itself, rather than our so-called representatives. That seemed to be Favianna‘s argument, as she explained her work with CultureStrike, a pro-migrant project in Arizona started last year in the racist aftermath of SB1070. CultureStrike organized a pop music boycott of Arizona that was inspired by similar actions targeting apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. At the same time, they actually brought grassroots writers and artists to Arizona — but rather than perform, their job was to see the border walls and mass deportations for themselves and then create and promote artistic work to challenge the anti-immigrant climate of fear spreading across the country.
Regarding the Occupy movement, Favianna asked, “What are the strategic stories that we need to tell? Whose stories in the 99% are we lifting up?” The corporate media likes to focus on college students and angry anarchists for a reason. We need to highlight the stories of urban youth activists, immigrant day laborers, Black and brown homeowners — AND the college students, the (former) white-collar workers, and even the occasional anarchist. This is what artists do: shift the conversation, broaden the debate, literally paint the pictures that show both our unity and our diversity.
In that spirit, I was thinking about ways that “slash artists” can do more than just participate but take a real lead in progressive movements, from Occupy to environmental justice to international solidarity. I seem to be into lists these days, so I’m going to focus in on three concrete roles I see for me and my fellow artists:
1. Artists as Questioners
All great art, like all great political movements, starts with a question. I don’t mean marching around in a circle chanting, “What do we want? When do we want it?,” especially when we all know that the answers are deeper than “Justice” and “Now.” Artists have the power to question and critique the many injustices that often go unnoticed or unmentioned in present-day America. Just check the massive reaction, both positive and negative, to the recent “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls” videos. Culture, and especially humor, opens people up to ask the tough questions they would otherwise avoid.
Movement artists have a double role to play when it comes to asking questions, though — turning the lens not just on wider society, but on our own personal actions and organizations. When it comes to spoken word, I know the best political poem is when the poet isn’t preaching at me but struggling within themself. If only we saw more humility and self-reflection at Occupy Oakland.
On an organizing level, elements like street theater or marching bands do more than just liven up the crowd — they question the division of protesters and folks just passing by, of message and medium, of serious politics and God forbid, having a good time. To paraphrase Emma Goldman: if I can’t dance to some remixed, radicalized pop songs with you, I don’t want to be a part of your revolution.
2. Artists as Promoters
This is a practical one. If there’s one thing that all artists have in common, it’s the hustle. We’re constantly on the move, passing out flyers, sending out Facebook blasts, talking to people wherever and however we can to pack the next show. Outreach is always my number one focus for any event, because if you don’t have the folks ready to rock with you, what’s the point?
Too many political organizers, though, have an “If you build it, they will come” mentality when it comes to publicity. That might get you enough people to fill up a baseball park in Iowa, but if you want the tens of thousands of people needed to say, shut down the San Francisco district on January 20, the outreach motto needs to be more like, “If you build it, make it look and sound hella fly, build real community partners, and do a combined month-long social media/street team promo campaign…then they will come.” Assuming you don’t plan it the same day as the 49ers game, of course, which luckily is the next day.
Musicians, poets, and visual artists can bring this all-out outreach mentality to the movement, not to mention our mailing lists. Some of us are even moderately famous. Boots Riley has been at the forefront of Occupy Oakland not just because he’s on point in what he says, but because every hip-hop head in the Bay and around the country already loves dude’s albums with The Coup. This is the true artist as promoter role. Don’t just shout out Mumia in your one “conscious rap” song. Shout out the movement that’s trying to free him and invite people to join in. People listen to what you say. That’s why they call it Call and Response. Give your fans a call to liberation and just see how they respond.
3. Artists as Strategic Organizers
Now this is the most interesting, the most challenging, and ultimately the most important role. Not just for artists, but for anyone in a grassroots movement. Strategic organizing involves thinking about what it would actually take to win our demands, and how the hell to go from here to there. Putting on a poetry slam against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is organizing. Putting on a poetry slam of LGBT former soldiers and staging it outside an army base as part of a multi-tiered, national campaign…that’s strategic organizing.
To make any real change these days, we need to change the culture. Occupy Wall Street is never going to be able to physically occupy the stock market on Wall Street — the NYPD has too many guns, too many helicopters, and too many undercover infiltrators. What we do have, or could have, is the will of the people. We need the 99% to become a massive wave of real democracy, rather than the isolated ripples of confusion and consumerism that we are now. Artists, especially the artists/teachers/biracial-bakers who have their finger on the pulse of so many different worlds, as much as anyone can help change the tide.
In the end, our job is to contribute our creativity to the greatest art project ever: saving humanity from ourselves. For me, that means getting down and dirty in the nitty-gritty work of planning, building, and executing specific campaigns for justice. But at its most basic level, it means just doing what a good artist does: responding to the reality of our times and imagining the possibilities that could be.
Part of being a political artist also means fighting the competitive, individualistic nature of American art. If we want to build a collective future, we’ve got start with a collective now. More and more folks are stepping up to the plate, from the local Occupy SF Arts & Culture committee to the national, newly launched Art is My Occupation project, which is offering mini-grants to artists on Occupy-related efforts. Resources for the creative revolution? Love that!
I don’t know if a full-on Occupy arts movement is going to emerge like the labor-left Cultural Front of the 1930s or the Black Arts movement of the 1960s, but there’s only one way to find out. See you on the streets, my friends…and don’t forget your dancing shoes.
In the meantime, here’s my vote for #AnthemForTheMovement…So Far.
for Otto René Castillo (1936-1967), Roberto Obregon (1940-1970), Guadalupe Navas (1942-1980), Luis de León (1939-1985), and all the poets and people of Guatemala who gave their lives for the people’s struggle
this is not a movie starring Robin Williams
this is not a white prep school teacher
secretly teaching dead white authors
to rich white schoolboys, God forbid
this is the highlands of Guatemala
the cloud forests of a genetically modified banana republic
indigenous colors masked by corporate logos
guarded by young soldiers carrying guns bigger then they are,
all clearly marked, Made in the USA
i am a poet
made in the u.s.a.
a land where the greatest risk
of my profession is answering
the Christmas party hosts’ ice-breaker,
“So what do you do for a living?”
and watching their mouths drop
in an eggnog mix of confusion and pity
but here in Guatemala
land of volcanoes and United Fruit plantations,
i have met peasants and ex-guerrillas
who during the war years
(when were they not war years?)
secretly passed poems amongst the hungry
like bread or rifles
every poet was a fighter
every fighter a poet
not everyone went up into the mountains
but they made their struggle on the pages
and streets of this beautiful, broken nation
Roberto Obregon
Guadalupe Navas
Luis de León
and of course
Otto René Castillo
you lived for your people
and were killed for your words
tortured for your stanzas
disappeared for your poems
but your poems did not disappear
Otto, the army took your ode of solidarity
and turned it into a torture manual
I will stay blind so that you can have eyes
I will stay without a voice so that you can sing
I have to die so that you don’t die
and so when those soldiers cut out your eyes,
removed your tongue, and carved out your heart
they thought they had finished their bloody job
but your voice still rings out
of the people’s lips
like the call of the quetzal
flying high above the mountains
never to be caged or buried
i don’t know if the pen
is mightier than the sword
but what is the meaning
of a poem in the first place?
to end its days, quiet and comfortable
in the pages of an anthology?
or to go out fighting, and perhaps survive
in the hearts of the people?
poetry gives life
poetry needs life
poetry is life!
When this whole Occupy movement kicked off back in September, I wasn’t on the streets of Lower Manhattan. I wasn’t even on the streets of Oakland. I was walking along the quiet streets of Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, where my partner Esther and I had just started a three month journey through Central America. So when the Occupy stuff really got rolling in the weeks that followed, I got an email from my brother: “Well, Josh, it looks like we needed you to leave the country for us to start the revolution.” What a guy, my brother.
I don’t know if his statement was true or not (technically speaking, I left the country one day after the first protest on Wall Street), but it was weird to be out of the country, and especially Oakland, as shit was going down. When my brother asked me in that same email, “You sure you don’t want to come back?”, I was tempted but I also knew my answer. I was seeing and learning things in Guatemala that I would never do back in the States. The movement would still be there when I got back, but this was one of my few chances to experience life and politics outside the stars and stripes.
In that vain, we spent the fall in Central America: mainly in Guatemala, but with short stints in Honduras and Nicaragua as well. We spent the first six weeks in Quetzaltenango studying Spanish at an amazing, socialist language school called Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco (PLQ). The one-on-one classes are taught in a way that mixes grammatical practice with information about Guatemalan politics and culture, so I spent my days at PLQ conjugating verbs into the subjunctive tense, all while discussing the fallacies of neoliberal trade agreements. We also had the chance to meet different social activists, including ex-guerrilla fighters, indigenous leaders, union members, and much to Esther’s delight, traditional Mayan midwives. Needless to say, the school was awesome. Any gringos out there who want to improve your Spanish — I can’t recommend it highly enough.
After getting our español up to semi-quasi-conversational status, we started traveling around the country and then across two borders. We visited ancient Mayan ruins, historical colonial cities, and cooperative coffee farms, traveling by bus, boat, and at one point, a tiny plane that was more like a minivan with wings. Between the lush green rainforests, the mountain sunrises, and the joy of seeing two oceans in two days, we went through a million beautiful places. But I’ve always been a people person first and foremost, so to me the most interesting thing was always (surprise, surprise) the politics.
Although Central America has not been swept up in the people’s uprisings that took so much of the world by storm this year, each of the three countries we visited made an important socio-political case study due to their not-so-distant past: a successful revolution (Nicaragua), a failed revolution (Guatemala), and the only poor country in the region that never had a revolutionary movement (Honduras). And the common thread through all there: U.S. intervention. This, plus the fact that both Guatemala and Nicaragua had their presidential elections while we were there, made it quite the advanced sociological seminar.
In all my years of marches and demonstrations, I had never been on a picket line at 3 a.m. Yet here I was on this oh-so-early Tuesday morning, out on a quiet street on Oakland’s waterfront alongside hundreds of my fellow Occupy activists. All of us were cold, tired — and cheering louder than ever. Why the noise? We had just received word that the port authority had cancelled yet another work shift, and the docks would be closed till morning.
“We did it!” a young woman behind me shouted.
And indeed we had — not just here in the Bay Area, but up and down the West Coast, the Occupy movement claimed victory in undoubtedly its boldest action so far.
From San Diego, CA, to Anchorage, AK, and over a dozen cities in between, the Occupy movement staged a coordinated day of action on Monday, December 12, aimed at disrupting the coast’s various ports, dubbed by activists “Wall Street on the Waterfront.” Occupy Oakland had already shut down the Port of Oakland once as part of its general strike of 40,000 people on November 2, and put out the call to action for this protest to our sister Occupy cities. We had done it before locally, but this time, with the national focus and possibility for heightened repression, the stakes were even higher.
