One of my Seminary Classmates, Jay Mitchell, called in 2011 saying turn on the news, that he was down on Wall Street participating in this amazing Protest: “Occupy Wall Street”. I flipped from channel to channel… all day long and NO NEWS of it in Nashville. The next day his excitement was growing so I took to my PC with internet coverage of this ‘truth to power’ protest happening with… still no coverage in Nashville.
The Financial Crisis which included the onslaught of Foreclosures by unlawful means, corporate financial corruption, economic inequality, all of which were revealed during this 58 day Protest camped out in Zuccotti Park, Manhattan —a ‘Revolving Door’ between The Wall Street Financial Banking Center and the Washington DC Political Justice Center. The OWS slogan “We Are The 99 percent” raised national awareness to 1% of the Nation owning 90% of the wealth.
Many say that it started earlier that year in Egypt’s Tahrir Square; declaring 2011 a year of global upheaval. Elizabeth Warren at the time was a Harvard Law Professor, and had served as an advisor to President Obama. The ‘Daily Beast’ in Oct 2011 quotes her saying: “I’ve been fighting this fight for years now. As I see it, this is about two central points: one, the lack of accountability. That Wall Street has not been held accountable for how they broke the economy. The second is a values question, a fundamental fairness around the way that markets have been distorted and families have been hurt. I’m still fighting that fight. I want to fight it from the floor of the United States Senate. I think that is a place to make this difference.” In 2020 she was elected to the U.S. Senate.
OWS! Vlad Teichberg, a former derivatives trader, Global Revolution, called himself a “Wall Street person and a revolutionary”. Did I say ‘National? INTERnational! David Graeber, University of London Professor was an intellectual force. Bill Dobbs provided Press coverage and sat at the Press Conference table.. Matt Taibbi, who from the time I learned his name, I too became like most of America’s intellectual population… ‘chomping at the bit’ for each of his exposition writings on The Wall Street Bankers, “Gangster Bankers: Too Big to Jail’; —awakening the world to American greed; published in the ‘Rolling Stone’ Magazine.
But to witness, in real time, Cornel West leading a group of protesters to “Occupy The Supreme Court” is as important to my knowledge base as having seen the “Gold being brought out of the rubble of the Twin Towers.” No sooner than West arrived he was immediately put in handcuffs and taken to jail. Just that quickly; a calling America’s attention to the workings of SCOTUS… shut down —a burp in America’s history… as tho it never happened.
Cornel Ronald West was born in Tulsa, OK and raised in Sacramento, CA. He earned his Bachelor’s Degree from Harvard University in Middle Eastern Languages and Literature; and his Doctoral Degree from Princeton. In addition to having taught at both his Alma Maters, he has taught at Yale, Union and the University of Paris. He sites his Baptist Church upbringing, and the influence of the Black Panther Party in Sacramento for his drive and determination for Justice in political activism; which held him in situational conflict with the Administrators of his University teaching Posts.
In 1993, one year after the Los Angeles Riots which resulted in the acquittal of four white policemen in the beating of Rodney King, West wrote “Race Matters”. A collection of essays, he uses the terms ‘black conservatism’ and ‘individualism’ as deterrents from the black struggle; while determining the ‘internal strife of black community being by individual choice as opposed to external forces. Black nationalism rings a bell towards leadership… in comparison of the older generation of leaders who are adamant about building community as divided by the younger, more self oriented personhood who take no thought for community.
In 2004 West wrote “Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism”; —all before showing up in 2008 for the OWS Protest Movement. West showed up in Ferguson in 2014. The police brutality in the killing of Michael Brown raised a protest, not just in Missouri… but world wide. Here, too, his fight for Justice gave historical presence and leadership in activism as, again, he is placed in handcuffs and arrested.
“I’m am running for Justice. When you run for Justice you are always looking at the least of these, you’re looking at the folk who have been pushed to the margin, the folk pushed to the peripheral; making sure that poor and working people are at the center of your vision. This is a paradigm shift. People are used to seeing a politician who is looking at the world through the lens of Wall Street and the Stock Market. I look at the world through the lens of everyday people, ordinary people. We have a Political System that has legalized bribery and normalized corruption; because our politicians have been bought off by Big Money. Change is a massive disinvestment in military and a massive investment in satisfying the basic needs of people. Public oversight of the huge corporations that are sucking profit out. We have a world now where Organized Greed is just running out of control. Institutionalized racism is being enforced. Most politicians are conformists and cowards and all they want to do is win the next election to reproduce themselves as they gain more wealth & power. For the powerful ‘He who holds the Gold —Rules’. I am not surprised by evil or paralyzed by despair. My slogan: ‘Truth, Justice & Love’. Truth to allow suffering to speak. Justice is what love looks like in public.” (Cornel R. West)
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