The first tweet from the Occupy Oakland had gone out just a few minutes
before 3 and we managed to make it to the plaza in about half an hour.
When my wife Marcy and I arrived at Frank Ogawa Plaza, now redubbed,
“Oscar Grant Plaza,” the flimsy barricades, some consisting of milk
crates, had already been installed in preparation for the police
attack. The occupiers, most with bandanas or scarves covering their
faces as some sort of protection or guard for anonymity, worked as if
directed, though there was no one directing. It soon became clear that
this was a problem. This was, in a sense, THE problem. After two weeks
occupying the plaza, the “leadership” wasn’t leading; the unity of cause
wasn’t a unity of action, and the occupation was now facing a very
highly disciplined, well-armed, uniform and uniformed force, organized
in a strict hierarchy to move as one body with a very specific
objective. It was the Spanish Civil War in miniature and this pathetic
last stand of anarchists against a professional military force would end
similarly, a fact that was obvious beforehand, at least obvious to
many, despite all the bravado of a group carrying black flags and hidden
behind hoodies and scarves and the frankly ridiculous barricades,
two-feet high in places.
The eviction had been pending since the
end of last week when the Occupiers had gotten notice from the city.
I’d camped there one night and been returning fairly regularly from the
first day on, but just as early Christians could only put off doing the
housework in anticipation of the return of the Savior for so long, I
took nearly a week off from the Revolution to catch up on my own
housework and tasks. It’s not an odd comparison, nor am I being cheeky
or sarcastic to describe what has been going on now for over a month a
“revolution.” There is a distinctly millenarian character to the
Occupy movement and the gatherings of people in small spaces are
reminiscent, if only to me, of the Christians gathering on rooftops to
await the return of Jesus.
The problem here is we aren’t
exactly clear what the occupiers are awaiting. As they build their
barricades, it’s clear they’re defending territory, but why they’ve
taken it, and the purpose to which they’ve turned it isn’t altogether
clear beyond this: the desire to build a utopia, a village, where the
homeless can eat and be treated humanely; where people can gather and
share experiences, meals, and a struggle for a small, temporarily
liberated space; where new forms of organization can be discussed,
agreed upon by a mass of strangers and then implemented until the next
assembly when results can be considered and decisions reconsidered; a
place free of the repressive forces of the state, especially the
police, especially in this dark time of life in a national security
state; a place where not only could another possible world be
discussed, as in the string of social forums over the past decade, but
where it could actually be practiced, if only for a moment.
This
was all clear to me as I stood before the entrance of Oscar Grant
Plaza, soon to be transformed again into Frank Ogawa Plaza. Over the
entrance hung the banner that had been there for probably a week:
“Oakland Commune.” But it was no time to sadly reflect on the brief
millennial flash of hope illuminating this dark time, because someone
was calling people to the north side of the plaza.
There,
people were gathered discussing whether or not to have a meeting. One
woman cried, “Mike check” and the people responded “Mike check!” She did
that three times, which is the way to call attention and implement the
people’s microphone. “Everyone here tonight,” she cried out, and the
people repeated, “Everyone Here Tonight,” “Is committed to nonviolent
resistance, right?” and a few people repeated her words, while a gaggle
of anarchists in black hoodies, black scarves covering their faces, and
black flags in their hands, dissented. Then a young African American
man spoke: “Is everybody here ready to get their asses whooped by the
pigs?” A few people shouted affirmatively. He asked it again and then
again before someone else began calling on the gathering of twenty-five
or so of us. The young African American came down from the steps and
sat on a bench. He addressed those of us nearby.
“Reason I’m
asking that is ‘cause these barricades. They be inviting the cops to
whoop our asses. So if you don’t want your asses whooped, you best take
them down. And I know how them pigs can be. They beat my little
brother so bad last year that his left hand still shakes like this.” He
demonstrated with a shaking left hand. “His hand shake so bad he has
to write with his right hand@font-face—and he’s left handed. These pigs ain’t nothing to mess with.”
That’s
when we heard the first siren and the lights of headlights and
spotlights flared and reflected off the windows of the tall buildings
of downtown Oakland.
“They’re coming!” someone yelled from near
Broadway on the south side of the plaza. People came running down the
alley back to the plaza and we all came around to the entrance of the
plaza to see they’d blocked off Broadway. Lines of police marched
toward us like giant ants and then, looking down Broadway, I noticed
they were coming from the opposite direction, too. They were also
approaching from up 14th Street. In fact, they were converging from
every direction on the Oscar Grant Plaza with its flimsy barricades
from behind which the occupiers watched their approach.
Marcy
and I crossed the street to get behind the police line and avoided
getting in their pincer maneuver. The spotlights went up as
helicopters circled overhead and a policeman announced over a megaphone
that they would be moving in to arrest people who were illegally
camped in the plaza. The lines inched forward and then suddenly there
was an explosion and an enormous cloud of smoke went up and drifted
slowly across the street toward us. It was tear gas and we began
running away from it, choking and gagging, a group of twenty or thirty
people who were taping or photographing the police action. We went a
block away then half a dozen of us circled back and returned to the
plaza.
When we got back to 14th Street, the police were already
at work, demolishing the little village. They threw the tents and
tarps and everything from the kitchen onto the sidewalk as police on
motorcycles rode up and down the street to keep us away from the plaza
and onto the sidewalk of the other side of the street. Marcy and I
eventually made our way down to the northwest corner of the plaza where
we recorded the line of police moving like army ants over the tents
that disappeared under their boots. Then they marched the arrested
occupiers, bound with white plastic handcuffs, to the waiting vans. The
whole process took perhaps half an hour, at most forty-five minutes, to
complete. We taped the demonstrators passing. Another woman beside us
asked demonstrators their names as the police walked them to the vans.
One youth yelled, “My name is the People! We are the f—ing 99%!”
Standing
beside us all this time on the corner was an African American man in
his early thirties. He mentioned a couple of times that his “Ten by
twelve by seventy-eight” was in there, pointing to the plaza. “My tent,”
he said, shaking his head. I asked him if I could interview him. He
agreed.
His name was Maurice Porter and he was homeless. “This is
a place where everyone comes together and we (homeless) actually feel
like someone. It’s like they take from the poor and give to the rich.
Me, I’m on SSI. We haven’t got a cost of living [increase] in three
years. But who’s getting the money? The rich folks,” he said, then
motioning to the line of police behind us, “and these guys here. And
how much money do you think they’re paying for this, to take us out of
our comfort zone, [these police from] Vacaville, Fremont, Hayward. But
what do they do for the homeless? Did anyone come from the city to
donate anything while we were in there? No one. We had donations from
all the business around here donating, but no one from the city gave
anything.”
I asked Maurice what life was like for him in the
“Oakland Commune” and he laughed. “It was peaceful. There was a lot of
harmony. We were united.” Was it a “commune?” He laughed again, “Yes it
was. It was a commune. Exactly. I came here seven days ago exactly and
there were people from other cities, and other states who sat with us
and broke bread with us and it felt real good. Real good. And now . . .
this is a very sad moment.”
Maurice’s story wasn’t unusual. In
fact, it was all too normal in this moment, in this city, in this
nation. He could have been telling my own story if just a few things had
been different in my life. He’d been homeless for four months after
living in a transitional home. His unsigned money orders for his bills
were in his car, and his car had been stolen. Then he’d had a run-in
with a vicious dog . . . Before all that he’d been a full time student
at Merritt College in Community Social Services. “I’ll get back to
school. I’ll get back as soon as I can get on my feet. But this is what
disrupts youngsters’ lives,” he said, pointing to the line of the
police and waving his arm at the plaza, “they grab them, they
incarcerate them, they get them in the system, then they’re f—ed. I
learned that a long time ago: they lock you in, then you’re locked. And
when they approach you, the first thing they ask is ‘are you on
probation or on parole,’ instead of ‘what’s your name, sir.’ I mean,
that’s how they address you out here. But you know what?” Here he
points to the police, “they’re just a paycheck away from the same
thing. A while back they were talking of cutting police pay. Can you
imagine how they felt then? But [now] they want to f— with the
homeless, and they weren’t that far from it. From a low paying security
job. But they want to f— with the homeless. They want to break you,
break you, break you—instead of helping the homeless. We’re the 99%. I guess they’re with the 1%. We’ll leave it at that.”
As
we walked away and tried to circle back around to our car to go home, I
thought of the first night of the occupation. It had been raining and
the concrete of the amphitheater where the first general assembly of
the occupation was being held was still wet. Speakers were coming up to
the microphone, but they weren’t the usual suspects with their
political rhetoric or star-status, brought in for speeches to
“entertain” or educate the faithful. These were people from the
community, like the young African American from 105th Avenue and
International who talked about what it was like to grow up in the
ghetto, suffer hunger, buy a hamburger at McDonalds but “not be good
enough to get a job there.” “I go to Laney [College] and they tell me
I’m too stupid [to succeed].” The statistics are available and widely
known, of 80% unemployment among black youth in East Oakland, but it’s
another thing to hear the story from the victim himself.
Suddenly,
that night in the crowd, I saw someone I knew. Ordinarily, in a
political demonstration a majority of the faces would be familiar: here I
was relieved to see few familiar faces since that told me that a whole
new force of people had joined the movement, had, in fact, created a
new movement. I walked over to Michael, and said hi. He invited me to
sit down.
Michael is an ex-student of mine from Berkeley City
College. He’d taken an English class with me a couple of semesters back
and now he was on a “field trip” in an English class at Laney College.
He was going to have to write a paper about this experience so he asked
if he could interview me. I agreed and when he asked what I thought
about what was happening this is what I told him.
“Remember at
the beginning of the semester I told the class that if anyone was there
to get an education, they were in the wrong place? I mentioned there
was a library around the corner where they could get an education, and
there were plenty of coffee shops in Berkeley where they could discuss
what they learned from books in the library. But this, Michael, this is
the real classroom. This is where education really takes place.” And I
told him about the young man from 105th Avenue and International. That
young man had become my teacher this night.
Now on Franklin,
as we walked back to our car with another ex-student I ran into during
the police attack, I decided that’s why they couldn’t let Frank Ogawa
Plaza be turned into the Oakland Commune on Oscar Grant Plaza: we would
begin to educate each other. I would begin to hear Maurice’s story and
identify with it, and even empathize with it. It would then become
“our” story. And then “I” would become “We,” and then it would be all
over for the 1%.
I got a call from a friend this morning after I
returned home and had a chance to take a nap. My friend had been to
Frank Ogawa Plaza later in the morning and he described it as
“leveled.” “It’s all gone,” he told me. “And maybe, just maybe, the
police saved the occupiers from themselves,” he added. I asked him how.
“Well,
the occupiers were saved from trying to figure out the next step.
After all, where does this movement go from here? If their objective is
only to occupy a space, well, that can only be temporary anyway. “
Over
the past month I’d mused on that same dilemma I felt this movement
faces. If the point of Occupying is only to occupy, what happens when
you no longer occupy? Eventually, whether it be from necessity driven by
need, or inclement weather, or, in this and an increasing number of
cases, by police, you have to forfeit a space. Does that then mean your
movement has lost, has ended? Will the Occupy movement be able to
transcend locale, a chosen space, and take up a vocation? I could think
of a very good one, listening to the young man from 105th Avenue,
Maurice, and considering what my two ex-students are facing when they’ll
be forced to go on to four-year colleges and take on student loans and
enter a life of involuntary servitude, “locked in,” to use Maurice’s
image, to enormous debt with prospects only of low-paying jobs and
accruing interest on a loan that will never be forgiven in a system that
knows no forgiveness.
Clearly we need to have an ongoing
people’s assembly, a multiversity where we can get a real education in
the important things of life: learning from each other’s lives and
experiences, deepening our empathy, building solidarity and the “harmony
and unity” about which Maurice spoke. Perhaps it’s time for the
occupiers to realize their role as teachers and students and build a
movement where they can get, and give, a real education. Maybe this
isn’t The Revolution. Maybe OWS and Occupy Oakland and all the other
occupations are just the classrooms where we can begin to practice for
that final moment when, and if, we’re finally able to shift power back
to us, the 99%.
–
Clifton Ross is the author of Translations from Silence (2009 Freedom Voices Publications), a collection of poetry that won Oakland Pen’s Josephine Miles Award for Literary Excellence in 2010. His first feature-length film, Venezuela: Revolution from the Inside Out (PM Press) came out in 2008.
