Occupy: The Movement We’ve Been Waiting For

File photo by Luke Thomas.

By Anthony Ginez

November 22, 2011

Revolution is in the air. And while the media and established elite, ready and eager to criticize, pry into the exact and tangible demands of the movement, the people have united together across this country – and around the world – in support of a movement that has hastily been labeled fruitless and unfocused.

This movement is larger than a single voice, a single message – or even a single person. It is larger than you or me. The mantra, “We are the 99 percent,” attempts to speak for (almost) everyone. The movement’s largest criticism is that it cannot provide a clear, focused demand. What began as a movement about economic injustice has evolved into a movement of all sorts including police brutality, the right to peaceful assembly, opposition to budget cuts and tuition hikes, labor rights, homelessness, unemployment and even Utopian ideals for a better world.

San Francisco is a city with a strong identity to the rest of the world. We are identified to be a city of tolerance, a city of great beauty and appreciation.

For a city that appreciates its identity in the world, as a collective, we have consistently struggled with our internal identity during the duration of our city’s fruition. The question and the idea of “What kind of city should this be?” appears in many writings about our beloved city. With every land use battle, every election, and every decision we make – we attempt to change or perpetuate the trajectory of our city seemingly always in transition.

For over a century and a half, San Francisco still questions what kind of city we should be.

The Occupy movement is only two-months old, and criticism that the movement has not focused its message or produced a clear demand is a criticism that is premature and impatient. A city like San Francisco seems like a natural home for this movement, yet local media outlets have been quick to criticize and local politicians and police have been everything but warm to the “occupation.” Yet the movement has succeeded in changing an increasingly one-sided, top-down national and local discourse.

The night of a “rumored” police raid on the San Francisco encampment, I came to the encampment by myself after a long day of work and classes at SF State, to take part in a historic movement. What I saw was not a dirty, homeless, tent-city, but a ground zero of community activism, youth involvement and citizen engagement. Not expecting to see any of my apathetic friends, I ran into friends of mine who I would never have expected to see at any political event. I saw coworkers and classmates. This movement was something with which we could identify. Something we could actually believe in.

David Harvey, in The Right to the City, writes that our right to the city is larger than our right to exist in the city, but it is also our right to take part in urban social change. This is what our society is about. This is what our city is about. A constant longing for something better. A persistent effort towards perfection. While the Occupy movement encompasses these things, it has been criticized for it. Harvey writes, “We cannot do without utopian plans and ideas of justice. They are indispensable for motivation and for action.”

San Francisco’s own struggles with social equity and identity are very similar to those of the Occupy movement. A city challenged with its identity should willingly open its doors to a movement challenged to create one. Together, we can think of a better world and ideas. Together, we can create tangible goals and directives to get there.

Anthony Ginez is a fourth-year student at San Francisco State University majoring in urban planning and political science.

FCJ Editor

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