POCcupy—People of Color Occupy Wall Street Too!

“The POC’s purpose is to keep the movement accountable, to keep these progressive white activists accountable, to have them understand that just because they are now feeling the pinch and the burn . . . it doesn’t mean that peoples’ worlds haven’t been in turmoil for decades, for centuries.”

—Jodi, member of the People of Color (POC) Working Group

The movement was beautiful. It was dusk and the lights, laid in the floor amongst the marble paving stones, flickered as the crowds ebbed and flowed above them, blocking their luminescence. A lone black woman in a black dress walked cautiously down the stairs on September 23, her first day at Zuccotti Park, and surveyed the scene. She looked left and right, and up at the “big Red Thing,” and seemed interested in the conversations around her. But not recognizing anyone personally or by association, she waited awkwardly and in silence until the General Assembly started. She was lost in the crowd.

Jamie, a member of the People Of Color (POC) Working Group who describes herself as “the 99% and a person of color,” first went down to Occupy Wall Street on October 15’s National Day of Action. “I went by myself,” she explained, “because no one else wanted to go with me. None of my friends were interested and I was just like, ‘Well fuck it, I’m going to go check it out’ . . . I loved the energy of it all . . . But what some people started to notice was that the GA was majority white and male, which is highest privilege you can have in this social construct that is our society. There are a lot of people who are of the 99% who look at these issues, issues that are most pertinent to them; issues that directly affect them every single day but they’re not there [at Zuccotti Park] because they feel alienated, or they feel their voices won’t be heard, or they’ve experienced racism.”

Jodi, who first began going to Zuccotti Park on September 17, the first day of the Occupation, was able to witness the evolution of this initial lack of representation. “For the first week and a half I would come down a few times a week, and for the first two weeks there was not a presence of people of color,” she said. “It was upsetting. Then at a certain point there was a burst or explosion and really a much more noticeable presence of people of color facilitating. I think it would have been ridiculous if it had continued on without more POC while presenting itself as a movement that represents the ‘so-called 99 percent.’” Her sentiments have been repeated by many Occupiers, protesters, organizers, community activists and media outlets, all of whom who are still calling for a stronger presence of people of color and marginalized communities within the movement.

So on October 1, as tensions surrounding this feeling of alienation built, one woman stood up at the General Assembly and proposed a People Of Color Working Group, asking asked anyone interested to “Meet me at the Red Thing . . . now.” Though she had discussed the idea with with many white allies and people of color, this earliest member of the POC group had nevertheless had to fend off two white men in order to get the proposal on the agenda in the first place. “Occupy Wall Street wasn’t the diverse, safe space it professed to be,” she later said. “I didn’t expect it to be; the movement was created in a racially hostile society by individuals who bought into the dangerously flawed logic of colorblindness.”

About five people, both people of color and white people, showed up to the initial meeting and exchanged emails. By the next meeting, the group attracted about 20 members—and by its third meeting about 100 people of all colors sat in a circle beneath the Red Thing and, through consensus, became a closed safe space for any person who identified as a person of color. Launched on October 1, 2011, the Call to People of Color from the OWS POC Working Group—the group’s first document passed through consensus—read as follows:

To those who want to support the Occupation of Wall Street, who want to struggle for a more just and equitable society, but who feel excluded from the campaign, this is a message for you. To those who do not feel as though their voices are being heard, who have felt unable or uncomfortable participating in the campaign, or who feel as though they have been silenced, this is a message for you. To those who haven’t thought about Occupy Wall Street but know that radical social change is needed, and to those who have thought about joining the protest but do not know where or how to begin, this is a message for you. You are not alone. The individuals who make up the People of Color Working Group have come together because we share precisely these feelings and believe that the opportunity for consciousness-raising presented by #OccupyWallStreet is one that cannot be missed. It is time to push for the expansion and diversification of #OccupyWallStreet. If this is truly to be a movement of the 99%, it will need the rest of the city and the rest of the country.

Let’s be real. The economic crisis did not begin with the collapse of the Lehman Brothers in 2008. Indeed, people of color and poor people have been in a state of crisis since the founding of this country, and for indigenous communities, since before the founding of the nation. We have long known that capitalism serves only the interests of a tiny, mostly white, minority.

Black and brown folks have long known that whenever economic troubles ‘necessitate’ austerity measures and the people are asked to tighten their belts, we are the first to lose our jobs, our children’s schools are the first to lose funding, and our bodies are the first to be brutalized and caged. Only we can speak this truth to power. We must not miss the chance to put the needs of people of color–upon whose backs this country was built–at the forefront of this struggle.

The People of Color Working Group was formed to build a racially conscious and inclusive movement. We are reaching out to communities of color, including immigrant, undocumented, and low-wage workers, prisoners, LGTBQ people of color, marginalized religious communities such as Muslims, and indigenous peoples, for whom this occupation ironically comes on top of another one and therefore must be decolonized. We know that many individuals have responsibilities that do not allow them to participate in the occupation and that the heavy police presence at Liberty Park undoubtedly deters many. We know because we are some of these individuals. But this movement is not confined to Liberty Park: with your help, the movement will be made accessible to all.

If it is not made so, it will not succeed. By ignoring the dynamics of power and privilege, this monumental social movement risks replicating the very structures of injustice it seeks to eliminate. And so we are actively working to unite the diverse voices of all communities, in order to understand exactly what is at stake, and to demand that a movement to end economic injustice must have at its core an honest struggle to end racism.

The People of Color working group is not meant to divide, but to unite, all peoples. Our hope is that we, the 99%, can move forward together, with a critical understanding of how the greed, corruption, and inequality inherent to capitalism threatens the lives of all peoples and the Earth.

As Razzle, one of its members, explained, “The People Of Color Working Group was founded to help unify, through this one movement, the diverse communities that have been affected by economic inequality in different ways, with full awareness that this process of unification would require what had been missing from the Occupy Movement: greater participation, perspective and leadership of people of color with an explicit commitment to racial justice.” Jodi similarly described that, “POC’s purpose is to keep the movement accountable, to keep these progressive white activists accountable, to have them understand that just because they are now feeling the pinch and the burn . . . it doesn’t mean that peoples’ worlds haven’t been in turmoil for decades, for centuries.” According to Jamie, “one of the main objectives of POC is to have people of color represented in every single Working Group, particularly in the GA and within the leaders and the people who make the decisions . . . the POC Working Group had to be established as a protective measure and a way to represent the real issues at stake.”

POC felt that the best way to accomplish these goals was to establish itself as a caucus within OWS, one which they hoped could expand to include all marginalized voices. They envisioned the role of such a caucus as not just to “provide a supportive and empowering space for people of color in the movement, but also to bring people of color and a racial justice lens to the leadership of this movement.” For them, the practical purpose of having a caucus was to give the group the ability to work closely with each working group, as opposed to having POC confined to just one. As such, though the POC Working Group continues to meet as a separate entity, its caucus structure allows it to maintain subcommittees affiliated with an assortment of other OWS groups. These include Outreach, Education, Press, Arts and Culture, Facilitation, Language Access, Immigrant rights, Safer Spaces, Child Care, Prison Solidarity, Police Brutality, Labor, Student Liaison, Finance, and Internet, among others. The POC subcommittees are empowered through the caucus to represent POC in the larger OWS working groups and to organize and host events, teach-ins, and direct actions. This caucus structure has remained in place with the implementation of the Spokes Council through the NYC GA.

Meanwhile, groups like Occupy the Hood, which had similar goals, emerged and began to work with the POC—a boon for the movement because increasing POC presence has made marginalized groups feel more comfortable becoming involved with OWS and attending GAs across the city. Yet, despite this, some of the concerns raised early in the movement around issues of race continue to be a deterrent for people of color who have not participated directly within OWS and even people of color within OWS have continued to experience incidences of explicit racism and racial micro-aggressions.

On Columbus Day (referred to as Indigenous Peoples’ Day by POC), Mexica, an indigenous, cultural Mexican performance group began to dance in the space under the Red Thing. Moving to the beat of the drums, dancers dressed in white and red, becoming the beat themselves, as the beaded bracelets on their ankles entranced a crowd of about 100 people. The group was performing a number of sacred ceremonies and dances, each meant to honor Mother Earth and their ancestors and to send energy out to all the buildings surrounding the park. They thus hoped to push people towards justice and peace. But despite their efforts, POC members overheard those in the crowd making snide, oppressive remarks about the ceremony.

This was not an isolated occurrence. Since its beginnings, POC meeting attendees had been airing grievances ranging from small, privilege-related altercations to full-blown racist attacks and sexual assaults. And the grievances reported were not just limited to what had happened in Manhattan. On October 8, members of Occupy Philadelphia reached out to the OWS POC caucus for help regarding what they called “A Black Out at Occupy Philadelphia,” where black women had been called racial slurs and then forced to leave the camp. Later in the month, members of Occupy Boston contacted the POC caucus for help integrating racially separate General Assemblies in their city. And when a General Assembly started in Brooklyn, the POC caucus was there to point out that organizers had failed to reach out to the majority of their community (people of color) when calling for their meeting and choosing its space. As conversations about police brutality got heated before and after the eviction, the POC caucus, through its prison solidarity subcommittee, hosted several teach-ins about the prison industrial complex and police brutality, sharing and discussing with the larger OWS movement how people of color and immigrant communities have been and are consistently policed and brutalized by the state. Some involved in the POC caucus raised an important yet, in their opinion, invisible issue about who can afford to get arrested and who can’t, bringing up the fact that people of color, particularly men of color, are already targeted by the prison system and police.

More recently, POC members felt disrespected and silenced at Spokes Council meetings in early November when they stood up for one another in what they perceived to be the face of privilege, ignorance and racism. These tensions and problems reflect existing power structures and layers of oppression in the larger world. While OWS is working to create a different world, the Spokes Council is meant to be a movement towards a more just and equitable world. But many involved in both the POC caucus and the Spokes Council have expressed serious concerns, arguing that the council operates with little accountability and space to express grievances with the process. As such, a number of people in POC are currently working to challenge and transform the Spokes Council. At least two oppression workshops and racial justice trainings are being organized for late November, and the POC caucus has proposed that they be targeted specifically to Spokes Council participants.

As these tensions highlight, the POC Working Group has been in constant discussion over its “place” in the movement, its relationships with white allies, and its participation in direct actions. This has unearthed the many differences within the group as women and members of the LGBTQ community have, at times, felt excluded and disrespected. People of color from different socioeconomic, educational, and religious backgrounds also started to feel excluded. In such a large and diverse community, the moniker “People Of Color” encompasses a great deal of difference as privilege works on many levels including, but not limited to, race, class, gender, religion, and sexual norms. This can divide any group, even with common interests and goals.

Moving forward, the POC caucus feels it must deal with internal divisions by finding points of commonality between each of the diverse groups that has been marginalized by a patriarchal white supremacist society. Some argue that only allowing access to those who identify as “people of color” is exclusive and divisive within itself, but the majority of the group desires a space where people from already marginalized communities can convene without feeling oppressed, uncomfortable around, or hindered by those with privileges that they do not hold. As the POC caucus understands very well, systems of domination are most often perpetuated unknowingly by members of dominant groups and are most often played out through notions of entitlement and invisible privilege. The group thus participates in weekly conversations about how to create such a space that is inclusive while also guaranteeing the mental, physical and spiritual safety of all. Building across a multitude of differences, POCcupy continues to work to bring people together, in a positive and strong-spirited community.

Though these debates continue, the POC caucus has begun a concerted push for positive direct actions. In addition to establishing a safe space for dialogue, the POC caucus has planned teach-ins about oppression and racism, planned days of healing, supported The Council of Elders (a group of leaders from many of the defining American social justice movements of the 20th century), and organized racial justice trainings both for the group itself and for the entire OWS movement. The POC caucus has also endorsed direct actions sponsored by those communities of color engaging in economic and social justice work, including Occupy the Hood, Occupy 477, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, and the Audre Lorde Project.

Of these, one of the most publicized events was an action the POC undertook in conjunction with Occupy 477 in Harlem. On November 6, 2011, at a regularly scheduled POC Working Group meeting, Semi, an organizer supporting occupy movements around the country brought a proposal to the POC Working Group urging it to support Occupy 477 in Harlem. This group was initially organized to preserve a historical landmark and lowincome residential building located at 477 West 142nd Street in the Sugar Hill district of Harlem. Though the building had lofty origins—Alexander Hamilton had once lived there—it had been without heat and hot water wince October 2010 when, in a predatory lending scheme, law firms Madison Park Investors LLC and E.R. Holdings LLC attempted to foreclose on the property. In the process, they hoped to subvert the co-owners association, flip the building, and, ultimately, gentrify the neighborhood. Tenants were caught in the crossfire; the firms’ method of driving out the building’s residents was to turn off the heat. The companies also sabotaged the boiler and repeatedly prevented city workers from entering the boiler room to inspect it or make repairs.

In a time when there is a nationwide effort to stop foreclosures and an approaching winter season, news of the tenants’ ordeal was a shocking reminder of the increasingly violent tactics used to gentrify Harlem and drive out residents who had lived there since the late 1970s. POC members, particularly those from Occupy The Hood, were determined to bring a proposal in front of the GA and have OWS help Occupy 477 reclaim the building and make it livable; POC members empowered an ad hoc group of the POC Caucus to draft an emergency proposal asking the GA for emergency supplies and funding for the building’s occupiers. Some short time later, 15 members of the POC marched over to the GA, already in session, and brought the emergency proposal to the crowd. (run on)

As with most proposals, there were some points of contentions, questions, and concerns; the POC members at the GA worked hard to respond to questions and accept friendly amendments, one of which was to in fact ask for more funds. Many of the concerns raised at the GA had to do with why this proposal constituted an emergency, and POC members had to remind the crowd that the people of Occupy 477 were fighting for their housing rights, fighting for their own building, and doing so against the unjust economic structures OWS was founded to counter.

Ultimately, the GA reached consensus on the proposal to support Occupy 477 with $3,000 for supplies, help with the boiler, and assistance for occupiers defending the building. A great sense of empowerment and amazement washed over members of the POC at the GA that evening–some who felt, for once, they finally had a real voice within the OWS movement. Today, occupiers are still at Occupy 477, providing inspiration for members of the Harlem community and people of color struggling with the right to shelter. And Occupy 477 has shown a supportive and consistent presence at Liberty Park, hosting teach-ins and marches, as well as Occupy 477’s Queen Mother being on the Council of Elders.

As the movement’s momentum builds and as it gains support from those already active in social and economic justice, people in the POC caucus remain committed to its ideal of complete representation and participation of communities of color. Many in the POC caucus and the larger OWS reflect upon the words of Angela Davis, who spoke to protesters on October 30 at the Washington Square Park General Assembly and argued for the necessity of diverse representation within the movement. Davis said:

All minorities are the majority . . . We have to learn how to be together in a complex unity, in a unity that does not leave out our differences, in a unity that allows those whose voices have been historically marginalized to speak out on behalf of the entire community. I am sure as the days and months go by, we will all learn more about this process than we now know. It is important that this movement expresses the will of the majority from the outset, but that majority must be respected in terms of all the differences within.

Following Davis’ lead, the POC works to ensure equitable involvement of all marginalized groups, and a racial justice lens that also takes into account other aspects of identities (such as gender, class, sexuality, religion, language, nationality, and ability.) It is upon achieving these goals, as its members continually and stridently remind us, that OWS will gain the power it needs to create a more just world.

AUTHORS’ STATEMENT: Three active members of the POC caucus engaged in the collective writing of this descriptive piece meant to offer a narrative history of the POC within the OWS movement. We want to assert our voices here and let readers know that this is only but a fraction of the stories and voices of POC in the movement. There are many voices not included here, which were and continue to be instrumental in the building of POCcupy and the OWS movement. We want to acknowledge all the voices not included and offer transparency in the creation of this document, which required an extreme turn around. Due to time constraints and publishing deadlines, we were not able to include more voices, and so we chose not to use a collective “we” in the writing of this piece. We were able to share only four of the interviews conducted with POC in OWS. The stories told here come from a combination of our experiences and first hand work within POCcupy.