Thread: 'Occupiers' defy simple descriptions

'Occupiers' defy simple descriptions

By Rick Hampson, USA TODAY
Updated 10h 33m ago Comments 142

They've been called "mobs" by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and a "wooly headed horde" by Rich Lowry, editor of the conservative National Review. President Obama's former White House adviser Van Jones says they're "middle America rising up." Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich says they need a bath.

Whatever you call them and however you characterize them, the tens of thousands of members of the Occupy movement, which has spread to more than 100 U.S. cities, are as hard to categorize as the movement itself.

To judge from surveys and interviews at Occupy encampments and demonstrations, the Occupiers are, as Samuel Molik of Occupy Tulsa put it last week, "normal people" — only younger, better educated, more liberal and less politically affiliated. They're more likely to be male, and less likely to be employed.

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Beyond that, Occupy's membership is a coat of many colors. It includes the foreclosed, the uninsured and the homeless, college students with poor job prospects and college graduates with no way to pay off their student loans.

They are anarchists, street people and a few politicians, including a New York City Council member and a former majority leader of the Arizona state senate, both of whom were jailed; lawyers who didn't make partner and professors who didn't get tenure; newspaper people displaced by the Internet and IT specialists victimized by outsourcing.

"We come from all walks of life," says Alexander Penley, a 41-year-old lawyer who helps organize protests for Occupy Wall Street, where the crusade to protest corporate misdeeds and income inequality began Sept. 17. "In 25 years as an activist, this is the most diverse group I've been associated with."

An online survey filled out last month by about 5,000 movement supporters who visited the Occupy Wall Street website supports his assessment.

Although about half of Occupiers are 34 or younger (compared with a third of the general population), a third are 45 or older. "It's not a kids' movement," says Hector Cordero-Guzman, a City University of New York professor who analyzed the responses.

The survey indicated that about 90% of Occupiers have attended college (the national average is 43%), and more than a fifth have a graduate degree. Although a quarter are enrolled in school (compared with 9.5% of all Americans) only one in 10 is a full-time student — suggesting to Cordero-Guzman that many work to pay school bills.

Forty-six percent work full time, 20% part time, and 12.5% are unemployed (compared with 9% of the general population). That adds up to a labor force participation rate of about 79% (the unemployed "participate" because they're supposed to be seeking work), compared with the general rate of 65%.

Despite Gingrich's recent demand that Occupiers get a job, "They're not a bunch of dropouts," says Cordero-Guzman. "They still have aspirations. It's the hopeful ones who go out and express themselves. The hopeless are home watching TV."

Despite their relatively high educational level, seven in 10 Occupiers make less than $50,000 a year — "a recipe for frustration," Cordero-Guzman says. "It begins to explain why these people are doing what they're doing."

USA TODAY reporters tried to answer five questions about a group and a movement that still puzzles many Americans:

Who are they?

About two thirds of Occupy supporters who responded to the online survey live in a city, a quarter in a small town or suburb, and one in 10 in a rural area. Seven in 10 describe themselves as independents; almost all the rest are Democrats.

Some Occupiers are veterans of protest movements. Barbara Schlachet, 75, a psychoanalyst from New York's Greenwich Village, shrugged off recent knee replacement surgery to demonstrate in Occupy Wall Street's "Day of Action" on Nov. 17.

She recalls accompanying her father to a demonstration in Union Square to spare the lives of convicted Soviet spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (they were executed in 1953). She brought her own children to anti-Vietnam War rallies. "They got tear-gassed in their strollers," she says with a touch of pride.

Some are students. Community College of Philadelphia political science major Elisabeth Levinson, 24, splits her time between protesting and studying by flashlight in her tent in the Occupy Philadelphia encampment she calls "my home."

Some are poor. Julion Lewis-Tatman, 22, of Occupy Oakland, says he's "in the bottom 1%." He's never had much money — "I've been homeless. I've slept in a car." — and recently lost his job selling cellphones at Staples. He has already racked up $40,000 in debt to an online university and can't afford the credits he would need to transfer to a state university.

Some appear troubled. Nkrumah Tinsley, 29, was arrested after a video surfaced online of him saying, at an Occupy Wall Street protest: "In a few days you're going to see what a Molotov cocktail can do to Macy's." When he appeared in court, he ranted incomprehensibly and laid his head on a railing. His mother told him to stand up straight; later, she said he had mental health problems.

Why did they join?

For Jason Eisenmenger of Louisville, it was the appeal of a "really cool" idea. For D.J. Hudson of Nashville, it was an online video of two female protesters in New York being pepper-sprayed by a policeman.

Hannah Faye, 28, first visited Occupy Chicago to do interviews for a book on the movement that she eventually published online. She liked what she heard and returned to march and hand out signs herself: "Being here, present, this is important. People can look at us every day and see that people are making a stand."

Liliana Bakhtiari, 23, of Atlanta, whose parents always stressed political involvement, was drawn to the promise of a "forum for everybody to speak. … I wanted to be a part of something to give people a voice."

For William Marshall, 50, owner of an Atlanta beauty salon, it was a chance conversation with three Occupiers he met at a restaurant near the group's encampment in Woodruff Park.

"The things they were talking about were a lot of the same things I felt," he recalls. "I came back the next day after looking it up on the Internet, doing some research. By my third day, I had organized a march."

He began staying at the encampment, and was one of 52 protesters arrested Oct. 26 for refusing to move.

What do they do?

Occupy is nothing if not participatory. If the movement had a membership requirement, it would be to show up and do something — if you feel like it.

Take Ruby Rogers, 28, a nanny who was drawn to Occupy Oakland because she felt it needed her.

She says there wasn't enough "fun — playful and artistic energy. …This is a very heavy movement, it needs levity." Since she loves to organize whimsy, she's been coming to encampments with food, music and, sometimes, face paint.

On a recent afternoon at Snow Park in Oakland, Rogers and friends were trying to throw a party in a downpour. She'd arrived with brunch — bread pudding and pie — and a mix board.

"As soon as our DJ gets here we're going to start dancing," she said as she greeted several toddlers, arriving with their parents, by name. "And there's a painter coming, and we've got hula hoops."

Not everyone camps out in a tent, confronts police or bangs a drum. Ann Breen-Greco, 70, joins the Occupy protesters for a few hours every time she's in downtown Chicago. On her elegant burgundy coat, she sometimes wears a "We are the 99%" button, a reference to the movement's criticism of the richest 1% of Americans.

Dave Taylor, owner of Lorraine Fabrics in Pawtucket, R.I., has donated hundreds of yards of cloth for Occupy Providence protesters to sit on.

Jason Eisenmenger, a full-time college student with a full-time job, has helped Occupy Louisville secure a permit to live in a downtown park, operated the group's Web page and acted as a liaison with city officials.

In Asheville, N.C., Wezel McClellan, 73, offers younger Occupiers advice based on his experience in the civil rights movement. He tells them not to get discouraged: "When you look back at what's really worked in history, none of it happened because one rally changed everything. You just have to keep fighting and speak up until you're heard."

Some contributions are even less tangible. John Keel of Occupy Philadelphia, 43 and a veteran of the Gulf War, has been homeless since 2000. He's describes his role as "bottom liner. … This is a leaderless movement, but being a bottom liner means I am basically a person that you can go to for answers."

And some help the movement while helping themselves. Corbett Griffith, 32, recently pulled up at Oakland's Occupy site in an old car towing a handmade trailer with a small coffee bar. He ran an orange extension cord into an adjacent building and opened for business. Asked if the tea was free, Griffith said, "for a donation, just a donation!"

Griffith said he wants to "make it better for everyone — make the protesters lives' better, the cops better. And scrape it off the top for myself."

What's their complaint?

Asked to name who or what they blamed for the nation's economic plight, the following were chosen by more than 80% of Occupy supporters in the online survey: large banks and financial institutions; mortgage lenders; lobbyists; hedge funds; the Bush administration; and multinational corporations.

For Julion Lewis-Tatman of Occupy Oakland, it's "this stupid law that people can't camp in parks. All these homeless people who don't have a place to live, and we have all this empty space? Why? Because it looks bad?"

For Jen Foster, Occupy Asheville's lawyer, it's the imbalance in wealth: "The majority of the people are controlled, abused and exploited by the upper 1%."

For Elisabeth Levinson of Occupy Philadelphia, it's student debt: "I am already getting sued for my student loans, and I haven't even finished my school. I don't think that's fair."

What do they want?

Polls show Americans aren't sure what the Occupy movement wants. But Occupiers are often quite specific.

Faye of Occupy Chicago wants to overhaul "the whole idea of the monetary system." Bakhtiari of Occupy Atlanta wants to turn "all these foreclosed homes …into space for the homeless."

Lewis-Tatman of Occupy Oakland wants not just freedom of speech but someone to listen. His proposal: Every governor sign a document promising to listen to what the people say they want.

Levinson of Occupy Philadelphia wants universal health insurance — "a huge, huge drive for me." Alfredo Gutierrez of Occupy Phoenix wants a constitutional amendment to prevent corporate money from corrupting politics.

D.J. Hudson, 23, of Occupy Nashville wants to stop the greed. "There is a guy named Jesus who was very clear about wealth and what happens when you become too hungry for wealth," says the community organizer and youth minister, "and the consequences of taking care of the poor. … I want churches to pay more attention to that and less attention to the culture of greed."

For all their frustration and anger, it's clear what Occupiers don't want, says Asheville's Foster: "We don't want to burn the place down."

Contributing: Elizabeth Weise in Oakland; Judy Keen in Chicago; Larry Copeland in Atlanta; Natalie DiBlasio in Philadelphia; Jessie Halladay of The Courier-Journal in Louisville; Bob Smietana of The Tennessean in Nashville; Dennis Wagner of The Arizona Republic in Phoenix; Casey Blake and Jon Ostendorff of the Asheville (N.C.) Citizen-Times; the Associated Press

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'Occupiers' defy simple directions too.

You know all those reports of UFOs for decades? They brought them or spawned them. They are aliens from another planet.

Occupy's membership is a coat of many colors. It includes the foreclosed, the uninsured and the homeless, college students with poor job prospects and college graduates with no way to pay off their student loans.

They are anarchists, street people and a few politicians, including a New York City Council member and a former majority leader of the Arizona state senate, both of whom were jailed; lawyers who didn't make partner and professors who didn't get tenure; newspaper people displaced by the Internet and IT specialists victimized by outsourcing.