Local panelists discuss Occupy Movement

The Hopkins Human Rights Working Group hosted a forum to discuss and analyze the Occupy Movement last Tuesday.

"I have faith that we can get a conversation started, and that the Hopkins community will gain interest. Everything in this movement has been happening so fast; this forum is a chance to step back and examine what is really going on," Hopkins graduate student and panel member Emilie Connolly said.

Although some students were present, the majority of attendees were local community members who were either interested in or already part of the Occupy Movement.

"Any time you have an open dialogue about issues, problems and ideas, it allows people to engage each other in a really constructive way. We want to learn about the political process and create our own models," Towson University senior Glenn Daniels said.

A major criticism of the movement is that the protesters do not have any clear goals or concrete ideas for substantive reform. This forum was an attempt to address what the protesters really want, what the movement stands for and how the Hopkins community can become more involved.

The panel featured Aaron Martel from the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering and who is also a member of Medical Working Group, the organization in charge of supplying basic health care to the encampment in Baltimore. In addition, Professor Christopher Nealon from the Department of English and Professor Lester Spence from the Department of Political Science both contributed to the panel.

Also in attendence were Lawrence Grandpre, a member of Baltimore progressive policy think tank Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle and graduate students Chris Westcott and Connolly from the Departments of English and Political Science, respectively.

"I think the speakers were great," Westcott said. "Our basic aim was to offer a contextual analysis of the movement, something that the University owes to itself to do. This is a special place to do such a thing. A lot of people could have spoken, however this panel was very refreshing and knowledgeable."

Martel began the forum with his personal perspective of the Occupy Baltimore movement and a general update on what has been occurring at McKeldin Square, at the corner of Pratt and Light Streets. He had been involved with the movement since it began, and stressed the fact that this was an opportunity for people who had not participated in politics before to get involved. He tried to shed light on the ambiguity that sometimes plagues the movement.

"The site for Occupy Baltimore was chosen because it is illustrative of the concentration of power that the movement is struggling against. It is located at the intersection of the financial district and development district, and exemplifies a major problem," Martel said. "A main goal of the movement is to advocate for more even development, and for this development to include more of a local workforce."

Martel also brought up a series of points to negate the criticism that the Occupy movements are just large groups of angry, unemployed people. He spoke about Baltimore particularly, but stressed a transformation he had noticed.

"The first two weeks involved infrastructure building," Martel said, "We had to establish a food committee, which was taken care of by the Baltimore Free Farm. There was also need for a medical staff and a separate committee for developing signage."

"However, recently the process of direct action has become more prevalent, in that the movement is trying to address and solve more problems."

Nealon then went on to speak about the history of the Occupy Movement and how it really came to be. Nelson recalled how he taught in the California State University System and witnessed the roots of this movement. In 2009, the UC schools were beginning to dramatically increase their tuition in order to encourage investors to produce new projects on certain campuses. Members of the UC Santa Cruz student body had enough of this treatment and occupied the commons of the school. Nealon showed that the Occupy Movement spread throughout the country and adapted an anti-capitalist language, but based itself on this movement.

"I try to be the best professor I can be, staying in my office for hours on end and making sure I give my students the best possible experience. However, in Marxist terms, I am still non-productive labor," Nealon said. "It doesn't mean my life work has no meaning, but it does mean that the ability of the University to pay me is built on the fact that they can pay their food workers and bus drivers a lot less."

The next two speakers, Spence and Grandpre, both spoke on a similar matter: the role racism played in the Occupy Movement. Spence began by having the audience visualize a graph of inequality over the years, showing that it would form a "U." This meant that inequality was very high in the early 1900's then went down and is now dramatically back up. He suggested that the Occupy Movement should begin to branch out towards other populations, to promote issues that are related to the movement but not necessarily advocated for at the moment.

"The Occupy Movement is an opportunity to speak about issues that have always existed, but usually just for certain populations (minorities)," Spence said. "Now that whites and a greater majority face these problems, a lot of momentum is generated. The only way something like the Occupy Movement works is if it works in a number of different circumstances, for a number of different people."

Westcott ended the panel showing that there have been a plethora of protests throughout the history of Hopkins. In the 1950s and 1960s, many Hopkins students participated in civil rights sit-ins, including one with Duke Ellington. Many Hopkins students protested the Vietnam War, and the Homewood House was even briefly occupied in the 1970's.

"There is a lot of self reflection to be done here, and as my presentation tried to show, it has happened in the past," Westcott said. "There are plenty of opportunities for that to continue. Student movements generate a lot of momentum; however, the Occupy movement remains distant from many students. This presentation is trying to change that."