Wall Street calls Occupy protesters names.  Jonathan Schell writes in the Nation about how white collar workers going into the buildings do this to belittle the Occupy movement and shame individuals who speak up and peacefully assemble. It’s a revival of an old shaming tactic, calling protesters dirty-hippies, lazy, or myriad other things left over from the Civil Rights and Vietnam protests.  

But now, instead of putting a bad light on the protesters this brings out the bad light of name callers.  Schell’s article highlights how this tactic shows Wall Street’s detachment from the Occupy protesters, and the rest of the 99%.  However, what do you do when the detached message comes from someone in the 99%?  And not just anyone, but your own mother?

My mother’s dealt with me protesting before.  As a grad student in 2008, I supported Winter Soldier Iraq & Afghanistan in DC.  On the 5^th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, I marched to the White House with IVAW and Veterans for Peace (VFP).   I witnessed these groups petitioning Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) for the impeachment of President Bush.  Then I worked with the Committee to Elect Jason Wallace, a congressional candidate for the Green Party in Illinois in the 11^th district.  When November came and we got a healthy 7% for an ideas-driven campaign, I went on political burnout.  My mother was relieved.  She refers to 2008 as a closed chapter, my “DC experience.”  I waived this away as part of her primness, calling me silly in a silly way.

However, this same kind of willful ignorance comes out when I talk to her about my interest in the Occupy protests – I hear faint echoes of the 1% talking to the protesters.  But I say faint because she doesn’t say it in a mean spirit or to someone she doesn’t know.  She says it with tears in her voice – a mother’s plea.  She offers time to listen about my job search and advice about how to keep going.  She offers to have me come home, even though she can’t afford it any more than I can. 

After hearing my mother say these things, there’s no way this name calling and willful ignorance are just signs of detachment from a select group.  My mother is definitely in no place to be putting me down, and she knows it.  You can hear the conflict in her voice.  Instead, she shows the complexity of pride, and what it has to do with being an individual in an alienated community.  And it definitely has to do with unvoiced political issues that haven’t died since the Civil Rights protests.  

In my mother’s case, she has a touch of old anti-feminist conservatism that went wrong the day my father came home from six months in the hospital from a cardiac arrest.  Out of fear, she picked up the gauntlet of going to work after being a mother for so many years, seeing it as a means to an end rather than something she’d like to do.  She’s her own worst enemy when it comes to her job or looking for jobs, and she’s been in an anemic working situation with a major insurance company that won’t even recognize her as an employee because she works under an individual agent.  The only way she’s been able to get a living wage is by piping up to the agent, not the company.  And then there’s the health insurance issue - she’s not even guaranteed health insurance as a fulltime employee from her own company, even after 14 years with the same agent! 

As far as reaching out for help, she doesn’t reach out to anyone except those she’s closest to, mainly family.  She cuts herself off from thinking about the community at large.  When she had to pay for my father’s health bills after his death, she didn’t like thinking about taking charity, but she could never afford to pay those bills by herself.  She’s waited ten years to even think about applying for his social security, having just gone through bankruptcy and foreclosure first.  Does the 1% advocate this kind of self-destructive self-reliance?

Because of my mother’s story as well as my own protest experience, I am very aware of the power of community in times of crisis.  There needs to be more than just your own gumption and determination to support you through tough times, you need people, often strangers, to give you a friendly hand-up.  

Yet, I too am susceptible to this self-restricting pride in a different way.  When I see the Occupy campaigns bursting out in cities across the nation, I find myself itching.  But despite my protester background, I’m not itching for a sign, or to sing a chant and promote my own self-righteousness.  I’m itching for a paycheck.  In 2008, I was willing to be arrested for civil disobedience because I felt strongly that the Bush administration needed to be held accountable for war crimes.  Now I struggle over even joining the protests, because I want to keep transportation costs down and I spend my time looking for work.  My self-righteousness has taken a back seat to the search for where I’m going to live and how I can afford my next meal.  Is this me caving to my mother’s fallen attitude?  Am I alienating myself into the message of the 1%?