What has the Occupy movement become?

Seriously, someone fill me in.

In a recent protest in New York’s Theatre District, the protesters have moved even farther from the original plan than before. 

While many demonstrations are certainly straying from the original goal of upsetting economic injustice, this is a significant shift to a new realm of protest.

Occupy Broadway was designed to “reclaim public space through creative resistance” in order to use it for performance. This is a great idea and draws a good deal of attention to the arts. 

I can’t in my right mind say I don’t support a movement like this. I don’t, however, support its timing or the idea that it essentially hopped right on the bandwagon.

The Occupy movement has become convoluted and muddled. Protesters are losing their way, and movements like these don’t exactly help. The term “Occupy” is overused and has led to a broad, all-encompassing “let’s change the world” colloquial perception of the entire demonstration.

These days, everything is being occupied, and they are not all one and the same. Occupy Broadway is a glaring example of this.

The average American is easily confused. We have a lot of information coming at us from different sources, and it’s not always the truth. 

With everything from Occupy Atlanta to Occupy Zurich, I am not surprised that I have encountered many people who don’t exactly understand what the protests are asking for. Quite frankly, I’m only slightly confident in my own abilities to answer this question.

When no one knows what the protests represent anymore, it presents a danger to society and to the movement in general. Suddenly, people may not even know what they are talking about, but they join the movement anyway. Police may not even know what they’re trying to break up and ignorance leads to violence. Occupiers are facing attacks left and right because of ignorance — as a whole, no one knows what to do, and the forces are upset, so they use pepper-spray as an appropriate solution.

These spray-happy officers are acting upon basic human bigotry: They are afraid of what they don’t know. And, unfortunately, they sought to combat that fear with aggression.

At one point, I truly believed in the Occupy movement on paper. The idea was a beautiful thing, as it called for social justice that our country and many others need.

However, the Occupy movement grew hungry and put too much on its plate. If the movement wants to work with and gain more respect from the American public, it should scale back and decide on a focus.

The world won’t change as a result of one movement — sad, but true. Occupiers should hone in on their ideals first before looking outward.

If not, people will only become more confused. It’s only a matter of time before people start occupying TGI Friday’s.


­— sjostrow@indiana.edu