I don't usually blog but I am so fascinated by this Occupy Wall Street movement that I couldn't help myself. First off, I think it is awesome that people are taking a step to address the issue of capitalist greed because it creates a good platform for dialogue. With that being said, I believe it will not be effective as long as it's a focused effort on Wall Street and not in people's own neighborhood. Protesting on Wall Street, or wherever your central financial area is, looks nice on television but what it really shows is a group of people who don't want to get their hands dirty by engaging the people who are effected. This means the issue of class can only be dealt with by dealing with the people within those classes. Which, means the 99% has to come to terms with their racism, sexism, homophobia and all other prejudices that separate us blatantly and subconciously. Until we have this dialogue Occupy Wall Street won't have any clear goals and is going to do more harm than good because the Top 1% are masters of manipulating aimless energy.  

Bankers aren't a new problem their plan has been in the works for centuries, so what is protesting and camping out going to do if you don't have a clear goal in which you believe in? Especially, when you are being obedient to the police? I don't advocate unnecessary violence because there is a such thing as civil disobedience (See: Ghandi) but such a thing will only work with adequate numbers unified under the same cause. You can easily arrest 10 people but try 10,000. How do you get to 10,000, though? By making the American people see that we all share the same problems. Poverty isn't a poor people problem, it's our problem. Drug policy and the prison system isn't a problem for the Black community, it's our problem. Indian reservations, our problem. Police brutality, our problem. Lack of jobs for college graduates, our problem. Hell, lack of jobs for any able-bodied individual, our problem. In some way, shape or form these issues and many more are related to capitalist greed.

Whether we like it or not we're American, whether your ancestors chose to come here or not. Trust me, as a Black man it is difficult to type that but we're here and I do believe we have the potential to be a healthy contributor to the world community if we learn how to contribute to our own. So, instead of Occupy Wall Street, first let's: Occupy The Ghetto, Occupy The Classroom, Occupy The Precinct, Occupy The Prison, Occupy The Military, Occupy Your Congressman, and New Yorkers, for real, I mean for real, Occupy The MTA.