Always seem to go hand in hand. But even more than that, it seems to always be the police being painted in a bad light. This is relevant to just about the entire Occupy Movement, but especially so in light of the recent events at UC Davis.
At this point in time with regards to Occupy Wall Street, related coverage is more often than not about police activity, from protesters being evicted from Zuccotti Park to pepper-spraying UC Davis students, as mentioned above. Moreover, it seems that any action taken by police generates a tremendous cascade of detailed analysis--from court rulings on eviction legality to university probes following videos released online. Every action, from the first police call to the pepper-spraying of an 84 year old woman to the number arrested at each event (252 in New York yesterday) is noted and quickly made public, soon coming to define perceptions of the event at large.
But at the same time, perhaps policy activity is often the only real new news to report on, with the movement having gone on since September. This isn't to say that it's unimportant, or not worth noting, however. And while reporting has shifted from the roots of the movement as a whole to specific incidental occurrences, each incident does play a role in painting a portrait of the entire movement as a whole.
There's Hubert Humphrey's quote that goes " The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously," which, when brought up in class, incited reference to the Occupy Movement. Given the trending subject matter of any new Occupy news, is this becoming all the more relevant? Likewise, ought we be weary of sensationalist reporting, or is it all worthwhile and relevant coverage?
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17 comments:
What has been set into motion is a world wide awakening and with that awakening is anger. While OWS may linger for only a few more months, the awakening is permanent. You simply cannot kill and idea. As to what is relevant ,,,well that really depends on one’s personal socio-economic status. In this new world there is an inverse relationship between anger and economic equity. But why so much coverage of police brutality? Because the brutality of those in authority is directed by arrogance. How many pictures can you find of protesters pepper spraying police?
The World really is watching:
http://roccocampanella.blogspot.com/2011/11/world-is-watching.html
I don't totally agree with Rocco. Isn't socio-economic status all relative to a person's happiness? Anger does not just come out of those who are poor. It's the fact that there are those who are not content with big businesses and the "99 percent" feel entitled to more bail-out from the government since the government seems to just aimlessly throw money at banks to help them. Yesterday, I drove by protesters downtown standing in front of Charles Schwab holding signs saying "Don't bail out the banks. Bail out the people." And what I learned from that Systemic Risk video that we watched in class, these people probably can't be taken seriously, even thought hey are using their right to be heard. Although police brutality is never always a good thing, at least the police are not opening fire on the protesters like instances such as the shootings in Tiananmen square.
I completely agree with Alice. However, I would like to come back to one of Rocco's, about how police brutality is "directed" by arrogance. I don't necessarily think that that the police are doing it out of arrogance. I think it's more or so trying to control the people from becoming too out of control. While what the police do is wrong, it also might be the only way to maintain a certain level of safety within an occupy. That's their job. But going back to Anna's main point, in my perspective I think that to a certain extent sensationalist reporting is worthwhile, but not always relevant. It's in some aspects bordering yellow journalism, and like Alice said some of these people truly can't be taken seriously. I think some people are just out to protest and if you were to interview say a handful of 5, 1 out of the 5 wouldn't have a clue what is happening.
From what I have seen in the media, I would classify the people present at the Occupy demonstrations into three separate categories.
#1 The Involved Citizen: A type of protester who's just trying to stay politically involved and is voicing their opinions in a non-agressive way. These are the people with the clever signs (examples:http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/politics/photos/15-funny-signs-from-occupy-wall-street)
#2 The Bystander: Who hasn't wanted to go check out their local occupy movement? (even if you aren't particularly inclined to camp out in a tent.)
#3 The Hard-Core: I don't mean to say that the passionate protestors who have quit their jobs and have been using McDonald's bathrooms to bathe for the past two months are unreasonable, but they are the ones most likely to take the Occupy movement to extremes.
Because type 3 protestors are most likely to cause trouble and incite police retaliation, these are the people that we are most likely to see in the media. An example can be seen in this article (http://news.yahoo.com/pregnant-teen-elderly-woman-among-pepper-sprayed-113054448.html), which describes how a pregnant woman was sent to the hospital after being pepper-sprayed by the police at the Occupy Seattle movement. Pregnant lady deserves a type 3 classification because she tried to whack a police officer with a stick.
I think that it is important to remember that the majority of the people at these protests are types 1 and 2, and are not inciting police retaliation. These are the Occupy representatives who we should have no hesitation taking seriously.
I think Anna makes a good point about Hubert Humphrey's quote. It seems to be that the more the protesters cry out, the more the focus turns to the police quelling the activists, which may or may not be a good thing. At this point I think the reports of police activity are just creating more hostility among the protesters, which is the last thing they need. I recently read an article that mentioned that "There are many demands floating around, but the only official list isn't of demands at all but of wide-ranging grievances." I think if the activists had something more concrete to say, it would be more worthwhile to listen to them rather than focus on individual incidents.
http://www.aei.org/article/economics/monetary-policy/sorting-out-the-extremists/
The media's focus on the police activity is a way to get people to care more about the movement and what is going. As Kimi stated that it is verging on yellow journalism, I agree with that statement. If they just reported on the ideals that they had then they would not be able to sell papers. I saw a clip about the Occupy Portland which got evicted a week ago or so. The mayor was saying that it was because there was messed up behavior but Portlan d has a big population of homeless as it is that lived in the downtown before and joined in the movement to have a place to live. The leader of Occupy Portland had good ideas. Why do they not report on the ideas that the protest were based on?
I'd just like to point out that there have been hundreds, if not more, of Occupy protests all around the world that have been peaceful and nonviolent. Like Anna said, there's nothing to really report on unless something newsworthy, like police activity, to report on.
On another note, the OWS movements is growing more and more ridiculous. I agree with Jamie that if they did come up with an actual list of what they want to see change, the whole movement would be much more noteworthy.
(as for Rocco - he doesn't even go here.)
My real issue with the action taken by police is the fact that they didn't take the students point of view into account. What were the students going to do, riot and burn down their own school? There was no real threat by students protesting tuition raises on the quad. By using heavy handed police force, the Davis administration has brought much more attention to an already hot issue. These same protests are happening on every UC campus, but we aren't hearing about every one, only the ones in which police acted outrageously. Both sides should work together and make an effort to understand varying opinions on the matter. No one is fully in the right, and no one is fully in the wrong.
I agree with Jacob's comment. The police seem to be portrayed as these reckless and violent drones who just do as their told. I don't know if this is accurate or just how they're portrayed. I would hope that our police force act on moral and principle as well as law. The protesters are merely gathering to get their message across. As the police continue to resist and break up their protests, it will just further fuel their purpose.
In response to Alice, the Occupy movement has a different meaning and purpose to different people, although I agree that those who want the government to bail them out will not have their way. I think a large part of what people are saying is that big corporations should not have such a large amount of power over the government, which I agree with. It seems that the police have attacked a lot of peaceful protesters and made up reasons for their actions, so I do not believe that all violent police are just maintaining safety, as many of them have been the ones to cause danger to the protesters. In my opinion, the police are reacting because they are scared, and they seem to react especially badly to people who are recording them. I hope that the attention that police brutality brings to the Occupy movement is as effective as the attention that it brought to the Civil Rights movement.
I agree with Crystal's comment. The fact that the police are breaking up the protests is just fueling the protester's cause to continue. Similar situations can be seen further back in history. A reaction is essentially what the protesters want. With a reaction to the cause it will only further spread the fuel and ultimately cause the desired change that the people want.
I agree with Jacob. Both sides have varying opinions on the subject and should work together to find a solution. No ones fully right or wrong, its just about finding the solution to our social and economic problems that will satisfy both sides. Back to the topic of the original post, the police activity at UC Davis was a little ridiculous. I mean, must the police pepper spray students simply sitting on the ground rather than a protester who is causing harm and chaos to the public?
I agree with nick, that both sides should try to work things out and hear out each others point of view. So hopefully they can stop the protesters from violently protesting which makes every feel safer and so the police can stop using ridiculous activities like pepper spraying because its only going to cause the protesters and students to fight back.
I agree with Crystal, I would really like to know if they police agree or disagree with the violent acts they are told to carry out.
I wonder if the protesters keep persistent, the police will change their approach? Because violence only scares people for so long before they rise up against it and aren’t afraid anymore. This reminds me a little of the civil rights movement in the 20’s. People protested even when the police got violent because they believed in thing they were fighting for so strongly.
In response to Alice's comment that these protesters can't be taken seriously: I disagree. Although I think that some people still don't understand the importance and necessity of the bank bailout, I think their anger is warranted. Most of us are speaking from a perspective of privilege (i.e. our houses haven't been foreclosed on because of a misinformed financial decision on our parents' part) and haven't experienced the kind of extreme anger that those whose lives have been altered forever must be feeling. From an economic point of view, it's not rational, but I think it is still understandable. Plus, it's also pretty annoying to people who have been responsible, loyal customers to have their interest rates hiked up and credit limits lowered because of mistakes that the bank made with just a fraction of their customers. Even if the banks' actions are justified because of the precarious position that they're in, it's still a frustrating situation for the average citizen, and people's emotions and personal struggles should be taken seriously even if they don't make sense from an economist's perspective.
I agree with Suzy in that these occupy protesters should be taken seriously, to a point. When the occupy movement started, protesters produced a vague reason for protesting, being that they are the 99%. Since the occupy movement has grown people have produced more detailed responses to why they are protesting, yet we never hear about what they want to see changed, or what they gain to earn by protesting.
On a side note, the Occupy Davis and Berkeley protests have been clearer in what they are protesting. I agree in that more tuition for fewer classes offered is not something I would want to happen since I'm going off to college next year.
Even if it is vague as to what the OWS want to see happen, now they have police brutality to protest.
This is an interview of a UC Davis pepper-sprayed student.
http://boingboing.net/2011/11/20/ucdeyetwitness.html
While I'm sure the protesters aren't all that happy with the police violence directed towards them, it certainly isn't hurting the cause. This can be connected to the sit-in protests during the civil rights movement. The police violence gets media attention, which allows the protesters to spread their cause. While the immediate focus is no longer the "roots of the movement as a whole," these "specific incidental occurrences" help the movement get attention. So from the perspective of the protester, sensationalist reporting is certainly worthwhile for their cause. Now, the Occupy protesters will be gaining sympathy from even those who are not as passionate about Wall Street. While not everyone is as upset at Wall Street as the protesters are, most people are not going to be supportive of the police brutality.
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