100Feed Special Report: My First Days in Zuccotti Park by Jane Zuckerberg

On September 18, 2011 I arrived in New York City at approximately 4:00 P.M. The initial purpose of my trip was to visit my parents at their apartment near Zuccotti Park. As I walked up the narrow steps of the building, a large group of people caught my attention. I had seen them as I drove up to the building, but they didn’t seem as numerous at first glance. These people, who were wielding nothing but signs and were chanting, seemed harmless. They reminded me of something I had seen a few months earlier – namely the conservative “Tea Partiers”.

Whilst observing these “ninety-nine percenters” as they called themselves, a young woman, about my age and height, approached me. Her sign was a smallish piece of cardboard with a marijuana leaf printed with black marker and the words “Tax Hemp” scrawled across it with red marker. She smiled at me and set her sign down so she could speak to me without distraction.
“Are you with the protesters?” she asked, still bearing a friendly smile.
“No. I was just passing by. What are they protesting?”
“Pretty much everything. Some of them are teachers, some are homeless. They’ve just come here to make a difference.”
This girl’s name was Natalie.

At first they didn’t seem reasonable. As I have learned, I have been very fortunate to come from a wealthy family and had never been one to miss a meal. I was a pious Conservative and I watched Fox news religiously. In short, I was blind. I was unaware of all the problems we were facing in this country; and the problems that I knew of, I merely blamed on the president. What did I know? My father had home schooled me and taught me to be Conservative and Christian with all my heart. Glenn Beck? An American hero! Mitt Romney? A patriot! Sure, they’ve never been homeless. They’ve never lived in poverty; but then again, neither have I, and I’m a fairly good person. I have donated to the NCCS (National Children’s Cancer Society) and I frequently give blood. However, the poor live off government cheese and welfare. As a friend quoted one of her Republican aunts, “they have three children with three different baby daddies!” In short, I was bigoted and everything Natalie said went through one ear and out the other.

That night I had dinner with my parents. Both of them are in their late fifties and are retired. As we ate a Sunday chicken dinner, Bill O’Reilly buzzed on the living room television. However, the protestors outside were becoming increasingly louder. At one point it became impossible to hear the television. My dad angrily turned up the volume on the television as he muttered random obscenities. My mom looked out the windows at the growing crowd of protestors. As she closed the blinds, she too muttered random insults.

I went to bed that night thinking about my boyfriend in back in Los Angeles. I had appeared on two hit television shows that year, Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, and I had been going steady with one of the actors in the former. I thought about my home in L.A. Everything in my life was perfect. I had everything anyone could ever want: wealth, love, a nice home. As they say, ignorance is bliss. Little did I know that everything I believed would change almost instantaneously.

The next morning, I awoke to the sound of screaming. I got dressed and went outside to find policemen arresting several of the protestors. One of the men did not take to being arrested and so fought back. I watched as two policemen beat him viciously with clubs. Ambulances swarmed the street. Suddenly, I saw Natalie.

I approached her and found her sitting on the sidewalk, crying uncontrollably. I sat next to her as the policemen continued to arrest the protestors and the EMT’s carried two people out in body bags. This reminded me of something you would see in a war; this was exactly that – a war. Natalie attempted to tell me something, but she was so shaken that I could hardly understand her.
“They killed my boyfriend.” she cried.
“Who?”
“The cops beat him to death in his tent. He didn’t do anything wrong.”
I sat with Natalie as the police cleared the area. It should be noted that the very next day, the news reported that a homeless man was found dead in a tent near Zuccotti park. Natalie recognized this man immediately as her boyfriend, who was clearly not homeless.

I spent that day in Zuccotti park with Natalie. After the police left the park, the protestors picked up their signs and began chanting once again. Natalie had several friends who introduced themselves to me that day. One of the people was no older than seventeen; I will refer to him only as Chris. Chris was a bright looking young man with long blond hair and hazel eyes. He was about six inches taller than I. The other two were women, who I will refer to as Shauna and Priscilla. Shauna was a tall, stout woman in her late twenties. She had an Asian appearance as well as an accent. Apparently Shauna was an immigrant who had come to the states with her brother and had met her husband in New York; her husband was of Cuban descent and was named Miguel. Her brother’s name was Chang. Priscilla was about nineteen and had long red hair that she usually hid under a cap. We called her Red, merely because of her hair color, and she admitted immigrating here from Canada.

That night, I didn’t go to my parent’s condo. I stayed with Priscilla and Natalie, who provided me with my own bright green tent. Sleeping in the tent was something entirely new to me. I had never gone camping in my life and I had an aversion to sleeping on the ground; however, I did it for Natalie’s sake. On my first day back to New York, Natalie had been kind to me. Unless you have been to New York, you have no idea how rude the citizens can be. All of these other people were so compassionate and accepting, even to me, who completely despised their politics. Although I objected at first, Nat was worried for her own safety because of the nightly police raids. Being with her in her time of need was the least I could do.

The protestors awakened me the next morning before sunrise. Shauna had bought coffee for all the people in her “group”, including me. I watched as Chang downed his coffee whilst working on a new sign. It was slightly larger than the other ones I had seen. It was a white canvas with “I am an immigrant. I came to take your job but you don’t have one” written on it with black and red paint. He then looked at me and said “you come with us?”. “No” I said as I sipped my coffee from the warm cup. It had been a cold night, and the coffee warmed my body instantly. “Oh, come on, Zucky! It is fun!” Shauna said. She then leaned forward and whispered, “Plus there are many cute guys.” She giggled as she leaned up against Miguel, who looked at her with a smirk.
“I don’t fit in here. I’ll probably go back to parents’ place. It just wouldn’t work out.”
“Why not?” Miguel said. “It’s easy. You just hold a sign and sing.”
“I’m a Republican and it just wouldn’t work out.”

As everyone else in the group looked at me and each other with smirks. It was like they knew something that I didn’t. Chang convinced me to go with them just as the sun came through the trees in the park. It was settled – one day and then I could leave. “They just needed a little support”.

I marched through Time Square that day with nearly two thousand people, protestors and regular citizens close around me. We walked for six hours before resting. As we rested near the park, Priscilla appeared and waved at us. My calves were sore, my legs were burning and my throat was sore from dehydration. As she approached us, I could not stand up. She offered me and the rest of my group a bottle of water. Wait a second: my group? It was getting a little confusing. These people were so kind. They were almost like distant relatives.

We rested for about an hour before a newscaster from CNN appeared on scene. He approached Shauna with a microphone as he asked a question, “What is Occupy Wall Street and what is their goal?” Shauna hesitated before grabbing my arm. “You know, I think Jane would like to answer your question.” I was a little surprised. The first thought going through my mind was my parents, looking at the television and seeing me with this group of people. My dad would have a heart attack, as well as my mom. Then I thought about Natalie. Her boyfriend had been murdered by the policemen for no good reason. If I had not met Natalie and known how sweet and innocent she was, I would’ve been on the side of the policemen. I knew my mom and dad would be on the cops’ side. However, no one deserves to be murdered like that. Then something dawned on me: screw it. You only get one life, and I’m on Natalie’s side. I’m on the ninety-nine percenters’ side. So I spoke into the microphone.
“This country has a lot of problems. We know we can’t fix everything but, we’ve just come here to… make a difference.”

I felt like a traitor. This was Jane S. Zuckerberg protesting the very same people who had raised me. This was me protesting my own brother – the billionaire who founded one of the most widely used social networking sites in the world. This was me being bad. But, oh Lord, did it feel good!

After another hour or so of walking, we arrived at Zuccotti park around dinnertime and found Natalie sitting with Priscilla’s sister and boyfriend. Priscilla’s sister was a sweet fourteen year old girl named Tasha. News anchors for every station surrounded the park and interviewed the protestors. One thing I noticed was Fox news, in large numbers, cornering citizens and asking them about OWS. These were not protestors, but the people willingly answered as if they were “fighting for the cause”. For the first time in twenty years, I felt uncomfortable in my own skin. These people, these cops, these interviewers were playing dirty and trying to make the protestors look bad.

Time square looked so beautiful that night. I walked downtown and looked at all the protestors crowding the streets. The police were putting up more barricades to keep the protestors away from certain streets, but they did not work. Occupy Wall Street had taken over the city; in fact, I had no idea how far it had gone. Protests were springing up across the country, and in places such as Syria, Egypt and Libya. Times were changing, and I had changed along with it. I dreaded the moment I walked into my parents’ apartment. I imagined my dad, who had beaten me throughout my teenage years for lesser offenses than this. I imagined walking in and my dad telling me to get out of his house, or he would perhaps call the police. I tried to imagine them seeing me on television and throwing the TV out the window. All I knew was something bad was about to happen.

I walked through the door and dropped my bag on the floor, only to see my parents in the dining room eating their dinner. In fact, my mom even acted happy to see me. They did not even know where I had been and they were not about to suspect I had been in Zuccotti. They had apparently not seen the interview on CNN. Then, as my mom wrapped her arms around me and hugged me, I remembered something: my parents watch Fox news.

100Feed Special Report: The Rebirth of Occupy Wall Street

In the spirit of spring rebirth, the Occupy movement is ramping up activities as warm weather blankets the country. But while the season is typified by a reawakening of life outdoors, demonstrators are using sleep to get their points across. They call it “sleepful protest.”

The sleeping bags started appearing on the corner of Wall and Broad streets across from the New York Stock Exchange on April 9. A civil rights attorney sympathetic to the Occupy movement provided the legal justification for the move in the form of a court ruling from 2000. A federal district court judge said people can sleep on sidewalks as a form of political expression as long as they take up no more than half of the sidewalk and don’t block any doors.

OWS organizers declared a month ago that the movement would be planning a comeback in the spring and summer. Some city and state governments, armed with new ordinances aimed at the Occupy movements, are ready to prevent demonstrators from re-establishing encampments.

For the past few nights, dozens of Occupy Wall Street protesters have slept on a patch of concrete a stone’s throw away from the traders and stock brokers who are the targets of their message. “The goal here is to not violate the law and not give the police a reason to move the group,” said Ted Schulman, who has taken part in Occupy demonstrations for several months.

Every morning, they talk about income inequality and the role of big money in politics as commuters pass by on their way to jobs in the Financial District. Most people who work in the area seem indifferent.
“They just don’t understand how things work,” said Wayne Kaufman, chief market analyst at John Thomas Financial. “They have fantasy ideas. But, they’re entitled to their opinions.”
While police have occasionally forced the protesters to move so the sidewalk could be cleaned, and a few have been arrested, however they are not deterred.
“We’re not afraid anymore. I mean, we’ve been through so much. All of us have been to jail,” said a 27-year-old protestor. “We know we’re doing the right thing.”

Sleepful protests have popped up elsewhere in the country with varying degrees of success. In Washington, police have been less accommodating, while in Los Angeles, protesters have taken to sleeping outside Bank of America branches, a frequent target of the Occupy movement. Similar sidewalk sleep-ins are taking place in Boston and Atlanta.

The protesters on Wall Street are unsure if their sleep-in to grow into an encampment like the one that became home to hundreds of people at nearby Zuccotti Park, yet they are hopeful, as they should be.

“I view this as the pre-campaign. I certainly doubt that this will still be here May 1st when the big rallies start,” Schulman said. “My guess is by that point, they’ll have taken control of this space again.”
Occupy organizers are calling for large-scale demonstrations across the country on May 1 in conjunction with the labor movement’s International Workers Day.