Occupy Wall Street was ‘absolutely’ racist and hypocritical, according to a black occupier and his girlfriend who first liked protesting at Zuccotti Park but now have moved to Occupy Newark. My interview with occupier Michael Morgan raised the same issues that came up in every discussion I had with black members of the Occupy Wall Street protest, who all felt that the movement was racist. These accusations are coming from men and women who support much of the rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street but have seen the reality with their own eyes. So far, the cowardly elitist leaders of Occupy Wall Street have done nothing to answer these charges from within their own movement that they are racist against people of color.
Here’s my interview with Mr. Morgan:
Mr. Morgan was clearly bothered by the segregation at Zuccotti Park and that there was an area of Occupy known as ‘the ghetto.’ This segregation was brilliantly exposed in one of the best pieces on mainstream media reporting on #Occupy from The Daily Show, which also shows the rift between the smug, privileged liberal elites who talk about the 99% but clearly wouldn’t want to be caught dead with them.
Mr. Morgan was also disgusted by this incident, as described by the New York Post:
Meanwhile, (Peter) Dutro, 35, one of only a handful of OWS leaders in charge of the movement’s $500,000 in donations, checked in (to the W Hotel) on Wednesday, the night after police emptied Zuccotti Park.
While hundreds of his rebel brethren scrambled to find shelter in church basements, Dutro chose the five-star, 58-story hotel, with its lush rooms and 350-count Egyptian cotton sheets. He lives only a short taxi ride away in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn.
“I knew everything was going to be a clusterf–k in the morning,” he told The Post, alluding to Occupy’s own disruption plans. “How would I get over the bridge when they were shutting it down?”
The tattoo artist-turned-Occupy money man took the elevator up to the fifth-floor welcome desk, where a disc jockey spins tunes and guests enjoy a vista of the growing freedom tower.
He said he spent $500 of his own money to get the room because he wanted a good night’s rest ahead of the cause’s two-month ceremony the next day and raucous post-raid protests.
“I knew . . . there was a high probability of getting arrested,” he said. “I wanted a nice room. That’s OK. Not everybody there is dirt poor.”
He paid for the palace with his American Express card.
“It is an expensive hotel. Whatever,” he said.
Mr. Morgan also confirms the violence, sexual assaults, and other ‘ill-mannered behavior’ at Occupy Wall Street, things that he claims have not occurred at Occupy Newark. Mr. Morgan indicates that the supposedly leaderless nature of Occupy Wall Street is part of what led to people running around ‘chaotically stupid.’
The few hours I spent at Occupy Newark showed that the non-ideologues there were able to put together a neater, more organized, and more livable encampment than existed at Zuccotti Park, where the ruling elite knew they could escape to the W hotel if it became ‘a clusterf*ck.’ The occupiers in Newark have applied some common sense rules that run counter to the la-la land ideology, and they seem to have worked.
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