Omar Matiano

Professor Koning
English 113 B
March 22, 2014

The Occupy Movement demonstrates the awareness of social classes among huge
corporations who are classified as the 1 % through raising awareness. While bell hooks says we
are not in a 99 percent world. We are in world with serious class complexes. Social classes are
getting harder to move up in society.
This idea of moving up in society is beginning to diminish. Just like Bell Hooks has. She
knows the struggle of being at the bottom class of society but also at the top. Bell Hooks says
Subversion requires strategy. According to Webster, Subversion refers to an attempt to
transform the established social order and its structures of power, authority and hierarchy. So
what are these people on Wall Street protesting? They are protesting inequality, the lack of
representation in the government. It is social class warfare among the rich, middle and poor. The
Occupy Movement is related to an Eros Effect which refers to moments where dozens of people
flow into the street and refuse to leave and return to their everyday lives until significant change
have been made in social order.
George Katsiaficas, author of The Supervisions of Politics he says In these moments,
the Eros Effect is reconstructed by thousands of people who change their everyday lives and
instead of values like patriotism, hierarchy or competition being the dominant values people
construct new values of solidarity of humanity and of love for each other. They are there to
bring awareness that the rich are getting richer, the middle are barely hanging on and the poor are
getting poorer. Their famous slogan is We are the 99%. But who are the 1%? Through the
IRS, the 1% are the people that are earning $380,354 or more. You would assume that because
they constitute less of the population that they would hold less power. But that is where we are
wrong. The 1% holds an approximate 36% of the Nations Wealth. Some of the people that are
included into this 1% are people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates who are Billionaires. We get the
sense of greed when we hear their names. Bell Hooks quotes More than any other group in the
nations history, this group was and is willing to forego allegiance to race or gender to promote
their class interest. If they could make a fortune promoting and selling a product to any group,
they were willing to play and prey upon any need or vulnerability that would aid in their
accumulation of wealth (Hooks 65)
Among those people that are protesting are college students. But why would college
students need to be protesting? Well when we are young most of our parents, teachers, mentors
tell us that going to college is the best way to get ahead in life. We are enlightened with the
possibility of living the luxury life having a big house with the white picket fence, a nice car, and
even a dog. We work and work for it till we get accepted to the college we want to attend. But as
the economy is getting tougher, the tuition of college is increasing leading to more student loans.
According to MSNBC Our nations combined student loans have totaled an average $1 trillion
college loan debt. That averages out to $24,000 per student. Many of these college graduates are
outraged at the fact that they cannot find any jobs. Tim Welding is a Michigan State University
graduate with an economics degree who attended the Occupy Wall Street protest that is outraged
at the amount of student loan that he is in, he says What is the point of going to school if A. you
cannot get a job and B. you cannot pay back your student loans. After all this is all that the
majority of the people continue going to school for, to get their dream job and earn money to be
able to afford a nice house and live comfortably. Starting salaries are also beginning to plummet.
Although their frag-ile hold on economic self-sufficient is slipping, they still cling to the dream
of a class-free society where everyone can make it to the top. They are afraid to face the
significance of dwindling resources, the high cost of education, housing, and health case. They
are afraid to think too deeply about class. (Hooks 6)
According to the Huffington Post a report surveyed the participants at a joint Occupy-
labor movement May Day rally in New York City and found two-thirds of those who described
themselves as actively involved in Occupy Wall street were white, while 80 percent had a
bachelors degree or higher. Many of these activists claiming to represent the 99 percent were
drawn to the Occupy movement after the financial crisis left them underemployed and burdened
with student loan debt. The survey found that while 80 percent of respondents said they had a
job, about one-third said their employment was precarious.
Hooks has had an experience where her perants had to choose the college she went to
When I was choosing a college to attend, the issue of money surfaced and had to be talked
about. Mama urged me to attend a college nearby that offered financial aid (Hooks 25) So many
students like myself would not be able to afford college