I want to start off by saying that I am not against student occupations, by any means. My first semester at Lang, I was 100% on board with the 2008 occupation of the 5th Avenue building. and even though I decided not to join this occupation because of my own issues with student space at the New School and my desire to not engage with certain forms of privilege in the space, I was never against the occupation. I am not against the right to student space. I am, however, against disrespecting shared student space. The image you see above is Kellen Gallery, the space the university president offered to the occupiers until December 22nd. Apparently, a group of people thought it would be really fuckin cool to come in and do THIS.
First of all, the very act of coming into this space and tagging up the walls denotes a very heavy class privlege. The students who are responsible for this are not going to have to come into the galley to clean up and paint. A working class janitor will have to come in and clean up, maybe he’ll make time and a half or maybe he won’t. Either way, it’s a safe bet to say he’s not making more then maybe $13 per hour. And that’s a stretch. A student movement, even if the students are working class, has a certain amount of class privilege and social capital; both are things that working class, non-students lack. To go into a space, even if it is student space, and fuck it up is an abusive use of both of these things. As students, we (and I include myself) should not use our loan debt and our high cost of living/tuition as an excuse to abuse our privilege of education. To not have to think about the working poor who clean up after us (in our cafeterias, our classrooms, our bathrooms, and even in our occupied spaces), is a privilege. And what you see in this picture is a disgusting abusive use of that privilege.
Second of all, holla at that gendered language. It’s really great that whoever decided to tag up the walls wanted to call New School anarchists spoiled. I mean, I can think of several more effective and less violent ways of doing so but whatever. What I don’t understand is the need to then call them “pussies”. Because nothing screams revolution like equating a pussy to something you don’t like, right? And because it doesn’t really matter if you equate people with pussies to people you don’t like, right? I LOVE IT WHEN THE SO CALLED 99% ACTS LIKE THIS. IT MAKES ME FEEL SO WELCOME IN THE MOVEMENT. We should start calling everything we don’t like pussies! Like the cops!…OH WAIT.
It is really, really sad to see that this is what is being carried out under the guise of the 99%. I am the 99%: I’m a working class student trying to put myself through college and grad school, my father is disabled, my mom was a single parent…but this has nothing to do with me or most people in the 99%. If this is the revolution, then I’ll pass. This doesn’t speak for me any more then corporate greed and failed social policy.
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