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Underpinning those fatalistic, head-shaking comments is a faith that the world works more or less the way it’s supposed to. Don’t do anything wrong and the police won’t bother you. Vote and you’ll be represented. Do your job and you’ll be able to live in relative comfort. And if you want to change things, go through the proper channels. Start a petition! Write to your representative! If something really important happens, the news will surely cover it. The rightness or wrongness of that sentiment varies wildly depending on what you look like and where you live. That’s an incredibly unoriginal observation, but it’s not the sort of thing you really understand until someone decides you look the wrong way. I, for example, am extremely unlikely to ever be accused of loitering, no matter how long I stand outside a certain building. The fact that I can stand in a public place for as long as I like and someone else can’t means that I have more freedom than an equally deserving fellow American citizen. I have never had to fight for my right to stand in a public park, for example, or in a public square.
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The Livestream Ended: How I Got Off My Computer And Onto The Street At Occupy Oakland | The Awl
This is so beautiful.
