Dear Yaso,
It’s not the wisest thing to write a letter right now. It will never have been while being in San Francisco. Every morning has been an early one (6am wake up). Taking the train (the BART) from Berkeley to San Francisco and back to Berkely every night. Sometimes leaving the city at about 8pm, other times 10 or 11pm and everything in between. Right now, I’m extremely tired; like I’ve been every night here thus far. But oh well, life is for living right? We’ll sleep when we’re dead.
I wanted to send you a high quality letter filled with pictures from SF, but that will take more time and I will post them up later once I get to Gainesville and have some substantial amount of rest.
This whole trip started with our early morning train from Edinburgh to London. We left our flat impeccably clean. It’s so good to know I’m coming back to a nicely done bed, cleaned rooms, and organized spaces. It was a nightmare last time! I’ll send you photos later with more chisme from the train. Lol. I took the time to put together an application that was due the day after I got to SF. By the way, sorry about you not getting the job, but I’m glad you have a good attitude about it. The right job will come. I’m saying to you, and to me even more. It’s harder, I think, perhaps, after you have graduated.
While on the plane to SF, we noticed that the guy next to us was going to the same conference… small world. We had saved our meal from the night before and we ate it on the plane while everyone was jealous >:)
While at the conference, I found some really good workshops. I was surprised. They actually had some practical ones to go to about social change, AZ’s immigration law, peacebuilding and others. I’m not sure what I would’ve done if those weren’t available. I even went to one on yoga…which got a bit weird… remind me to tell you later. Lol. But I still love my yoga! And miss it! Speaking of which, I’ve been going crazy with no exercise for a whole week and eating out. Ugh. Detox and training when we get home! It’s horrible. Had no time to go to the supermarket and get some healthy foods to pack for lunches. We seriously had no time for anything, it was crazy.
Even still, we managed to see some of San Francisco. You’ll see in the photos later Anyway, we heard Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley were going to be speaking at OccupySF’s site on Sat night. So we marched with the Occupy people for a mile. We stopped at a Hyatt hotel to protest the hotel for its unfair treatment of workers. There’s great work being done to support the unionization of hotel workers in the SF area and nationally. I went to a session about that—opened my eyes to those issues. A hotel worker came to speak to us. He barely knew English so he read from a paper. It made me cry. I was talking to Mike later about why I was crying. I really believe I’m in the presence of the divine, of God, the most when people I’m with people in tough situations of oppression, marginalization, and helplessness. It’s crazy. I can’t help it, I just start crying.
SO….. we marched and got to the SF site by the bay. Someone got on the megaphone and said, “we’re really sorry. But Dr. West said he can’t be here tonight because he is really sick”. We were like, really? Cuz we just saw him and I have a picture of him at the Marriot just an hour ago. Yeah, we were suspicious… so we just went home. I just wanted to hear him speak. Our opinions about the Occupy movement is a bit wavering. I just always think back of the struggle people went through during the civil rights movements and other movements. It seems like this is just a camping game for some. A girl who was marching with us stopped and got on a platform along the way and started dancing and acting a fool. I’m like, “really? This is how you get your point across?”.
During a session on Occupy at the conference, an activist from the Oakland area got up to say her opinion. She was very eloquent, passionate, and knowledgeable. She talked about how the issues that Occupy is confronting has been issues minorities, people of color, and the poor have been working to tackle for years. For years, they’ve been trying to get their message across and have it be part of the public discourse. She had an issue with the voices from the many years of activism being ignored while somehow the voices of “middle-class/white people” are immediately heard. That, now because it’s a white or middle/upper class problem, it’s a real problem. And now people will hear, and now it will get the media attention.
She also had an issue with the mechanisms by which Occupy operates. The general assemblies, etc. Those who are most affected by the economic crisis generally don’t have the luxury to camp out over night and stay there for weeks and months. When they try to bring up issues to the general assemblies/leadership of these groups, it often gets discussed so far along the meeting that they have to go home because they have kids to attend to or work the next day. It begs the question, who is camping out? The ones who have the luxury to do so? Who is getting arrested? Because a lot of the people (minorities, people of color, the poor) don’t have the social standing/privilege to be able to randomly get arrested, or participate in a hunger strike.
I think she’s right to have issues with those. But I also think the Occupy movement has finally brought important topics to the foreground; albeit it had to take a certain group of people to make that happen, however unjust or just that may be.
I think my opinion of it is that the Occupy movement has gotten their point across. Now they have to be smart. Actions that cost the city (taxpayers) should be discouraged. There are a lot of resources coming in to sustain the occupiers all over the world for weeks, months now. What if these resources were used to help those who have been affected by the economic crisis the most? There has to be something subversive about the movement. An alternative way of existing has to be modeled for Wall Street. I could write on and on about this. And I’m getting to two pages, which is OK because there’s lots to write about from my trip here. I’ve only scratched the surface. But I wanted to say, this is why I think Jesus and his teachings are on point. They’re subversive, confrontational and give an alternate way of living.
In regard to your question about democracy and the book you’re reading: I’ve thought about that before. Quite a lot. Since I’ve been in Europe, seeing how small the countries are compared to the US, I’ve often wondered if the US is just too big geographically and demographically for democracy to be of any good quality at all. If that were true, it would have serious implications: the US will have to split up somehow, right? Yeah, it’s a topic worth looking into and talking about. Time to board!! En route to FL! I need some sun!!!!!!! Tell me your thoughts now :)
Peace&Love,
Kris
