Part 1 - How I got involved in Occupy

For months, I lamented the fact that I was not at the Duncan Plaza encampment  long enough to have really been part of Occupy NOLA. This is the story of how I found Occupy NOLA and later Occupy The Stage, how I've struggled to document what has happened there, and how I disagree with the need for a eulogy or an obituary like the one tweeted by Your Anon News earlier today. This is as much a critique of social media and Occupy as it is anything. This is small affair not giving a fuck about anything except my own truths.

I was working in a motel room in Baton Rouge when Occupy began and couldn't go to the park until Nov 15. My introduction to Occupy came through livestream. It was with great respect that I co-wrote "The Goodwill of Anonymous" in January. My initial exposure to Occupy was by watching @punkboyinsf's  livestream, and later Sky Adams (@Cross_X_Bones). I remember liking Sky's stream a lot because he had the same type of Android as I did and gave some tech advice. He also did not identify as an occupier, and at the time I imagined I would document Occupy more objectively than I ended up doing.

Two events motivated me to join this revolution. The first occurred in 2011, when New Orleans police officers beat Krewe of Eris participants at a Mardi Gras parade. After watching horrifying police brutality taking place in Oakland and San Francisco and Boston, I feared for the occupiers in New Orleans.

When Occupy began, I recognized the feeling that had been simmering inside me for several months, as I read reports about the lack of justice for Eris arrestees. During this time, I worked two part-time jobs, clocking at least sixty hours a week, and was unable to make my monthly student loan payments. My graduate degree in Creative Writing was worthless if I didn't have enough time to write because I was too busy grading over 100 college essays a week. On May 5, 2011 I spent 4 hours on the phone with a student loan company. They were demanding a payment, but my income tax refund had been taken by the IRS despite the fact that I was enrolled in a student loan rehabilitation program and making payments.  I scheduled a payment eventually and went back to work.

On May 6, I had slept only 3 hours and spent the day making jewelry out of found objects and hoping to sell it from my porch to supplement my income during Jazz Fest (people who lived near the entrance to Jazz Fest have a hard time selling handmade jewelry and art on their porches without receiving citations from the City of New Orleans for “vending without permits”). The only cause of my sleep deprivation was the phone call with the student loan company and my lack of income tax refund. The only cause of my long-haired Chihuahua's death was the impact her head made with a speeding car, but if I hadn't been so exhausted, I my reflexes would have been fast enough to grab the leash that slipped out of my neighbor's hand. If I had received my income tax return, I wouldn't have been outside on my porch trying to sell handmade jewelry to drunk people. Guadalupe was a qualified service dog under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It's easy to feel like capitalism (in the form of wage slavery, Jazz Fest, sponsored by Shell Oil, and Sallie Mae) killed my dog.

I threw myself into my work and was contracted to design a course for a For Profit university. My department chair was fired and the course I designed was scrapped. One theory is that my chair's zero tolerance for grade inflation and the fact that we designed a course that was actually challenging was a problem for the university.  He as not only a boss but a friend. He warned me not to mention involvement with Occupy on Facebook (I was required to grade the Facebook pages my students were required to create), which I took seriously because the university Enterprise account I used to check my email was monitored. Pre-Occupy, my cell phone was wiped for "terrorist behavior" 3 times when I'd taught a Criminal Justice course and tried to read articles about terrorism on my phone. 

In November of 2011, the despair I'd felt as everything I'd cared about was being taken away turned into passion. A plumber was fixing the kitchen sink and told me the world was going to end. I was grading papers watching a livestream of Occupy Wall Street NY. I'd been watching livestream and reading about Occupy, and the plumber and I discussed America's social ills for a while. I had reached that rare balance of giving a fuck and not giving a fuck.

And so on a chilly night, I took my small dog to Duncan Plaza and sat on the pavilion.