Wed 4/28 @ 7PM
The Occupy Wall Street movement exploded out of New York City in September 2011. It took over a park in the city’s financial district to protest economic inequality, spawning the signature chant “We are the 99%!”
The movement came to Cleveland soon after that when protestors “occupied” Public Square in October, setting up tents in which some protestors lived for a time. During its stay there, it attracted the attention of a variety of people from activists to public officials to rootless kids looking for a place to land.
Now Heather McKee Hurwitz, a lecturer of sociology and feminist scholar at Case Western Reserve University and a Visiting Researcher at the Cleveland Clinic, has written a book called Are We the 99%?: The Occupy Movement, Feminism and Intersectionality.
In it she explores the ways in which this progressive social justice movement replicated some of the exclusionary structures of the very system they were protesting. It’s no secret that many such progressive movements — the Bernie Sanders campaign being a prominent example — while welcoming on the surface, tend to be dominated by the interests of (often privileged) young, white men.
Hurwitz suggests that despite styling itself a movement for “the 99%,” certain groups may have felt less welcome due to racism, sexism and class divisions. She based her findings on first-hand accounts from participants, online communications and media coverage. In the process, she created a digital Occupy Archive containing the flyers, posters, newspapers, postcards and other ephemera.
She’ll be in conversation with Dianna Taylor, a Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies Program at John Carroll University.
This event, hosted by Mac’s Back, is free and open to all.
macsbacks.com/are-we-99-conversation-heather-hurwitz-and-dianna-taylor