Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street
guardian.co.uk“Last night I was arrested in my home town, outside an event to which I had been invited, for standing lawfully on the sidewalk in an evening gown.
Let me explain; my partner and I were attending an event for the Huffington Post, for which I often write: Game Changers 2011, in a venue space on Hudson Street. As we entered the space, we saw that about 200 Occupy Wall Street protesters were peacefully assembled and were chanting. They wanted to address Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was going to be arriving at the event. They were using a technique that has become known as “the human mic” – by which the crowd laboriously repeats every word the speaker says – since they had been told that using real megaphones was illegal.
In my book Give Me Liberty, a blueprint for how to open up a closing civil society, I have a chapter on permits – which is a crucial subject to understand for anyone involved in protest in the US. In 70s America, protest used to be very effective, but in subsequent decades municipalities have sneakily created a web of “overpermiticisation” – requirements that were designed to stifle freedom of assembly and the right to petition government for redress of grievances, both of which are part of our first amendment. One of these made-up permit requirements, which are not transparent or accountable, is the megaphone restriction.
So I informed the group on Hudson Street that they had a first amendment right to use a megaphone and that the National Lawyers’ Guild should appeal the issue if they got arrested. And I repeated the words of the first amendment, which the crowd repeated.
[…] On our exit, I saw that the protesters had been cordoned off by a now-massive phalanx of NYPD cops and pinned against the far side of the street – far away from the event they sought to address.
I went up and asked them why. They replied that they had been informed that the Huffington Post event had a permit that forbade them to use the sidewalk. I knew from my investigative reporting on NYC permits that this was impossible: a private entity cannot lease the public sidewalks; even film crews must allow pedestrian traffic. I asked the police for clarification – no response.
I went over to the sidewalk at issue and identified myself as a NYC citizen and a reporter, and asked to see the permit in question or to locate the source on the police or event side that claimed it forbade citizen access to a public sidewalk.”
Zuccotti January
Salon’s Occupy Wall Street Fiction struck me as hitting a few too many expected notes. It’s an odd assignment, maybe, to make up stories about a story that is being made up for real and told in every medium right now, with all the suspense, character, coincidence, schemes, and dramatic irony (thank you, NYPD) you could ask for, and potentially the fate of the Republic. Which does make it a bit irresistible for storytellers. Two possibilities struck me: a personal narrative that begins with, or encounters the protest, but quirks off away from it to be narrowly about people. And speculative fiction. I chose the latter, because if there’s anything we can predict about #OWS, it’s surprise. Language seemed important, rhythm pace—that the story not simply be saying, “yep, look! Occupy Wall Street!” but adding something to the conversation, without being sentimental or trafficking in stereotypes.
It also seemed in the spirit of the human mic to make this a sort of telephone game story. Like it? Add to it! Because right now, I don’t know where they’re going.
*
There was the hurry of winter dusk, hands fiery and abrasive, rubbing dollars apart, me not bothering to count before thrusting the bills at the cabbie and sprinting scarfed to the __________ ATM lobby, one of the few we can frequent now, Peter with his card out to click us through quick, head bowed, hooded. Even here, you never know. And these long west side blocks. Nowhere to duck into unless Gabby or Deke are home and listening.
“Will said twenties this time.” I was speaking to stay warm, bouncing on my toes. “I guess easier to change. Less to lose.”
“Will can go home and clean up Australia, God knows it fucking needs it,” Peter said.
Not the time to remind him how in September—again and again until I had to say “Would you just reply to him already?”—Peter had showed us Will’s text, out of the blue as we stood for pizza: I want to do something. But it has to go through you. They had met in Chile, before the crash, Will sniffing out Sauvignons, Peter scratching up bus tickets and rides however he could. Peter’s art. I’ve never had it. Clipboard Jen. It took a week of fifteen-degree mornings to freeze the park overnighters out of saying that one. Another week like that could finish us and we all know it.
“Will could go down there if he wanted to,” Peter said.
“Don’t, please.”
“You haven’t even met him!”
“I don’t have—I can’t absorb it, Pete.”
It was on a call with two of our anon-ops—M48 and DBunk, the only handles we know them by—that we found out who Will worked for. I’d marveled, at Will’s guts.
“Easy for him,” Peter said. “He gets fired, he doesn’t have to work again.”
“Dude, four hundred k is nothing in this town.” DBunk said. “Why do you think he’s with us?”
I wondered how they knew Will’s salary.
Stupid me. Finding out, for us? That’s the easy part.
We take the N-R as far as Canal, ditch at the north stairs. Chinatown, end of day prices. We buy everything. Noodles, noodle soups, spring rolls, chicken and beef. No seafood. Protein.
