{"id":1609,"date":"2011-10-17T09:34:56","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T13:34:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.therowboat.com\/?p=1609"},"modified":"2011-10-17T09:34:56","modified_gmt":"2011-10-17T13:34:56","slug":"killing-celebrity-buddhas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/2011\/10\/killing-celebrity-buddhas\/","title":{"rendered":"Killing Celebrity Buddhas"},"content":{"rendered":"

Occupy Wall Street’s Liberty Plaza has become pretty much\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0place for self-styled progressive celebrities and politicians to appear. On the one hand, these visits are greatly appreciated by the occupiers and have helped strengthen the movement. However, they also raise tricky questions for a movement determined to be non-hierarchical and egalitarian. In\u00a0a roundtable on the occupation movement at\u00a0Religion Dispatches<\/em>\u00a0today<\/a>, I try to explain the rationale behind the rather unfortunate recent episode in which Occupy Atlanta opted not to allow civil rights veteran John Lewis to speak to their General Assembly:<\/p>\n

Occupy Wall Street has had its share of celebrity visits and they haven\u2019t always gone very well either. The example that comes to mind concerns another prominent black leader, Russell Simmons, who was allowed to speak during a General Assembly meeting. He interrupted the discussion at hand and gave his two cents about what, in general, the movement should do, concerning the by-then-tabled question of \u201cdemands.\u201d He received applause and thanks. But a few minutes later, after the scheduled discussion continued about how white, male-bodied people on the plaza needed to \u201ccheck their privilege,\u201d a white, male-bodied young man got up and said something like, \u201cPerhaps celebrities should check their privilege, too.\u201d\u00a0That got applause as well. A lot, as I recall.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really unfortunate that this has become a racial issue, especially when the occupiers have problems with outreach to some racial groups already. As one black left-wing journalist suggested in a conversation I took part in recently, it may be better understood as a problem of communication styles among different communities rather than active, albeit subtle, racism.<\/p>\n

But I do think this represents a really interesting effort on the part of occupiers to\u2014so to speak\u2014kill the Buddhas of power and hierarchy in our society. And celebrity really is a huge Buddha.\u00a0Even well-earned celebrity. I\u2019ve witnessed other\u2014including white\u2014notable people getting essentially no attention during visits to the plaza. I think it’s really telling that Lewis chose not to hold a grudge. From his remarks, I don\u2019t get the sense that he understands the movement in a deep way, but he does clearly understand\u2014from experience\u2014that creating a new world can get messy sometimes.<\/p>\n

The occupiers\u2019 obsession with process\u2014the General Assembly meeting, in this instance\u2014is one really important case of the role of ritual in what they\u2019re doing. The ritual of process comes before all else because it is the vehicle of the future, and the bulwark against compromises with the past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest, including Anthea Butler’s discussion of the Lewis incident,\u00a0at\u00a0<\/a>Religion Dispatches<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Occupy Wall Street’s Liberty Plaza has become pretty much\u00a0the<\/em>\u00a0place for self-styled progressive celebrities and politicians to appear. On the one hand, these visits are greatly appreciated by the occupiers and have helped strengthen the movement. However, they also raise tricky questions for a movement determined to be non-hierarchical and egalitarian. In\u00a0a roundtable on the occupation movement at\u00a0Religion Dispatches<\/em>\u00a0today<\/a>, I try to explain the rationale behind the rather unfortunate recent episode in which Occupy Atlanta opted not to allow civil rights veteran John Lewis to speak to their General Assembly:<\/p>\n

Occupy Wall Street has had its share of celebrity visits and they haven\u2019t always gone very well either. The example that comes to mind concerns another prominent black leader, Russell Simmons, who was allowed to speak during a General Assembly meeting. He interrupted the discussion at hand and gave his two cents about what, in general, the movement should do, concerning the by-then-tabled question of \u201cdemands.\u201d He received applause and thanks. But a few minutes later, after the scheduled discussion continued about how white, male-bodied people on the plaza needed to \u201ccheck their privilege,\u201d a white, male-bodied young man got up and said something like, \u201cPerhaps celebrities should check their privilege, too.\u201d\u00a0That got applause as well. A lot, as I recall.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really unfortunate that this has become a racial issue, especially when the occupiers have problems with outreach to some racial groups already. As one black left-wing journalist suggested in a conversation I took part in recently, it may be better understood as a problem of communication styles among different communities rather than active, albeit subtle, racism.<\/p>\n

But I do think this represents a really interesting effort on the part of occupiers to\u2014so to speak\u2014kill the Buddhas of power and hierarchy in our society. And celebrity really is a huge Buddha.\u00a0Even well-earned celebrity. I\u2019ve witnessed other\u2014including white\u2014notable people getting essentially no attention during visits to the plaza. I think it’s really telling that Lewis chose not to hold a grudge. From his remarks, I don\u2019t get the sense that he understands the movement in a deep way, but he does clearly understand\u2014from experience\u2014that creating a new world can get messy sometimes.<\/p>\n

The occupiers\u2019 obsession with process\u2014the General Assembly meeting, in this instance\u2014is one really important case of the role of ritual in what they\u2019re doing. The ritual of process comes before all else because it is the vehicle of the future, and the bulwark against compromises with the past.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the rest, including Anthea Butler’s discussion of the Lewis incident,\u00a0at\u00a0<\/a>Religion Dispatches<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,86,79,32,47,31,65,43,82,81,22,77,69],"class_list":["post-1609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-authenticity","tag-celebrity","tag-criticism","tag-economy","tag-generation","tag-new-york-city","tag-nonviolence","tag-personhood","tag-politics","tag-popularity","tag-saints","tag-stories","tag-utopia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1609"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1610,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1609\/revisions\/1610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nathanschneider.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}