99 movement what is it

The protestors that comprised the Occupy Wall Street movement came from diverse backgrounds. But how were these activists—who sought radical social change through many ideologies—able to break down oppressions and obstacles within the movement? And in what ways did the movement perpetuate status-quo structures of inequality? Heather McKee Hurwitz considers how women, people of color, and genderqueer activists struggled to be heard and understood.

Moreover, problems with racism, sexism, and discrimination due to sexuality and class persisted within the movement.

Yesterday, ThinkProgress launched a new site to cover the 99 Percent Movement, to help explain their grievances and document their successes. Check out complete coverage HERE , but in the meantime here are some highlights. Mother Jones has an interactive map of the growing movement here. ThinkProgress took a closer look at a few of them:. Chicago: Nearing their second week of action, the crowd of over continues to grow.

Louisville: About gathered for the inaugural action. Wichita: Between and people showed up to the first action on Sunday. Since entering the Senate, Warren has drafted numerous bills to address income inequality, including the 21 st Century Glass-Steagall Act that would separate investment banking from commercial banking and the Bank on Students Emergency Loan Refinancing Act that would allow students to refinance college loans at a lower federal rate.

And now an army of elected populists in both the Senate and House is unifying around her. De Blasio now leads a national task force of mayors who hope to aggressively tackle the wealth gap in their cities—something scarcely imaginable before Occupy reshuffled the political deck.

Occupy was, at its core, a movement constrained by its own contradictions: filled with leaders who declared themselves leaderless, governed by a consensus-based structure that failed to reach consensus, and seeking to transform politics while refusing to become political. Ironic as it may seem, the impact of the movement that many view only in the rearview mirror is becoming stronger and clearer with time. Since the Great Recession, shareholder profits, CEO pay, and corporate tax breaks have soared while average household wealth continues to sink, college debt skyrockets, living costs increase, real wages decline, and the middle class struggles to survive.

And while no one in Washington may have the full answer about how to fix income inequality, everyone, it seems, is now grasping for a solution. Occupy got the diagnosis correct. Konczal compares Occupy Wall Street to the protest movements of the pre-industrial era, in which landless peasants sought to expunge the debts they owed their masters.

Before accepting it as gospel, I would need to see some more evidence, though. Statistically speaking, there may be a sample-selection problem. Are the profiles on We Are the 99 Percent representative of the Occupy Wall Street movement as a whole, especially now that it is spreading to other cities and encompassing other groups, such as union members?