Occupiers embrace multimillionaire Russell Simmons: What’s wrong with this picture?

posted at 11:35 am on October 11, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Moonbats ]   

Fact: Hip-hop mogul and entrepreneur Russell Simmons comes from relatively humble roots, having grown up in Queens, New York, the son of a public school administrator and a New York City park administrator. Fact: Simmons is black.

It is perhaps this second fact that prompted the unwashed masses at Zuccotti Park to accord Simmons a warmer welcome than they did FOX News Channel host Geraldo Rivera, also—nota bene—a man of color. (One glaring omission from the burgeoning protest movement is a sufficiency of black and brown faces, which complaint critics of the Tea Party have offered as evidence of its racism.)

In tacitly embracing Simmons (who made an appearance at protest central along with rapper Kanye West), the Occupiers overlooked several other inconvenient facts. One is Simmons’s statement to CNNMoney earlier this year that getting rich is a lot easier than people think (Simmons himself has an estimated net-worth of $340 million). Another is that one of the businesses he owns is UniRush Financial, Inc., which sells prepaid debit cards to low- and middle-income consumers.

In short, Russell Simmons is everything the Occupy Wall Street movement is dedicated to overthrowing. He is part of the 1 percent whose money the 99 percent feel entitled to a cut of. He is an embodiment of the financial industry at its most corrupt—selling people access to their own money at a premium. Perhaps most tellingly, he is living proof that anyone who works hard can make it, regardless of skin color.

When Simmons appears on TV as he did on Monday to declare that the protesters are camped out in New York’s financial district “because Wall Street runs our government and they’d like to,” he could just as easily substitute we rich guys for the phrase “Wall Street.”

The fact that OWS has no problem with someone like Simmons speaking for them and verbalizing their mission speaks volumes about the movement. It also suggests that Democrats endorsing the protests are essentially going all in on a losing hand.

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