My day at Occupy Wall Street

Much like the Tea Party, Occupy Wall Street’s message has gotten wrapped up in stereotypes. The Tea Party was weighed down by the birther movement, and Occupy Wall Street has gotten looped in with hippie culture. Before I visited Zuccotti Park, many of my friends and I talked about why we were on the fence about the movement. On one hand, all Americans should be furious at the disconnect between the rich and poor in this country, and that so much of taxpayer dollars from the bailout went straight into Wall Street’s wealthy pockets. On the other hand, this protest has no clear message or sense of direction. Even President Clinton said Occupy Wall Street needs a leader.

When I arrived downtown, I was surprised to see Occupy Wall Street wasn’t as occupied as I expected it to be. Zuccotti Park is relatively small, and there were nowhere near the thousands of protesters that seem to appear on the news. The air smelled distinctively like marijuana. The first man I tried to talk to couldn’t remember his last name and he looked like he was under the influence of something. I asked him why he was there. This is what he said: “I was chilling in, fucking, where the fuck was I—I was somewhere in Manhattan, Starbucks, a mother fucker comes up and says let’s drink beer.” The second man I tried to talk to identified himself as DeLaVega. He handed me one of his fliers meant to “inspire hope” complete with his twitter handle @DeLaVegaProphet. “Today, we’ll be here for a couple of hours,” he said, adding that he’ll keep coming back “until this is over.”