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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe Cost of Erasing Dissent by Hillary Procknow (Facebook and now going around the internets)
More at the link below...On Thursday, August 9, I took my two children, ages 4 and 7, to an Occupy Austin event called Chalkupy the World. Many other cities around the country, and even abroad, participated in this event. Ive been to a few Occupy events, support the methods and messages of Occupy, and am somewhat active in one of the Occupy groups that does work dealing with the local school district. The Chalkupy event was supposed to be a gathering of people using sidewalk chalk to express, well, anything really, but mostly dissent or disenchantment with the way things in our country have evolved to either favor the ultra-wealthy or punish the poor, middleclass, marginalized, or otherwise different people.
I anticipated that this was going to be a small event, and one that would allow me to show my support of the Occupy movement while also letting my children participate, or at least keep them occupied. They like chalk; they like to draw. I wasnt really expecting police intervention. Im a responsible mother; I would never knowingly put my children in harms way. I thought, particularly in Austin, this event would be reasonably innocuous. But Im also responsible enough to want to teach my children to participate in the citizenry, to stand up for what they believe in. I cant say Im altogether surprised at what happened, which is really a sad comment on our society.
...
Many people wonder, Im sure, what chalking a sidewalk does to make this country better. I want to be clear on this. People coming together, in public, to express themselves is something that makes the country better. I dont mean this to apply to any particular political persuasion (and, in fact, Occupy has a firm stance on its resistance to embrace any particular party). When people meet each other, disagree, agree, argue with civility, see each others faces, learn to be in a public space and tolerate the presence of others, important things happen, and not necessarily or even mostly sweeping political change. The country learns what it looks like when people participate, when people recognize each other as human. The country learns what it looks like when people decide for themselves to think beyond political platforms and party lines, and come together to imagine new possibilities that simply are not available on a ballot coming to you in November. Jane Addams, one of the great educators in our countrys history, who fought for the rights of poor and women, for sanitary conditions for immigrants all over Chicago, had some reservation about womens suffrage, which she did fight for. Why? Because she new in the 1910s what we have witnessed over the past 100 years. When people have the right to vote, its all too easy to dismiss the other important civic obligations they have. Did I vote this season? Yes? Check. Done with my responsibilities. When you feel your obligations are limited to a multiple choice form once or twice a year (if youre a very conscientious voter), you will have failed to understand every other obligation to your country, your fellow citizens, your neighborhood, your local public school, the poor, the sick, the marginalized. Being in public and expressing in public are ways to make this country better. Not the only ways, certainly. If I should have known better than to bring children to a public display of dissent, then I truly hope people will come out in public and make the public a safe place for all of us to be.
https://www.facebook.com/notes/hillary-procknow/the-cost-of-erasing-dissent/10151105685533841
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