While many students went home or just relaxed on campus during quad break, freshmen Isaiah Ray and Sam Jackson had a different idea.
“We just wanted something to do, so we hitchhiked to Occupy Wallstreet,” said Ray. “There was some tension. Whenever something happened, guards would run over and yell, 'Security check! Security check!'”
At night, the two slept under a bridge.
“We couldn't stay at Freedom Plaza because the police were planning on raiding in the morning, and they said we couldn't put up tents there," said Jackson.
Other students have been participating in Occupy Boston. McKenzie Watson ’15 and Stephanie Clark ’15 were in Boston for homeless ministries and thought they would check out the protests.
“Even though we weren’t camping out, I felt like I belonged anyways,” said Clark. “People were giving us signs and buttons. There were meditation tents and prayer tents. There were tents for free haircuts and selling food. It was just cool how everyone cared about each other.”
“It’s somewhat shocking to find people who don’t have necessarily have the firm grounded hope that we have as Christians being more committed to peace and love and goodwill and justice than we are,” said Watson.
Dr. Ivy George, Professor of Sociology, has been going to Occupy Boston every weekend, taking her 11-year-old daughter with her. Even if she can only stay for a few hours, she brings provisions for the protesters who are missing school and work to be there.
"It was about time for public expression and resistance to systematic failure,” said George. “I remember in the spring watching these outpourings of public angers in Tunisia and Egypt and thinking, ‘What will it take for anything like that in the US?’ And I'm very very pleased by the Occupy movement around the world. I think it will change things.”
Not everyone is so optimistic about the movement. Ian Isaac ’15 thinks the rallies are getting out of control.
“The despicable manner of the protests, especially in New York, will not promote anything positive,” said Isaac. “In Zucotti Park, for example, we see incidents of people defecating on cars, vandalizing public property, and even reports of rape. There is clearly an elitist attitude held by some that their cause is above the authority of the law.”
Chris Gavrielidis ’14 is against the protests as well.
“The Occupy Wall Street protesters are not all in poverty,” he said. “Most of them just want to be pitied. They themselves are as greedy as they accuse the millionaires and billionaires of being. After all, they're the only ones in the equation who want what isn't theirs.”
No matter what the views people hold on the Occupy moment, it is becoming too big of a current event to be ignored.
"I think that the Occupy Movement is the most significant historical movement in decades,” said Dr. Robert Talbot, an adjunct in the English Department. “I think we're all going to learn something about democracy from it."
"Gordon kids should go out and visit--see what's up!” said George. “They should take some aid out, donations, food. They would have an opportunity to educate themselves about what the issues are.”
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