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As reported in the New York Post, the NYPD has found that in the areas where Occupy Sandy (and other neighborhood non-profits) have been most active there has been less crime.
Occupy Sandy Relief Center
Residents of areas like Brooklyn’s Red Hook, where Occupy Sandy has a strong presence, say they feel safer and have been spared the looting and other crime that exist in neighborhoods where activists are not so plentiful.
Officers of the NYPD are similarly pleased, noting, “We had all these potential people who could call 911, in a heartbeat. All the volunteers were potential witnesses.”
And Occupy activists find themselves in the new circumstance of working side-by-side with uniformed authorities.
Kirby Desmaris, 26, an Occupy Wall Street activist and resident, said Red Hook has felt safer after the storm– and that she’d had the surprising experience of working in the same room with the mayor’s office, the NYPD, and the National Guard.
Something’s going on here. Cops and occupiers singing each other’s praises? Brooklynites suddenly able to walk the streets in relative safety and freedom? Something’s going on here and the word for it is Solidarity.
We see that term – Solidarity – mostly as an abstract thing, nice sounding but kind of vague. That’s because we don’t have many real examples of it. It’s rare in this looking-out-for-number-one, winner-take-all culture to find groups of people who have each other’s backs acting in unison.
But we find it in Red Hook. And when we do, along with distributions of food and warm clothes, along with home reconstruction and mold remediation, we see criminals skulking away. What’s remarkable is that nobody is intentionally going after the crime. It’s just a by-product of the Occupy Sandy storm relief.
Well, maybe not so remarkable. What chases the looters off is their unwillingness to face the very real power of people who are willing to act in each other’s interests, the power of citizens that have linked arms to fix things no one person can fix alone. The power, in short, of solidarity.
The big-time looters in the bank buildings across the East River should take note.
Photo by Occupy 617 released under a Creative Commons license.
8 Comments
But…but…but bloomie had to evict them while getting in a photo-op at another venue. Did he recall the Occupy Sandy back? Was that an erroneous news report?
There are Occupy Sandy distribution centers all through the area affected by the hurricane.
Thanks for this report! I’d like to add that a lot of what is described as “looting,” especially by authorities, often amounts to no more than desperate people trying to find food and shelter. Since Occupy Sandy is providing that, “looting” becomes unnecessary.
Great post and tribute to people not Corporate or Government but people.
Solidarity is more powerful than many realize… the “graybeards” (many of them ex-cops)in the Rockaways (Queens) have expressed similar satisfaction with the efforts of Occupy Sandy.
Its a reminder that it isn’t survival of the fittest, its survival of those who cooperate.
Good point. We’re meant to be social creatures. Cooperation is a good goal. A lot of Occupy to me is just about getting people face to face, talking & doing stuff together, directly.
Don’t know if you’ll see this, Kit, but that’s my experience as well. Getting people in the same room, working on the same project. Sometimes it can be contentious, but in the long haul most everyone comes to care very much about most everyone else.