2:10 Apr 12th, 2012 | 9 notes
Fifty years after Port Huron, the Occupy movement has brilliantly shaped the terms of public debate about class and, uniquely, class struggle. But like the signatories of the Statement, the Occupiers need to expand beyond the narrower interests of their original members. When Occupy began, its social composition was primarily white and middle class, and it targeted the corporate criminals and the capitalist elite, a.k.a. Wall Street. Occupy, however, has struggled to extend its reach to strategically essential low-income communities of color. Besides the critical component of the movement’s social composition, there is also the challenge of fleshing out the content of its political program. The question is whether Occupy can truly give voice to all of the “99 percent” that it wants to represent.

Eric Mann, in the Boston Review