Our Bodies in the Streets, Our Stories Will Be Told:

Occupy Our Stories records and

shares our stories.

 

What is Occupy Our Stories?

 

The Occupy movement began on 09/17/11.

But our stories - the stories of the

99 percent -began far before then.

 

Occupy Our Stories captures our

stories—the stories of the 99%:

 

- We make $8 an hour working at Target

while a Target chief executive’s pay

package for 2010 was $23.9 million.

 

- We are saddled with tens of thousands

of dollars in student debt but can only

find unpaid internships.

 

- We are incarcerated. Once we are released

we can be discriminated against in housing,

public benefits and employment.

 

- We are a family facing foreclosure.

 

 - We are ill but don’t have the money

to get the care we need.

- We are parents who see shrinking educational and

employment opportunities for our children and a

continual assault on civil liberties. We fear

for our children’s future.

- We are harassed by the police because

we are people of color. The police

call it Stop and Frisk. We call it a crime. 

And it is our stories, our lives, our struggles that build

and inspire this movement. The diversity of our stories

is the strength and beauty of this movement. Occupy

Our Stories captures these narratives through

audio, written narratives and video. We invite

you to share your stories. 

Upload a video of yourself to youtube telling

your 99% story, or a video of you interviewing

a loved one about his/her story. Then email

the link to occupyourstories@gmail.com. We’ll

review it and post it here. Or if video isn’t

your thing, write your story and email it to us

at occupyourstories@gmail.com. Also, we'll be

around New York and New Jersey collecting stories

-- we'll post the locations and dates on Facebook!

 

email us: occupyourstories@gmail.com

 

facebook

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire,

but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen , to

shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our

literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance,

our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own

stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re

being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will

collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their

ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons,

their notion of inevitability. Remember this: we be many

and they be few. They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On

a quiet day I can hear her breathing.
- Arundhati Roy