Socially Acceptable Behavior and Protests

Occupy Wall Street has been called many things including: unfocused, ungrounded, and silly. Others coin it as “America’s first internet-era movement” (Rushkoff). In quintessence, Occupy Wall Street is a series of protests and demonstrations that oppose the influence that corporate greed has on American Democracy. The protestors manipulate marches and nonviolent demonstrations to express their dissatisfaction with the state of American Politics and economy. This relates to the political science concepts of power, performance democracy, and protective democracy.

Protests are a way that many citizens have historically exercised their right to freedom of speech and as to voice their opinions on current matters in the U.S. as well as other nations. Protests help the uninformed get informed on specific issues, and try to persuade fellow citizens. What were some of the effective aspects of the protests that were portrayed in “The Matrix”, “Battle in Seattle” as well as those in “The Letter from Birmingham Jail”? What were the downfalls? An effective protest is one where an advocated idea gets across to the intended audience. Peaceful protests tend to have a better outcome than those that lead to violence.

On September 17, 2011 hundreds of people began to gather in Zuccotti Park, New York which is Wall Street’s financial district under the banner “Occupy Wall Street”: these three simple words are causing an uproar in America (Engler). Additionally, these three words happen to be protesting the current status of America’s financial condition. With the economy in America being as terrible as it is, and the unemployment rate skyrocketing, it is absolutely necessary for some sort of change to occur. The Occupy Wall Street protesting is most positively a progressive step for the economic state in America and it is a step in the right direction.

In light of the recent presidential election, many people fear for their freedom as restrictions on immigration, religion, and abortion rights have been proposed. As a result of this, on January 20th, countless citizens banded together across America in “Women’s Marches”, the largest of about 400,000 people at Washington, D.C. (10 Actions). At these protests, advocating for people of all genders, races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations, zero arrests were made. These peaceful gatherings gained the attention and unification of many people across the country and motivated citizens to continue to organize events. At the Women’s March on San Francisco, it was said by a speaker that we are “on the right side of history”. As people continue to vocalize their disagreements with the government, change will always be made, though it may be

When looking at the American Society, it’s interesting how everything seems to just work and run a certain way. Society is built on a set of social norms that set standards for everyday living. A norm can be defined as a way of thought or action that is acceptable by the majority of society. Individuals might not be sure why exactly they do something, but if everyone else is doing it, then why not? The social norm we’ve decided to break this semester is the idea of only taking what belongs to you. We plan on going to different dining areas on the Northern Illinois campus, and joining tables with complete strangers. While starting a conversation, we will have one girl begin sharing food off of the stranger’s plate and seeing how they react to this unconventional social interaction. Many individuals would not share their food with their friends, let alone total

The riots in Baltimore, Maryland hold major sociological implications, not only currently, but also for years to come. While the peaceful assembly of people to voice concerns to the United States (U.S.) Government, is part of the guaranteed rights that comprise the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (U.S. Const. amend. I.), which includes freedom of speech as one of its tenants, rioting is not. Rioting is a mores, whereas in sociological terms, is not a tolerated action of citizens (Henslin, 2014a). This mores is quite the opposite of a peaceful gathering. Because of the destructive nature of the rioting, millions of dollars in damage to public and private property were reported to various news outlets. While Baltimore can afford mend the public sector portions of the damage, the private businesses appear to be on their own to rebuild. The city of Baltimore, while able to afford the public repairs, is requesting federal funds to offset these expenses as to not drain the city’s budget (Baltimore riots will cost, 2015). Although rioting is the overall sociological mores in regards to Baltimore, there are others.

March 16 saw a demonstration in Montgomery, Alabama in which 580 demonstrators planned to march “from the Jackson Street Baptist Church to the Montgomery County Courthouse” (Reed 26). These protestors included a large number of northern college students. They met a police line a few blocks from the Courthouse and were forbidden from proceeding because “they did not have a parade permit” (Reed 26). Across the street came 40 or so students who planned on joining the group en route to the Courthouse. Eventually a few of the demonstrators dared to cross the street, led by James Forman who had organized the march. When it seemed the whole group would cross, police took action, with mounted officers and volunteers arriving at 1:12 pm. Riding into the small group of protestors, they forced most to withdraw, but a few stood fast around a utility pole where horsemen began to beat them. “A posseman

Uprisings against police crimes, protests on Israeli occupation, lobbying for gay rights, striking for a higher minimum wage, etc. are all fought with the same fist and same power: that of the people. Just in recent months, black activists in Chicago have traveled with student groups to Palestine in opposition of apartheid, and Palestinians marched beside the black community during the Black Lives Matter movement. Political prisoner Angela Davis lead the community hand-in-hand with Rasmea Odeh, a contemporary victim of political repression. The same can be said about so many other organizations and communities here in Chicago. The struggles of so many across the globe are unified here in Chicago by the thread of tyranny and injustice. This unifying thread only serves to symbolize how struggles belong to no single body or group of people, but are obstacles that must be overcome by the global

The history of American, non violent, civil disobedience depicts how peaceful resistance can shape public opinion, voice dissent, and change unjust laws. In both Contemporary and past history do we see the role that protest has on our Democracy,and how dissenters, such as Susan B Anthony and Martin Luther King Jr, can become American heroes. The United States was founded on an act of civil disobedience, and even in Modern America, principled dissent has become the highest form of

In his essay, Gladwell describes various examples of protests, and explains that these protests tend to grow stronger and organized even in the absence of social

Protests riots in the United States has proven to an issue for both the country’s financial strength and the unity of the nation. With the presence of social injustices, combined with the increased impact of social media propaganda, protests riots are beginning to reach an all time high. Protest riots destroy individual communities and businesses, jeopardizes the safety of others and taints the protest’s cause by resorting to civil disobedience. Action must be done in order to prevent these random acts of violence from continuing after every social hot topic. The goal is not to prevent citizens from protesting; in fact, this should be encouraged. The goal is to change the way the protests are handled from both the citizens and authority perspectives, in order to prevent these protests from escalating into something dangerous.

Occupy Wall Street’s opposing expression of the disparity between the wealthy and the poor may have begun in good faith by utilizing the Freedom of Speech and General Assembly amendment rights, but the strategies some of the protestors have demonstrated are resulting in adverse reactions against themselves. The Occupy Wall Street movement will assuredly cost affected cities in the double digits of millions of dollars. Increases in payroll, overtime, and business expenses will inadvertently backfire and increase layoffs. The burden the protestors physically place on a city is weighing down an already financially stressed situation. The mass of people and their tent lifestyle is causing a drain on city finances, and alas, the money is coming

The first paper I have chosen to review is called Reflections on Occupy #Everywhere: Social Media, public space and emerging logics of aggregation. The author argues that social media has changed the way protest movements such as Occupy organize and communicate with their members, allowing the movement to reach a larger audience than would otherwise be possible (Juris, 2012, para. 1). The author’s evidence is valid, and comes from qualitative observation of the growth of the Occupy movement in general, and Occupy Boston in particular. The author’s evidence is relevant to his argument, as it supports the role that social media played in the formative phases of the Occupy movement.

He had contacted David Solnit, who had helped organize some aspects of the protests such as the art, plays, and puppets used in the streets; to try and think of alternative ways of protesting. Once Solnit had heard he was making a movie he asked for the script to read, and he didn’t agree with much of it. He had written down some changes that he wished to make but Townsend had refused, so “he had contacted other protesters and organized a pressure campaign” (David Solnit, The Battle for Reality, Yesmagizine.org.) to get Townsend to do so. Although it didn’t get much changed about the script Townsend did make some minor changes. The movie portrays the protesters want for a nonviolent protest greatly, it shows the meetings, and how majority of them don’t want to cause harm, they just want to make their statements made, however, the movie according to Solnit portray the reason the protesters won correctly saying, “the movie implies that the activists won because the police were caught by surprise, were to lenient, and waited too long to use violence and criminal weapons, and to make arrests” (Solnit, The Battle for Reality, Yesmagizine.org).

At a very early age, children learn about social norms to help them become proper citizens in society. Examples of some social norms that students learn are: “do not yell in the library,” “do not speak unless spoken to,” “do not talk to strangers,” and “close the door when you use the restroom.” As you grow older, these rules become unspoken because everyone knows how to act like a proper individual in society. The textbook definition of a social norm is something that is a rule of behavior that society accepts. (Bicchieri) Since everyone knows these unsaid rules of society, what would happen when someone decides not to follow these rules? What would people think and react? In this paper, I discuss my violation of the social norm “don’t talk to strangers” and discuss what I learned from this experiment.