Last Thursday, D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray released a letter sent to the head of the National Park Service requesting the removal of Occupy protesters at McPherson Square. The message, addressed to Director Jonathan B. Jarvis, included a memorandum from the city’s health director detailing problems with rodent infestation and concerns about hypothermia and communicable diseases in the park.
Since both Occupy locations in D.C. fall under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service, there is little that the D.C. government can do beyond this sort of rhetoric to impact the movement. This means that Gray’s letter is about as strong an action as his administration can take in opposition to the protesters. This is a bit ironic, considering many of his attitudes towards the movement in the past and his own legacy of civil disobedience. Back in April, Gray was arrested for blocking traffic at a demonstration in support of D.C. voting rights—a tactic commonly used by the McPherson Occupiers. More recently, he publicly voiced support for the Occupiers’ hunger strike for District voting rights and autonomy, and mandated D.C. police to take a hands-off role in their oversight of the encampments. While the Mayor may have questions about Occupy’s specific goals, it is clear that he acknowledges the positive force it exerts on American politics.
Cooperation with the movement, and not confrontation, is clearly the best option for Gray’s government in addressing the problems in the health director’s memo. This need not be difficult. Some of the worries addressed in the letter already seem exaggerated. Organizers at McPherson say they have not experienced hypothermia or disease issues, and the Square continues to be a safer and healthier place for dozens of homeless individuals in this especially tough time of year. As for sanitation concerns, protesters are happy to comply with cleanliness initiatives. “We’d love to work with them on getting the rats out,” Sam Jewler, a media organizer for the Occuper, told The Washington Post. “We don’t think that requires getting the tents out.”
Government working together with the movement is hardly unprecedented within the past few months. Gray’s own police forces have taken a noticeably cooperative stance toward the movement, including blocking off streets to protect marching protesters from traffic.
A self-billed progressive Democrat, Mayor Gray must notice the correlation between his societal goals and the rhetoric and actions of the Occupy campaign. His victory over the incumbent Adrian Fenty in 2008 was largely a result of his strong support among working-class and minority communities around the District. Occupy’s most fundamental role is to push political discourse to the left, and the more this happens, the better the situation for Gray’s core constituency.
A more progressive political environment would beget more federal assistance to schools, stricter environmental protections and worker safety standards, and greater employee choice and protection in unionization efforts. These are all intrinsically important to working-class and impoverished families in the District, many of whom live in the shadows of harmful power plants and face intimidation and meager pay and benefits on the job. If Gray truly represents these disenfranchised populations, he should be looking for an excuse to help keep Occupy strong and growing. Instead, he is succumbing to conservative political pressures to justify shutting the movement down and ending the dramatic increase in discussion of class, economic opportunity, and environmentalism it has inspired. Whether he is conforming to the example set by other mayors who have cleared out other encampments, or concerned over wealthy D.C. business leaders and their distaste for the movement, Gray is ignoring what is best for the citizens he was elected to represent.
If American progressivism is ever to reclaim the political impetus and end its recent legacy of capitulation and rightward drift, it will take the work of every elected official to push it forward. This is a movement our Mayor should be looking to manage and encourage, and doing anything but immediately rescinding his letter to the National Park Service immediately is a betrayal of his electoral promise to be the voice of the marginalized communities in D.C.
Feeling displaced, underrepresented, misunderstood? Come occupy Gavin’s space at gbade@georgetownvoice.com
