I am in the middle of a Slam Poetry Unit, and I cannot think of a better way to teach it than by using the Occupy movement to teach social justice. Let’s be honest, Saul Williams, Mos Def, Russel Simmons, and the other founders of Slam Poetry and Spoken Word, are not part of the Tea Party. They would probably claim membership in the Occupy movement, because speaking out against society for the underrepresented is at the root of Spoken Word.

I live in Oakland, California. Last night on my way home from work, I decided to drive down Broadway to see what was going down with the protesters in my home city that has been all over the news. Right now we are the headline at CNN. All I had to do was drive underneath the helicopter hovering among the skyscrapers, pointing its light down toward the street.

At about 13^th Street, Broadway was closed. All I could see a block ahead was a mass of bodies in the yellow twilight of the streetlamps. There were police everywhere, watching warily as American citizens exercised their right to assemble. Make no mistake, this movement is real, and in Oakland, things get real real quick. Luckily, I left before the tear gas started to plume.

Of course the media seems to be using Oakland as a kind of whipping boy of the Occupy movement. They want to point out all the bad behavior and avoid the good. On CNN, it was reported the cops were breaking up camps because there was rumor of a citizen having an assault rifle. Then they go on to say no one at a Tea Party rally has ever been arrested. Of course, if you bring an assault rifle to a Tea Part rally, you are not sought out by the cops, you are instead interviewed on national television as a patriot.

Then there is the 53% movement claiming the Occupy movement doesn’t represent them, because 53 percent of Americans pay income tax and are carrying the other 48 percent on their backs. But I pay income tax, and consider myself part of the Occupy movement, so how can they claim me, or any progressives for that matter, in their 53 percent? So really, it is more of a 20ish percent movement—or a couple guys who made a hashtag and website.

But once again, the media wants to go crazy about everything, and exaggerate every angle instead of taking a measured approach, thinking critically, and analyzing. Let’s try that for a second.

Yes, in any demonstrations there are going to be loonies, and people who are there to act the fool or encourage anarchy. Yes, we have the right to assemble, to make our voices be heard, and yes, if there are rats and shit everywhere, and people are getting hurt and robbed, the city has the right to step in. In Oakland, the protesters are passionate, and the city is very clear with its encouragement of their rights. “The city remains committed to respecting free speech as well as maintaining the city’s responsibility to protect public health and safety,” Oakland police said in a statement. There is tension here, but tension is what happens when you exercise your right to march, assemble, and speak.

The idea behind the Occupy movement is very simple, and right wing radio and tv just don’t want to admit it. A three year old can understand it. Here, the title of this article says it all: Top 1% Are Getting Even Richer. From 1979-2007 the top 1% have seen their wealth increase almost 300%. The middle class? Not so much. So lets not get it twisted and act like Occupy is incoherent. It is almost too simple.

On the way to work this morning, Fox News radio show Armstrong and Getty claimed they finally found what the Occupy Movement was about, and proceeded to play an 80 year old woman rambling on and on and on about fearing the government and homeland security. She said, “you know” fifty times and didn’t make any sense. Then Armstrong and Getty made fun of her and dismissed the movement as a bunch of senile 80-year-old women. The ultimate irony of course was her ramblings about fearing the government, and her age, made her sound more like a member of the Tea Party movement than Occupy Wall Street.

Back to Slam Poetry. Getting my students to understand social justice, the root of Slam, means getting them to understand Occupy as well. So as I always do, I modeled a poem on the board, had the students help me with it, and came up with a finished product dedicated to Occupy Wall Street. As you can see from the picture, my focus was on alliteration for this lesson. It may not be Wordsworth, but the theme is clear.

To Occupy the Mind

We want change today
But not coins
flipped from the fingers
of smirking CEOs

We want dollars
straight duckets
dumb money paid back
to taxpayers
Your mom and pop
Not corporate racketeers
who make 6 billion in profits
yet charge fees for checking

They don’t want to see
the real faces
green eyes under black hoods
mammas and daughters
curled together on blankets
blue lips
cold in tents, being dragged
dragged away

They want us to be angry
and scream, and commit felonies
not sit with our arms crossed
over our knees
clouds of breath from calm mouths
asking nicely
nicely
for common sense

It is your face
eyes wide
lips that dare to open
in protest
Smooth skin of every shade
a rainbow of browns
and beiges
The fragility of every feature
steeped by tears
in peace

It is your face
that occupies the minds
of the one percent