Occupy Wall Street supporters were shocked this week after police pepper-sprayed a line of UC Davis students for peacefully refusing to leave the protest site Sunday. That evening, as school chancellor Linda Katehi walked from a meeting to her car, hundreds of students lined up in silence to condemn the police's actions. The incident inspired calls for the chancellor's resignation, a several hundred-strong rally the next day, and a general strike called for next week.
Meanwhile, the country got a hint of where OWS is headed after police broke up the encampment of New York City's Zuccotti Park. Activists formed drum circles-whose ubiquity at Zuccotti had become a point of contention-on the street outside Mayor Bloomberg's mansion. Organizing for Occupation hosted a 150-person training with OWS to discuss how to work together to take over foreclosed homes. City College of New York students were arrested after taking over a lobby outside a trustees' meeting to protest tuition hikes. Occupy Athens took credit for a delay in construction of a new Wal-Mart. Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel faced "mic check" actions, where crowds of OWS disrupted their speeches. Activists held Thanksgiving dinners at Zuccotti Park and cities around the country, and demonstrated outside retailers on Black Friday.
The five must-read pieces about OWS this week:
- Jean Quan, Occupy Oakland, and Asian-American politics http://ampro.me/tm6N4G
- The New York Times on how covering OWS vexes papers like The New York Times http://ampro.me/sDxwz9
- Garance Franke-Rutka argues that UC Davis incident is a tipping point. http://ampro.me/rXEJaL
- How OWS risks reproducing the oppression around it http://ampro.me/st3u1o
- OWS debates new occupation sites. http://ampro.me/vvXPHe
