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Occupy Wall Street Protesters Predominantly White Males
Fast Company, the self-professed “leading progressive media brand,” recently published the pictured infographic, which lays out the demographic makeup of the Occupy Wall Street protesters using the results of 5,006 completed online surveys from occupywallstreet.org.
The data indicates that the movement is made up of a majority of white males. Joel Pollack at Big Government reports that this demographic information has caused a “major internal fight among Occupy Wall Street organizers.”
The data, compiled by advertising analyst Harrison Schultz and Ford Foundation sociologist Dr. Héctor R. Cordero-Guzmán, were intended to promote the idea, as Dr. Cordero-Guzmán put it, that “the 99% movement comes from and looks like the 99%.”
Some activists were outraged, however, that the survey results and the infographic show Occupy Wall Street to be 81.2 percent white, and only 1.6 percent black.
By comparison, the U.S. population is 77.1 percent white and 12.9 percent black, according to the U.S. Census Bureau–making the Occupy Wall Street movement disproportionately white.
The infographic, depicted below, caused instant controversy when it was shared among Occupy Wall Street organizers. One activist reacted: “81% white protestors–and you actually made a flyer proudly advertising this lie, in a multicultural city like NYC? You must be crazy and blind.”
She later accused Schultz of “insidious racism” and “white supremacy,” and demanded “serious mediation” from organizers on the Safer Spaces working group, the internal security apparatus of Occupy Wall Street.
In comparison to the fairly homogenous OWS crowd, the Tea Party all of a sudden looks like the paragon of diversity.
Published in General
At what point do we start ignoring these clowns?
I’ve read a lot about OWS participants, but what I’ve seen seems totally different from what I’ve read. A sort of “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes” dichotomy.
We “ignore these clowns” at our peril. OWS isn’t important, but the fact that people are starting to take to the streets is indicative of something serious. People are demanding change, they are unhappy about the way things are going. If we don’t reach out to them, if we don’t take this seriously and use it as an opportunity, they we will lose them to the first group that offers them hope…and ammunition.
This racial bean-counting is so pathetic. How many nested layers of ignorance does it take to believe that people will, or ought to, judge a protest movement by comparing its racial composition to the US population at large? Protests are by definition non-representative of the population as a whole. They are composed of a subset of people who are set apart because they share a grievance.
So the Census Bureau considers hispanics to be white? Is that to make the “minorities” card easier to play?
At the state level, whites are apparently listed twice: as “White persons not Hispanic” and just plain whites.
I used to know El Salvadoran and Puerto Rican immigrants who hated being associated with Mexican immigrants (i.e., Mexican culture), but people will lie all sorts of ways if it helps them politically.
If they are standing up for the oppressed why are blacks only 1.6%? Unless today the oppressed are:
White 81%
Male 61%
College Educated 90% (College 60.7% + Grad School 29.4%)
Fully Employed 47% (Part-time 19.9%)
Age 24 – 44 44.5%
Additional demographic statistics on OWS*:
Heroin users 10%
Crack users 25%
Meth users 50%
Pot users 100%
* These statistics were compiled with no cohesive scientific methodology to speak of. Kind of like a lot of other polls we see showing that large chunks of the population supports these clowns.
We “ignore these clowns” at our peril. OWS isn’t important, but the fact that people are starting to take to the streets is indicative of something serious. People are demanding change, they are unhappy about the way things are going. If we don’t reach out to them, if we don’t take this seriously and use it as an opportunity, they we will lose them to the first group that offers them hope…and ammunition. ·Nov 4 at 1:42pm
Really good point. My belief is that it is big government that is the problem and the banks and wall street are rent-seekers who seek to take advantage of that.
We conservatives should reach out to these “Occupy” types; we have good arguments that, skillfully presented, can bring many of these people around to our view. Political and economic freedom yes, cronyism and corporatism no.
Hello? Central Casting? I got a big shoot in Zucotti Park. Yeah, the last bunch ya sent me didn’t have the right racial mix…
Additional additional demographic statistics on OWS*:
Dumb 10%
Dumber 20%
Dumbest 70%
Mark Wilson – “nested layers of ignorance” – very nice!
Clowns is right. The infographic is awful, and the conclusion is not just fatuous; it is a lie.
Mark Wilson… Yes, most conservatives & libertarians would agree that the racial bean counting is absurd. However, I think Diane’s point(s) in posting this is to: 1. Demonstrate that the putative paragons of diversity (the left) are actually not that diverse. 2. That when challenged on the fallacy of that assumption, they are incensed. 3. That the MSM are, yet again, grossly hypocritical by calling the Tea Party racist, angry, and white with no real proof, while tacitly supporting OWS and not questioning their racial composition. Your point is well-taken, though. Perhaps Paul Ryan & Marco Rubio should hold an ad hoc town hall meeting or something of the sort and find common ground with the protesters by pointing out the difference between support of capitalism & free markets vs. Big business. They might then educate these youngsters on the history of forced redistribution and how it inevitably ends in tyranny. Thanks for your thoughts. Always a pleasure reading your comments.
Robert E. Lee:…… . If we don’t reach out to them, if we don’t take this seriously and use it as an opportunity, they we will lose them to the first group that offers them hope…and ammunition. ·Nov 4 at 1:42pm
If you really must reach out to OWS, I suggest you wear rubber gloves. But I do agree they should be taken seriously and used as an opportunity. They are the brain dead zombies of the left and as usual they claim to speak for “the people”.
The opportunity is for the people to decide whether that claim is correct.
Clowns is right. The infographic is awful, and the conclusion is not just fatuous; it is a lie. ·Nov 4 at 6:56pm
Clearly you are asking the wrong question, you conservative who is stuck in the past and believes graphs are for accurately representing data in an easy-to-interpret visual format.
Graphics are for catching your eye and making you believe the group that commissioned the graphics is hip and progressive. And multicultural.