Forum Post: Make your message more effective. I hope leaders read this.

Dear Occupy Wall Street:

As an American living abroad, I may be removed what’s happening on the streets, but I can give some advice on how to make your protesting more effective.

When I see police using pepper spray and violent tactics on protestors, I don’t feel as much sympathy on the victims as I should. The reason is that the videos very much resemble riot videos we’ve seen in the past or on international news. As viewers, we are desensitized to this.

I suggest that the movement make a shift in its identity. As an outsider, it looks like the movement is made up of teenagers, liberals, and the unemployed. The movement needs to be recognized as working-class Americans.

I would like to urge protestors to make their visual presence more memorable. Instead of raising fists in the air, you should be raising American flags.

Any American-loving police officer would find it harder to pepper spray an American flag. Having an image like that broadcast across America could also wake up a lot of the dormant areas.

I see people across the world confused by the purpose of Occupy Wall Street. There are many messages, perhaps too many, the movement tries to bring across:

• Corporations have control over government.
• The wealthy do not pay their share of taxes.
• We can’t get jobs.
• We don’t have health insurance.
• And countless others…

While the natural inclination is to complain about what is wrong, it’s not an effective technique to ignite change. The people who are in positions to make change (politicians, lawmakers, police chiefs, CEOs) need to have an incentive that appeals to their own personal interests. It needs to be political suicide for any leader to speak out against the movement. The way to do this is to find the indisputable common bond between all of us and link the Occupy Wall Street movement to that bond.

After 9/11, like many other proud Americans, I put up an American flag in my car. We also made heroes of the police force that are now against you. Try to remember that feeling of how much pride we had of our NYPD. This feeling is the critical key to getting greater America to join forces with you. Whether or not you liked the police, immediately following 9/11, there was a social pressure that made it difficult to speak out against them. We need to apply the concept of social pressure on to the people who are in positions to make change.

Instead of the “We Are the 99%” signs, individuals should hold simple signs that have more social weight to the true 99%:

• I am a student.
• I am a nurse.
• I am a teacher.
• I am a small business owner.
• I am a firefighter.
• I am a Christian.
• I am a mother.
• I am a war veteran.

These are all identities that are generally “popular” in the sense that it would be unpopular for modern-day leaders to speak out against them. Not all titles or occupations would make appropriate signs, of course, so discretion needs to be made or the opposite effect could be made. But we all have something that’s relatable—by default, you can hold a sign that says “I am an American.”

You need to change the public opinion from, “I don’t understand why all these people are complaining and protesting” to “I don’t understand why the police are violently beating Americans. I don’t understand why our political leaders are doing nothing to change this.” Even if the general public still doesn’t understand the message of the movement, they will understand that America will always stand united.