Forum Post: Wearing the 99% Badge

Recently I flew across the United States. During my travels I wore a home-made "99%" patch on the front of my shirt. It was a simple patch created with paper, a marker and masking tape. Clean, shaved and dressed casually I looked like the middle-aged, middle class American man that I am. Without my patch harried travelers and airport workers for the most part would not notice me.

I wore my patch to humanize Occupy participants. I've been participating in Occupy activities in my hometown, and I've found that the others are people like me. People who want to make their country or the world a better place for all. I do not agree with all of the prescriptions for improvement suggested by everyone that I've met at Occupy. I do not agree with all of the ideas of everyone that I know. Different people believe different things. This is not a weakness; it is a strength. I do not speak for everyone. I speak for me. I wore my patch to present an Occupier to a population who see only what mass media chooses to show them.

I wore my patch because I object to my country being a police state, and airports illustrate the police state that America has become. (Destroyed Occupy sites illustrate the police state, but Occupy is composed of people standing up to the police state. The airport is full of people submitting to the police state.) At the airport I was expected to submit to a naked-body scan. I declined and was groped instead. I object to theater security. It is a fraud--not improving security but traumatizing and demeaning. It conditions people to submit to a police state. I wore my patch because I am tired of being told that I should be scared and docile. I wore my patch because I am not a sheep.

I wore my patch and expected to be laughed at and mocked. I expected a public that had been told that Occupiers are dirty and lazy would laugh at me to mask their own insecurities. I was wrong. Not one person made any negative remark that I heard. I was questioned. "What does your patch mean?" I tried to explain. Sometimes my explanation was adequate. Sometimes I was applauded. One middle-aged man in an expensive suit said "nice sign" as he hurried past. I thanked him and suggested that he could wear a patch, too. I wore my patch hoping that others would follow my lead.

I wore my patch to learn how random people would react to it. The person walking through an airport who saw me and my patch would almost certainly react instinctively. I observed. Many did not notice me or my patch. Others did and stared until they realized that I was looking back at them. For the most part the people with jobs at the airport (cleaning, delivering goods and TSA staff on break) took no notice. Among the many who did notice, the instinctive response was sometimes caution and often positive. I wore my patch to see who was awake.

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Thanks for reading.

This essay continues at http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2011/11/wearing-the-99-badge.html