this poem was originally published in 2009 after the uprising at UC Berkeley after the first round of exorbitant fee hikes were announced. today, with all of this weeks insanity at occupy oakland, this poem and its sentiment felt relevant.
today the children awoke from their long deadened sleep…
today they rubbed the dried crumbs of apathy from their eyes…
today they woke up from the paralysis of non-action…
they put down their electronic gadgetry of the age for a moment
slipped out from beneath what has long kept them mesmerized and often blinded
and today, they woke up to a new morning
suddenly paying a new kind of attention
until today, a passive segment of youth has walked though days like sheep
having bought into the lies and decisions made for them by others for their future
until today they have stepped, stupified and stumbling
distracted like robots through the motion
activism was only an unknown social action performed by their parents or grandparents in some decade before they were conceived
until today
until today they believed and swallowed all that had been spoon-fed to them over the years by a never-questioned authority
but today, was a different kind of day
until today, mommy and daddy had written check after check
other starving students have lived on hard-fought grants… some juggling the act of college and part-time job
living in sub-standard housing if they were lucky enough to find it
a whisper away from poverty’s dank streets
a generation forced into recession’s survival mode with the pipe dream that a degree might be the only salvation for their young lives
and today they woke up…. today they finally had enough
today yes! they finally cried enough!
today, i smiled proud of these children of an age
into the streets they screamed fighting for their rights to higher education
fighting for something they believed in!
protesting the rise in fees and costs that would have them the one’s left behind
the very children left behind in this era of lies
spewed from the dank, foul mouth of another bad actor politician, whose smirking grin has all but taken out this, their once-golden state
today they realized how they’ve been fooled
shunned
realizing suddenly today that they too are these children he promised not to leave behind
and today in the streets
they closed down the halls of higher education
put the entire uc system into operational shut-down mode, and today
i smiled with hope at their fury a generation finally awake after the long wait
we’ve wondered how much a generation could take
as authority smugly pressed their young, smooth backs up against erudite walls
walls of society’s troubled brick pushed and pushed simply because they were certain of the apathy
certain no one of this generation would react, and today
they were wrong!
today this generation responded with spark fire in young eyes today they walked through gates to hallowed halls stood in the streets and in quads and said, no more! these children linked arms climbed in windows barracaded themselves in hallways in emptied classrooms fought campus police and saw with their own innocent eye what we saw forty years ago when we stood where they stand today battered and bloodied wondering about constitutional rights as batons and tear gas burned our throats and eyes as we too, demanded change demanded an end to another senseless war watched with the same young eyes while the sixties ‘pigs’ hauled us away beating those rights out of us pigs with dead hearts and crazed eyes they, ‘the authorities,’ laughed as they tried to kick the activism out of us too and today these children saw that side as their own young fallen comrades wiped pepper spray from burning eyeballs and blood from the faces of their fellow students crying, where is my right to assemble peacefully? where are my freedoms?
today, a new generation demanded fairness and justice cried out for fairness and recognition for their efforts at higher education and screamed, no more realizing that this cannot go on knowing they want better lives, they demanded affordable education, unable to bear the sight of their already-spent fees swirling red and brown down the drain of a dirty shitter in the movie set of a pretend governor’s undeserved mansion
today i end this day in solidarity with a generation previously unknown
today i am proud of these new children who’ve awakened and are ready
for the fight
for something they believe in…
and today
i am proud and grateful for their efforts
Your poem captures so well the feelings I have toward the young people participating in Occupy movements around the country. I feel like my chest has been tight for 40 years waiting for the resurrection of the fight we fought for social justice and economic equality, peace and love, and respect for the earth. My chest has been tight, but now I breathe deeply, sigh with relief, that the young have finally taken to the streets as we did so long ago. Obama and Clinton praised the people of Tunisia and Egypt for their peaceful uprising and warned the countries’ leaders to do no harm to these peaceful protesters. I hope our leaders speak out loudly and clearly that any violence perpetrated against these peaceful protesters will not be tolerated. Thank you so much for expressing my feelings as well.