MEDIA ROOTS- Abby Martin of Media Roots conducts on the spot interviews with Oakland residents about why they want change on the first two days of Occupy Oakland. The occupiers spread across all walks of life who share a common thread of feeling unrepresented in a failing system.

Interviews from the occupiers of Occupy Oakland

Check out Abby Martin’s photojournalism of Occupy Oakland here.

MEDIA ROOTS- Yesterday I went out to cover the first day of Occupy Oakland at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown. Despite the thick mud and slick rain, there was a solid crowd of about 300 people buzzing with energy and lively discussion. Grievances were expelled by chanting and marching together, all with passionate determination.

Those of us who shared the evening together put our differences aside to stand upon one common thread– the system has failed us, and we demand representation. We were participating in something bigger than ourselves, and it was beautiful to witness the movement coalesce in my own backyard. It’s nothing short of thrilling to see people spilling out in the streets demanding real change, and I can’t wait to see where this leads.

Writing and Photography by Abby Martin

MEDIA ROOTS- Kevin Martin is a songwriter based in San Diego, CA that identifies his music as ‘throwback pop’, combining his love of performance flair with vintage piano-pop stylings. His song ‘TV News’ was written as a result of his waking up to corporate media brainwashing.

Kevin Martin performs ‘TV News’ outside of the Civic Center at Occupy San Diego.

KM: Television had become a part of my conscience– it told me what to think and how to think it. When I was watching it the most, I felt completely divided within myself. The moment I connected this inner division to my mass media consumption, I wrote the song ‘TV news’.

The corporate media surpressed its coverage of the Occupy Wall Street movement for weeks, and when it did cover the mass protests it either downplayed them or cast them in a negative light. I decided to perform ‘TV News’ at Occupy San Diego and hope this video will help inspire others to join the movement.

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Learn more about Kevin Martin at kevinmartinmusic.com

MEDIA ROOTS- Several research studies have studied job discrimination by sending out resumes with different identifying features and tracking the response rates. For instance, one study conducted by researchers at MIT and University of Chicago sent out thousands of resumes that were identical except for the name of the applicant: in one version, the applicants name was stereotypically “Black” (e.g., Rasheed, Aisha) and another version had stereotypically “White” names (e.g., Greg, Emily). Even though the resumes were identical in terms of qualifications, those researchers found that the “White” resumes had a 30 percent greater chance of getting responses than the “Black” resumes.

EUREKALERT– A new study suggests that openly gay men face substantial job discrimination in certain parts of the U.S. The study, which is the largest of its kind to look at job discrimination against gay men, found that employers in the South and Midwest were much less likely to offer an interview if an applicant’s resume indicates that he is openly gay. Overall, the study found that gay applicants were 40 percent less likely to be granted an interview than their heterosexual counterparts.

“The results indicate that gay men encounter significant barriers in the hiring process because, at the initial point of contact, employers more readily disqualify openly gay applicants than equally qualified heterosexual applicants,” writes the study’s author, András Tilcsik of Harvard University.

For the study, Tilcsik sent two fictitious but realistic resumes to more than 1,700 entry-level, white collar job openings — positions such as managers, business and financial analysts, sales representatives, customer service representatives, and administrative assistants. The two resumes were very similar in terms of the applicant’s qualifications, but one resume for each opening mentioned that the applicant had been part of a gay organization in college.

“I chose an experience in a gay community organization that could not be easily dismissed as irrelevant to a job application,” Tilcsik writes. “Thus, instead of being just a member of a gay or lesbian campus organization, the applicant served as the elected treasurer for several semesters, managing the organization’s financial operations.”

The second resume Tilcsik sent listed experience in the “Progressive and Socialist Alliance” in place of the gay organization. Since employers are likely to associate both groups with left-leaning political views, Tilcsik could separate any “gay penalty” from the effects of political discrimination.

The results showed that applicants without the gay signal had an 11.5 percent chance of being called for an interview. However, gay applicants had only a 7.2 percent chance. That difference amounts to a 40 percent higher chance of the heterosexual applicant getting a call.

The callback gap varied widely according to the location of the job, Tilcsik found. In fact, most of the overall gap detected in the study was driven by the Southern and Midwestern states in the sample — Texas, Florida, and Ohio. The Western and Northeastern states in the sample (California, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and New York) had only small and statistically insignificant callback gaps.

“This doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no discrimination in those states, just that the callback gaps were small in the case of the jobs to which I sent applications,” Tilcsik explained. “I think it’s very plausible that, even in those states, there might be a large callback gap in some other jobs, industries, or counties. What this does show is that discrimination in white-collar employment is substantially stronger for the Southern and Midwestern states in the sample.”

The research also found that employers seeking stereotypically heterosexual male traits were more likely to discriminate gay men. Gay applicants had lower callback rates when the employer described the ideal candidate for the job as “assertive,” “aggressive,” or “decisive.

“It seems, therefore, that the discrimination documented in this study is partly rooted in specific stereotypes and cannot be completely reduced to a general antipathy against gay employees,” Tilcsik writes.

The technique Tilcsik used, known as audit study, has been used in the past to expose hiring prejudice based on race and on sex. This is the first major audit study to test the receptiveness of employers to gay male job applicants.

Understanding the ways in which these biases might operate at the interview stage of the employment process, or how they might apply to lesbian job seekers in the U.S., requires additional research, Tilcsik says.

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András Tilcsik, “Pride and Prejudice: Employment Discrimination against Openly Gay Men in the United States.” American Journal of Sociology 117:2 (September 2011).

Established in 1895 as the first U.S. scholarly journal in its field, the American Journal of Sociology remains a leading voice for analysis and research in the social sciences.

Photo by Flickr user bpsusf

MEDIA ROOTS- Who are these Occupy Wall Street people? What is this “99%”? The question is being asked many times over around the nation, even now as you’re reading this. Perhaps in providing answers, it’s best we start with the One Percent and work our way up.

MIT Professor Noam Chomsky, the most-cited living author in the world and one of the most passionately anti-capitalist intellectuals in the United States, has sent a powerful message of support to the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street protests:

Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street — financial institutions generally — has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat” — seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”

The system is set against you. The airwaves and print are complicit in every way. The oligarchic banking class has a stranglehold of power over politicians astonishingly passionate in their supplication, picking distraction fights while nearly 7 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a million a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care annually. True joblessness hovers at the 20 percent mark, while a great many of those employed are overworked, underpaid and – if they’re teachers, policemen, firefighters, nurses or public servants – currently under threat of further cuts.

The 99% are those who refuse to accept a system designed to enable 400 of America’s wealthy elite to control more revenue than over 150 million American citizens. We are those who feel betrayed by the entire spectrum of political parties and promise-bleating politicians. Those who demand a fairer tax system. Those who don’t have health insurance, for a variety of reasons. Those struggling to find work. Those opposed to military adventurism and imperialistic overlording of the planet. Those enraged by the idea of corporate lobbyists orchestrating legislature. Those who see a problem with the highest imprisoned population percentage in the world, the widespread destruction of our constitutional rights and the continued destruction of basic social services. Those who reject the inarguably failed “trickle down theory” and the current crisis-tendency of sending jobs overseas.

We are those who feel that the elected leaders of America have forgotten us among the ranting political rhetoric and opposition demonization by politicians who longer represent us at all.

Even those who are well off but recognize that something must be done to enable those who are not a chance to rise and prosper.

We The People are the 99%. You are the 99%.

Finally, a politically neutral voice of dissent is rising, a peaceful occupation to represent the demand for true change. The Occupy movement is determined to establish national demand for a conversation on fairly setting society on a more healthy course. They have taken to the streets, they’re talking amongst themselves, rallying others and building understanding and conviction through communication. A determined, defiant spirit will guide them through, and their numbers are already skyrocketing. The headlines read 700 people arrested on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York – but the mere fact that there were 700 people there to be arrested stands as a much louder testimony that we will no longer sleep in the fires burning the world down around us.

This movement has sparked a wildfire of energy among those whose independent movements and issues are ignored by mandate. Labor unions are joining forces and dedicating support to the Occupy movement. In just the past few days, major organizations like the Communication Workers of America, the AFL-CIO and AFSCME have dedicated support for the protesters’ cause. The Occupy movement doesn’t operate in a top-down union style method. It is democratically driven to the core, but in meeting neutrally with these organizations we can align our goals and work together without risk of being co-opted.

Teachers and nurses associations are aligning themselves as well. Neighbors are stopping by with food and supplies. Just yesterday afternoon at City Hall in Los Angeles, dozens of pizzas and various other food and drink as well as medical and clothing supplies were being distributed freely by the people. For the people. I’m hardly a religious man, but the collective thousands at OccupyLA caring for one another without parasitic motive was the closest thing to truly Christ-like behavior among a large mass of people that I’ve seen in my 33 years.

Dismissing the New York uprising as merely another protest among countless demonstrations, many are attempting to write off this rapidly expanding movement, and will continue to with increasing severity as the Occupy movement continues to expand. But do not be mistaken – America’s first true digital-age movement is upon us, a movement every one of us can identify with. There is no promise-making leader with gleaming smiles and sparkling eyes. This is a collective of average and relatable individuals at work, rapidly growing despite (and in fact fueled by) an initial blanket of widespread silence from the mainstream press. As coverage begins to trickle in, as the voice of the movement takes hold, a great deal of misinformation will be broadcast. Do not believe it.

These Occupy movement protests aren’t the frivolous Foursquare check-in competitions among laid-off Apple employees that you’ll read about. All walks of life are attending, from families with babies to students to IT experts to WWII vets to college graduates with insurmountable debt and no employment options. From teachers who see their class numbers rise while funding gets cut and they’re continued to make less than garbage men, to grandparents hearing their lifelong contributions to Social Security and Medicare being discussed as money the government owns. At these protests, there are teach-ins educating the curious on topics ranging from the disconnection of investment banking from the economy of goods and services, to the pharmaceutical industry’s stronghold on medical legislation, and beyond – including, more directly, just what it is we’re doing in the streets.

These people are leaders, spearheading dedicated efforts to overcome the designed hypnosis of rampant passive complacency America’s people have come to be known for. We stand by as we’re told that millions of families struggling to feed their children and pay their rent just aren’t trying hard enough. As trillions are spent invading foreign lands for dubious causes, unclear goals and indefinite futures – money desperately needed to revive our infrastructure. We buy into the political grandstanding and the massive industry of talking heads foaming about one or the other, entirely oblivious to the gruesome, sneering and nakedly obvious fact that the American public has not been dealt any cards in the system that’s been established. We’re not in the game, and our “representatives” have long since disconnected meaning from words.

Yet despite constant evidence to the contrary, we trust that politicians – who truly no longer represent the people – will turn away from the staggering amounts of money that corporations offer for favorable legislation and the power-wealth’s demands.

A brilliantly relevant quote, from the 3rd President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson:

“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Last year, the share of the nation’s income that was assigned to wages hit an all-time low, while the piece of the collective financial pie going to corporate profits was at an all-time high. It wasn’t teachers who set the nation at such an incredible deficit, no matter what the anointed congressional speakers suggest. It wasn’t public employees, Planned Parenthood, PBS, NPR, nurses or policemen who crashed the stock market, took trillions in taxpayer funded bailouts, poisoned our rivers and oceans, or paid themselves billions in bonuses. That would be the other guy – the elusive One Percent. The true “elite” that has shaped the conversation in Washington D.C. so as to completely omit a voice of and for the people, to the point where the mere suggestion of such is met with raging ridicule – for every mention of public health care, there are a dozen new claims of “death panels” and nazism associated. Sensible debate is a highly endangered species.

The soulful spirit of passionate & peaceful resistance from the 60s exists, stirring slowly from its slumber of comfort and convenience. Those in attendance now are the seedlings, the leaders guiding others into the warmth of understanding that We Are All The 99%. If you’re tired of living paycheck to paycheck, if an illness or accident that puts you in the hospital would mean financial ruin for your family, if you share in the frustration of watching a blizzard of legislation passed and deals made that rampantly benefit corporate interest at the expense of public well-being, you are already among our numbers.

For just about every vocal movement throughout history, there has been a countermeasure, an opposition that speaks with equal passion and dissent from the idea. Yet with the Occupy movement, the only opposing assailants are the champagne-toasting core of the problem sneering down at protestors on Wall St., and the likes of Ann Coulter and Alex Jones who are feebly trying to “expose” the movement as a veiled operation for the Democratic party (which it most assuredly is not). Where are the picketers defending the multi-millionaires and the multinational corporations?

Now is the time to make a true difference. Now is the time to move beyond a Like button and a retweet. It was through several incremental steps, accumulated over many years, that birthed this multi-tentacled crisis. It’s ignorant and futile to imagine that one demand will reverse this cancer, or that a collective vote will impact a system rigged against the people. Conversations must take place. A spirit of effective action must take hold.

That is what you’ll find taking place in New York. in Los Angeles. in Boston. In Detroit and beyond.

“We have to be careful not to allow this to get any legitimacy,” Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) warned this week. “I’m taking this seriously in that I’m old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy,” he said. “We can’t allow that to happen.”

One man’s nightmare is another’s American Dream.

That is the Occupy movement. Join us.

Writing and Photography by Johnny Firecloud, Founder, Managing Editor of Antiquiet.com