A 74-year-old man from Rockaway, a 31-year-old woman from Maspeth, students, mothers, career activists and more than 100 others were opening their hands above their heads and waggling their fingers Friday night. It was their way of participating in direct democracy.
Occupy Queens had its second ever meeting on Nov. 18 at the Jewish Center of Jackson Heights, where a wide range of people gathered. Some came to satisfy their curiosity about the Occupy movement while others came intent on changing the direction of the nation.
The three-hour meeting was focused mostly on organizing the new off-shoot of the movement.
Whitey Flagg, the man who started Occupy Queens, stood before the audience and demonstrated their form of voting — called temperature checking.
Sticking your fingers up in the air and wiggling them signifies approval. Pointing your fingers straight out and wiggling them with your palms face down means uncertainty and pointing your fingers toward the floor and wiggling them means you’re not feeling it.
“It’s about how you feel about an idea not necessarily if you agree or disagree,” Flagg told newcomers.
Occupy Queens is an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, the protest movement recently evicted from sleeping in Zuccotti Park in downtown Manhattan.
Flagg says he started Occupy Queens after exhaustion set in from his participation in Occupy Wall Street. “I was going down there every night and bringing my son, after four or five hours of sleep [a night] for a month, I was burning out. Then I just realized my time was better spent bringing it back to my community,” he said. “That’s really where the future of Occupy Wall Street lies, in people bringing it back in to their communities.”
That left room for interpretation on exactly what he was bringing back to his home neighborhood of Jackson Heights though. Some of it even surprised Flagg.
“Immediately at the first meeting someone wanted to tackle the quality of food in low-income neighborhoods,” Flagg said.
So far, Occupy Queens has formed 16 “working groups” — the Occupy movement’s version of committees — that focus on anything from arts and culture to the demands of the movement.
On Friday night, Flagg and other facilitators leading the meeting referred to the working groups as the real meat of Occupy Queens where ideas are incubated, hatched and eventually brought before the General Assembly for voting.
After two hours of discussion about where the next Occupy Queens General Assembly would meet and how proposals would introduced, they broke into 16 working groups.
Some were procedural. The Facilitation working group figured out where next week’s meeting would be. The Internet working group started assigning email addresses for all the working groups.
Some were more ambitious. The Food and Environmental Justice working group started laying the groundwork for collecting grocery stores’ discarded food for distribution, and the Education for Change working group discussed how to teach people about the cause of the economic bubble.
Some were formed that night, like the Third Party working group, which dedicated itself to getting an option other than Republican or Democrat on the ballot.
Sarah Wolf, 31 of Maspeth, attended the Education for Change working group. Wolf spent time at the Occupy Wall Street encampment and said the Queens branch is marked by its productivity but the same frustrations flow.
“I think that there is a sense as well that hopes we put into the system are unfulfilled by the system,” she said.
Wolf, along with others, noted the Occupy Queens crowd was more mature and interested in civic service and neighborhood-building than solely protests.
“I see this as a very productive expansion of the Occupy Wall Street movement.” Wolf said.
That purview, Flagg said, is exactly what the movement is about and despite some criticisms of Occupy Wall Street’s focus, the point is very clear.
“It’s focused on people. And that’s very broad, but it’s also very focused. It’s about people before profits. It’s about getting involved in your democracy again and reinvigorating your voice and being a part of that process that so many people have felt alienated from,” Flagg said. “It’s hyper focused on people and communities.”
Occupy Queens’ next meeting will be a rally on Saturday, Nov. 26th. in front of the 74th Street-Broadway/Roosevelt Avenue Subway station at noon.
The General Assembly will meet again on Dec. 2 at a location to be determined and posted at www.occupyqueens.net
By Jeremiah Dobruck
