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There are so many different people with so many different causes at Occupy Wall Street that it's almost impossible to find one person who symbolizes its message. One sees the weathered faces of the Granny Peace Brigade trying to link the immense costs of our immoral wars to the detriment of our domestic needs, the middle-aged union workers coping with job scarcity and benefits cuts, young mothers concerned about not having coverage for their children's health needs, and all other specimens of humankind fed up with a system that ignores their critical needs.
Even so, I encountered one young man who I submit is surely a strong candidate as the Face of Occupy Wall Street. He's not a scruffy, weed-smoking hippie out to party, as some of the media have suggested is the portrait of the Wall Street protester. He is Nathan Tumazi, a polite, clean-cut young man of 25, who has been looking for a job for one year and four months. He has submitted over 977 resumes, gone to career fairs, contacted recruiting agencies, networked online and even applied for more than 60 jobs overseas.
Nathan is a graduate of the University of California Irvine with a degree in international relations and a GPA of 3.4-3.8. He was accepted into Columbia University for graduate work, but, denied financial aid, was unable to attend He supported himself through college with student loans, leaving him in debt to the dissonant tune of $60,000..
Further, he was mentored by the Foreign Secretary of the United States National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Michael T. Clegg, and was Founder and President of the first Evolutionary Biology Club at UC Irvine. And, most impressive of all for such a young man, he is an author of a book, Concerns of Human Reality: Essays in Domination Politics (published by VDM - available on Amazon.com ).
Is there something wrong with this picture? You bet there is! And, this is one of the scenarios that prompted the revolt. Our young people are despairing. Did any of you over-30's feel that way on the brink of adulthood? Today's youths, including those with graduate degrees, CANNOT find jobs, even on a level beneath their skills and training. They are saddled with huge debts that they can't repay and may never fully repay. They have little access to health care, except those who can stay on their parents' plans until age 26.
In other words, the American Dream has turned into a nightmare for our young people. And, yes, it can be traced largely to the financial industry's immoral use of its power to control Congress. Wall Street rules the roost -- killing regulations protecting consumers and the environment, taking over health care for profit, outsourcing millions of jobs to foreign countries to avoid paying living wages, and on and on. Wall Street has even invaded the hallowed halls of the Supreme Court -- note its recent decision to declare corporations as people with the right to unlimited financing of political campaigns.
So, yes, Nathan Tumazi is a symbol of the uprising at Zucotti Park. He and his peers desperately need a systemic change to transpire so that they can have hope for the future. They must be enabled to have the careers they have been educated for, to afford to start families, and, in Wall Street's own interest, to afford to buy its products to keep the wheels of industry turning. We must support Nathan and Occupy Wall Street in order to bring about changes so that he and his greatly burdened contemporaries can have the lives they so richly deserve.
