22 November 2011

The Streets as The Stage for Revolution

I watched and read the news this morning and thought about how powerful the streets are in inscribing society's shifts and movements in history - every street, every where... These are the stories that become archived as newspaper stories, chapters in history texts, subjects of memoirs, and plots for novels.

These stories then inform the world; as in this newsclip (below) that talks about how Egyptian men are taking lead from the historic U.S. Million Man March of 1995, to stage their own Million Man March for revolution in their country, today.  The bottom video shows American young adults standing for justice at University of California - Davis (UC-Davis), even while tolerating civil rights abuses by those in power, just 3 days ago. We are living in powerful times, where the streets are screamin' - there is so much going on - everywhere. It's as if the entire world is standing up at the same time. 

The streets are always talkin', inscribin', and signifyin' our human experience, because we, the people, are the headliners upon the stage of the streets. We write our stories as we live them.


Tahrir, Egypt: A call for "Million Man March"
November 22, 2011

Davis, CA, USA: Students being pepper-sprayed
at college campus protest
November 18, 2011

Mark Naison, Ph.D. said it best: "There is a definite connection between street literature and the movements curently taking place all over the world led by young people. Street literature was the improbable expression of people the society had locked away and locked out, in prisons and ghettoes, which forced its way into a world of book publishing that had written off the audience street lit was reaching. The Occupy movements were equally unexpected and equally impertinent. Both were movements of party crashers!" - Facebook, 07:01 a.m. EDT, 11/22/11.

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