Spike Lee's Chiraq Release Date: 04 December 2015

Check out the movie trailer for Spike Lee's new film, Chiraq (release date: December 4, 2015). The film is an interpretation of the Greek comedy, Lysistrata. However, don't mistake Chiraq as a comedy. It is a satire that we should take seriously.

Must-See Video: State of Grace by Talib Kweli (2014)

Talib Kweli feat. Abby Dobson - State of Grace (Official Music Video) from dreambear on Vimeo.

WORLD PREMIERE: "For Colored Boys" A web series written and directed by Stacey Muhammad

PREMIERES SUNDAY, AUGUST 25, 2013, 7:00 P.M. EASTERN TIME.

WATCH.SUBSCRIBE.WATCH.SUBSCRIBE.WATCH.SUBSCRIBE.

Takin' It to the Streets: Protests Emerge Across Nation in Response to Zimmerman Verdict

The New York Times has released a very good slideshow of images depicting yesterday's 100 rallies in support of Trayvon Martin around the nation.

If you're connected to me on social media, you'll know that I've been pretty vocal on Facebook and Twitter about this historic development in America's story. I've been posting daily: articles, commentary, images, and news developments all week. I have been unapologetic on these platforms about my content. No, my content has not been about libraries. No, my content has not been about street literature / urban fiction. No, it's not about education or hip hop. And, guess what? Some of it has been word-of-mouth info (shudder the thought).

As a librarian - an American librarian - an African American librarian - my intellectual mission is always more nuanced than my usual topics. Indeed, any librarian who is worth their education in gold, will at times, embrace a social stance for justice, that will be based on belief and experience - not someone else's facts and references. We're talking about real life here, and librarians do live it. If a librarian tells you otherwise - go to another library. Seriously.

As an American Black woman who is mother to 5 Black women who all dream of marrying and having families with Black men, it feels like the message that the Zimmerman Verdict sends is that American Black men's lives are worthless in the U.S. This in turn, makes Black women realize that their wombs are worthless, which in turn, means they - are worthless, too. This tells the Black American community that their lives do not count, that we are worth less than dogs (I do feel that the comparison to Michael Vick going to jail for dog-fighting is an appropriate parallel).

This verdict heralds in a tough time for American identity discourse because the injustice felt by the African American community (with the support of a wonderfully diverse American public) empowers us to have voice, to speak, to scream cosmically, our displeasure about being hated and how that hate is embedded within the infrastructure of this nation's systems.

But I believe that the scream is not from the verdict itself. I believe that this cosmic scream is in response to the verdict feeling like a band-aid being ripped off an old, festering wound, that just won't fucking heal. We realize that nothing has changed for Blacks in America, since 1619, just keepin' it real. Fundamentally, nothing has changed for us, in spite of the history in place that says things have (e.g. Civil Rights Movement, The Voting Rights Act (that has been gutted recently, also), Affirmative Action, President Obama's elections, to name a few). African Americans now realize with crystal clear clarity that in the nation of our birth, we are seen as sub-human. We are valued as less than animals. Since we know this is the biggest lie ever told: we're not havin' it.

Take that in for a moment, if you can. I mean really - take that in. Imagine you are born in a land where you are told from the cradle that you're a second class citizen --- the country's history tells you that and the country's infrastructure punctuates that, on a daily basis. In response, your family indoctrinates your humanity to set your mind and spirit in motion to navigate that reality in various ways so that you can at least survive childhood, if you're lucky. Coming of age into adulthood, it is anticipated that you will enjoy this human experience as a working, productive adult, free to worship your god, love your partners, take a walk alone or with friends (if you can do this without harassment), enjoy national pastimes alongside countrymen, create a family, get old, maybe travel a little bit, and make enough money to live out your life as best you know how.

Through a full lifespan there may be days when being "black in America" is not a salient issue. Note I said - through a full lifespan. If you're lucky, there are days when you get through racial hardships with a graze, not with a gunshot wound to the chest. You brush it off your back and keep it movin'. In between the usual bullshit of "being born Black", there are better days. Trayvon Martin's baby and childhood pictures show "better days" ... but being Black in America, the message is clear: you only get one time, one chance, one encounter, one day, one slip-up, that can make or break your very existence. Here's the problem: America's streets are landmines littered with banana peels.

Thusly, this verdict makes it crystal clear: in spite of the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, voting rights, Affirmative Action, Barack Obama, Oprah, Tyler Perry, Spike Lee, Jazz, Black Hollywood, Hip Hop, African American literature, the existence of a Black economic elite, The Cosby Show, Black lawyers, teachers, ministers, librarians, social workers, intellectuals, Supreme Court justices, authors, singers, athletes, inventions, scientists, activists, parents, and on and on .... at the end of the day - no African American accomplishment or contribution matters to mainstream America. Yous black. Your skin color means you are sub-human. You don't count. Your life is not worth a damn. Thanks for all the basketball games and music, but your children's lives are not worth a damn. Your ancestors and everything they went through, for mainstream America, we don't give a hot damn - yous an animal that can be shot dead on the streets because we said so; better yet, because we feel like it. And in a court of law - we AGREE on that fact, yo.

Imagine how that feels when that reality hits you. When you really, really understand with clarity that you can even have the most powerful person on the planet look like you, come from a similar heritage than you, marry one of your sistahs, hail from one of the most identifiable hoods in the nation, and by his own painful acknowledgement, not even HE, not even his life, his wife, his children's lives - are worth a damn. At the end of the day. For real, for real.

That's the reality of what the Zimmerman Verdict has illuminated upon America as a whole, in my opinion; and that's a deep, bitter pill to try to shove down a nation's throat. And that is why American Black people are angry/frustrated/disappointed/disillusioned, and why President Obama interrupted the Press Corps on Friday to break it down for mainstream America, and why you even have celebrities like Jay Z and Beyonce on the streets marching in protest. Because they too realize that with all their so-called political power, hollywood or hip hop royalty, and incredible money and accomplishments, their lives are not worth a copper penny to American society. No matter how hard they work - their LIVES - their heartbeats are worthy of just one thing: a bullet. Given Jay Z's work, I'm not surprised that he feels some kind of way about that idea. It makes sense that he's on the streets with the people.

So if you are not African American or Latino American or a person of color in America - and all this "Trayvon Martin drama" is starting to get on your nerves, or you look at patrons in your library, or students in your classroom and feel some kind of way because you just "don't get it" - try to put yourself in our shoes. Try. Look at your family and at yourself in the mirror and ponder what it feels like to have to accept that your land of birth doesn't value your life - at all.

Think about how that feels since you KNOW you're a human being, and you KNOW you're a child of God. Think about how you can be born and raised, standing, breathing, and living in a country, walking on soil that your ancestors bled and died on, to come to the sobering realization that your very existence is at war with the very grounds you walk on - every moment. of every day. 24-7. all your life. For real, for real? That's a reality that any sane person would not be able to digest. You don't have to be Trayvon Martin or look like Trayvon Martin, or share a cultural heritage and history with Trayvon Martin to understand that somethin' ain't right with the American cultural consciousness.

So in kind, just think of America as going through a huge digestive problem right about now. Because truth be told, that is exactly what is going on - as a nation we're trying to figure out how to digest one more piece of poison called injustice that smells horribly of manure. We're resisting because we're full of this poison and we're sick because of it - all of us - black, white, brown, yellow, polka-dotted, - whatever. As Americans, we're bloated with being force-fed inhumane ideas about who and what we are to one another.

We're constipated with the scourge of racism that is a cancer in our hearts, minds, and guts. So resistance to the verdict is not going to feel good to any of us. And an ideological balm may not be enough to soothe the aches and pains of ancestral memory. Thus, think about what will be required to bring this  organism called America to full health - and you'll have a deeper understanding of how the anger and frustration and tears of Black America must be healed by us all. Personally, I feel like America owes Black people a 400-year old apology.

Thank you for listening.

VIDEO: "The Block" by Akua Naru feat. Drea D'Nur

Every once in a while I post music that tells the stories of the streets because street lit and hip hop inform one another quite intimately. Hip hop artist Akua Naru's piece, "The Block" paints a hauntingly vivid picture of the harsh realities that happen on "The Block". Enjoy and share this video with adults and teens at your library and in your classrooms. They will love Queen Akua Naru; they will hear her call.

This Is How You Do It: On the Streets

Renowned Street Lit author, Treasure Blue, is poundin' the pavement TODAY - Valentine's Day, doin' his hustle to sell his latest book, Fly Betty. This is how and why street lit/urban fiction readers and authors have such an amazing relationship that has kept this genre thriving for over 15 years now. Readers support street lit authors because street lit authors support their readers!

Photo credit: DC BookDiva, 02/14/2013.

VIDEO: Streets Is Hard (Music video)

Hi all. I have been coming across some really interesting and well done videos lately. Please enjoy this hip hop music video, Streets Is Hard. The artist's name is Herricane. She's based in Philadelphia, PA. I wish her the best in her endeavors.

VIDEO: The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside View of the NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Policy

For the full story, visit:
http://www.thenation.com/article/170413/stopped-and-frisked-being-fking-mutt-video

VIDEO: "Young and Homeless" (2012)

New York Times: "Young and Homeless" DECEMBER 10, 2012 By Sean Patrick Farrell The Times’s Susan Saulny reports from Seattle where she talks with young adults who are struggling with homelessness as a result of the recession.

The New York Times is not willing to share this video as an embedded object. So please click picture above, or the following link, to access the video: http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/12/10/us/100000001943161/young-and-homeless.html

(Part 2 of 3) Making Literacy Connections Via Street Lit: One Scholar's Incredible Work

In last week's installment of Dr. Joseph Richardson's interview he talked about the need for educators to support the reading public with literacy practices from early ages. This week, Dr. Richardson discusses actual titles that his teens have requested and read. He advocates for educators to (re)perceive children as "scholars in their own right". Read on:

StreetLiterature.com: Have your young adults suggested any authors / titles / themes for the reading program in your research study? If so, what are they? If not, why do you think this is so?

The kids actually suggested The Autobiography of Malcolm X probably because they saw the film and have heard a lot about the book on the street. We cannot forget that the streets talk. You have older guys or old heads within their families and their neighborhoods that have done time. They will pass down in conversation books they read during their bid. So surely Malcolm’s book will come up as well as other books, like The 48 Laws of Power and Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

I also found that films and videos were a better medium to introduce youth to books, and not vice versa. For example, many kids were introduced to Malcolm X via the movie and not the book. The movie tie-in of a book often opens the door for them to be interested in reading the actual book. The kids suggested films as well. For example, they wanted to watch the 1971 Italian pseudo-documentary, "Goodbye Uncle Tom", which was crazy to me, because I had no idea they even knew that film. Once when I screened the film to a group of juvenile inmates, as I reached to take the movie with me when I was packing to leave, they pleaded with me to leave the movie, so they could show the film to some of their friends who were on lock down. That was amazing!

The majority of the kids are really sharp and scholars in their own right. They are victims to a dysfunctional world and set of circumstances which by no choice of their own, adults have created and brought them into. That may sound cliché, but it’s true. Some of the young brothers in my group were far more insightful and perceptive than some college students I have encountered.

StreetLiterature.com: In what ways has Urban / Street Literature impacted your teens’ reading tastes and habits?

Once they get the information and are able to digest what is relevant to their lives, they want more information. Again, these young brothers spend the majority of their days doing absolutely nothing so they are hungry for knowledge. Now some will not be interested, of course you have those who do not want to read, probably because they can’t read, so they are going to try to disrupt the energy of the group. 

But I’m realistic, I’m not there to save everybody, some will not want the information and that’s cool, maybe someday in the future they will have an epiphany and a moment of clarity where they realize how much they missed. I cannot worry about those kids because that small minority can impact the larger majority of those who want to learn. I’m not going to force anyone to participate in our group, participation is voluntary, you have to want it or else if you’re forced to do it, more than likely that kid is going to be a detriment to every else and I cannot afford that. 

We’re only in the jail for a couple of hours once a week so we have to make the most of our time. Anybody who has ever worked in this setting can understand what I am saying. I think we often set the bar too low, coming in with preconceived ideas about what they can’t read or don’t want to read. 

You have to understand that all people whether they are children or adults have multiple intelligences, and as an educator you have to tap into those strengths. You have to deal with the strengths first if you want to improve their self-esteem.  In short for those who love reading I believe that my mentorship has increased their breadth and range of what they will read and that’s a good thing. For others, they may be more visual, actually I respect that because I am more visual. That kid may be the next Cle Bone Sloan. So I have to tap into his strengths as well. That young brother may be more inclined now to make a film that documents his hood and how structural violence has caused the direct violence he witnesses around him.

--- Please post your questions and comments to this interview, below. We'd love to get a meaningful discussion started about Dr. Richardson's work. Next week's final installment for this interview series concludes with Dr. Richardson's discussion of the scholarly thinking of inner-city youth (yes, you read that correctly). --- 

(Part 1 of 3) Making Literacy Connections Via Street Lit: One Scholar's Incredible Work

Meet Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., Ph.D., who is an Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of Maryland - College Park. Dr. Richardson is a Philadelphia native whose research focuses on learning the various effects of urban poverty on inner-city teen boys' lives. In one aspect of his research, Dr. Richardson made literary connections with the boys he was working with: he gave them books to read and in turn, they told him what they wanted to read in books, and see in films. Their reading interests illustrated that they were more engaged with reading and improving their literacy practices when they had access to reading stories they could relate to. 

StreetLiterature.com interviewed Dr. Richardson so that we all can be introduced to his work and how reading urban-based stories can become a major component for literacy engagement and improvements among inner-city youth. This interview will be presented as a three-part series. Below is Part I. Parts II and III will be released each Friday, December 2012.

StreetLiterature.com: Could you please share a short biography of your personal background and professional work with adolescent city young adult males. Basically, who are you to do the work that you do?

I was born and raised in Philadelphia in the Germantown and Mt. Airy neighborhoods of Philadelphia. I received by BA in African-American Studies from the University of Virginia and my MA and PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from Rutgers University (NJ). 

As a Black male growing up in Philadelphia, although I lived in a relatively safe neighborhood, as the rapper Common mentioned in an interview, the hood was all around me. I lived in what sociologists would call a buffer neighborhood, which is defined as a neighborhood which buffers impoverished neighborhoods from middle class and affluent neighborhoods. I think that my infatuation with crime and the criminal mind, started from living in a neighborhood with a lot of guys that were criminals. They were always really fascinating to me - the way they thought, they were so real, funny and human, but incredibly complex.

StreetLiterature.com: How did your research involve inner-city youth? 

In my first research study of adolescent inner-city youth in Harlem, some of the boys in my study were members of the Bloods and Crips gangs and were involved in violence, beatings, stabbings and shootings. How the boys and girls (there were auxiliary gangs for girls called the Bloodettes and Crippettes) negotiated violence in this context framed my study. I had formed really tight relationships with three boys who were members of gangs, one was a Blood (Slyvester), another was a Crip (Manny), and another (Ali) was in a gang affiliated with his projects. His gang, the Valley, had an on-going feud with both Blood and Crip sets. In fact, he was involved in a shootout with the Bloods. His best friend shot a Blood. Because Ali was best friends with this kid, he was guilty by association. 

At his school, the principal allowed Ali to leave school early every day, because the Bloods had a contract to kill him. They would wait for him every day after-school, but they had no idea that he would leave before dismissal, this strategy probably saved his life. I would drive him from school to his home so he would not have to walk through the neighborhood. Every time he exited my car, I would always wonder whether I would ever see him again alive because kids were dying every day due to gang violence.

StreetLiterature.com: In your research, you work with incarcerated young adult males to enact positive change in their identities and approach to education. How does your research affect the literacy practices of teen readers?

First, I want to make sure we address them as children because we are really quick to call Black boys ‘young men’ or ‘young adults’ and they are not. These are children who have been adjudicated as adults but they are still children nonetheless. The great work of Dr.Lawrence Steinberg at Temple University indicates that the criminal justice system should not treat children as adults because their brains are still forming and not fully developed which impacts their decision-making capability and culpability.

Many of these children live in governmentally neglected communities, attend under-resourced schools and are products of really unstable households. Many adolescents in adult jails read on a 4^th grade reading level. Fourth grade reading levels are predictive of school dropout and school dropout is predictive of criminal justice involvement. So if we really want to address criminal justice involvement among young black males, we need to start with literacy practices, very early on, well before the 4^th grade.

We need to be addressing literacy practices pre-K, even while a child is in his mother’s womb, a mother should be reading to her child. But that also means we must address the educational needs and parenting practices of parents as well. 

StreetLiterature.com: How does literature play a role in your research?

To engage the boys in establishing consistent reading practices, I try to introduce street literature that adolescent males may be interested in. For example, I use Monster: The Autobiographyof an LA Gang Member as one of my texts. This book was a NY Times bestseller and it was written by a Crip, Sanyika Shakur aka Monster, who had minimal formal education. Much of the book was written while he was incarcerated. The kids were really interested in this book. 

I’ve also used texts such as Manchild in the Promised Land by Claude Brown and the Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley. What I’ve found is that if the book is interesting, kids will work their way through it whether they are proficient readers or not because in adult jail, kids have a lot of solitary time on their hands where they often sit in their cells for 23 hours a day. So reading often becomes a form of entertainment for them and a way for them to pass the time. Some kids are voracious readers. For example, I had one kid, Miguel, who had almost thirty books in his cell; I mean all kinds of books too, like The Hobbit. Miguel had books that most people would not think a kid in jail would be interested in reading - but he was. 

--- Stay tuned for next week's installment in this interview series with Dr. Joseph B. Richardson, Jr., where he discusses ways in which Street Lit/Urban Fiction has impacted the reading practices of the youth he works with. --

VIDEO: The Stories Are Real & Worthy To Be Told

Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City - Fault Lines - Al Jazeera English

Baltimore: Anatomy of an American City - Fault Lines - Al Jazeera English

Sorry, I could not embed the video. However, I do hope you click over to this story. It is an important read. The comments on this story are worth a look, also. Note: the video is 24:11. Worth the time.

Short Film Debut: REDEMPTION, For Colored Boys

If you are a fan of "The Wire" you will love this short film series by award-winning filmmaker, Stacey Muhammad!

You can purchase the film plus a bonus film for just $10 USD via PayPal at: http://www.staceymuhammad.com/.

This film would be a great addition to any library video collection. Enjoy!

Guest Post #2: Living In A Mayoral Police State

Living in a Mayoral Police State: The Violence and Intimidation that Underlies New York's Emergence as a City for the Global Elite

by Mark Naison, Ph.D.

No matter where you com from, New York is a great city if you have money. There are great universities and medical centers, unmatched theater dance and music, fantastic restaurants and cafes open all hours of the day and night, cool hip neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens, where you can sample the global counterculture, terrific architecture, beautiful parks, and interesting ethnic neighborhoods, if you are adventurous. 

But it is a very different city if you are poor, or a young person living in the hyper-segregated working class neighborhoods that cover half of Brooklyn and Queens and nearly all of the Bronx. 

Image source: www.skyscrapercity.com

There, the city's thug police force, unchecked by the law or the Constitution, systematically harass and intimidate young people through relentless searches, through armed sweeps of neighborhoods and occasionally of schools, and by the fierce and sometimes deadly application of force not only to major acts of resistance, but innocent, peaceful questioning of police tactics and motives. The result: young people of color walk in fear in the neighborhoods where they live and in the schools they attend, and rarely dare to enter the prosperous neighborhoods where the global elite live, work, eat and enjoy the city's unmatched cultural opportunities. 

And this is exactly what the Mayor wants. A city where the working class majority is beaten, cowed, and fearful, providing the labor that keeps the global elite playground humming, but never disturbs that elite's reveries with their presence. Control is the key to Michael Bloomberg's New York, control of the streets through an overpowering police presence, control of the schools through a regime that uses testing and evaluation to compel obedience, not only on the part of the students, but of teachers and administrators as well. 

Will this regime of control last? Time will tell. The Occupy Movement has made a small crack in this facade of omnipotence, but the Mayoral Police State, reinforced by the "War on Drugs" and the so-called "War on Terror" is confident, wealthy and deeply entrenched, and it will take a much higher level of protest than we have seen this far to bring even a modicum of democracy and human rights to the working people of this global metropolis.

Mark Naison, Ph.D.
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
------------------------------------------------------------

Author Bio: Dr. Mark Naison, Ph.D., is Professor of African American Studies and History at Fordham University (NY) where his course, "From Rock & Roll to Hip Hop: Urban Youth Cultures in Post War America," is extremely popular.. Mark is also Director of the Bronx African American History Project at Fordham. An acclaimed advocate for social justice and education, Mark also publishes op-ed columns in The Washington Post. His book, White Boy, A Memoir (2002) holds a 5-star status on Amazon.com.

Connect with Mark:
Facebook: Mark Naison
Twitter: @McFireDogg
Blog: With A Brooklyn Accent
Wikipedia: Mark D. Naison

Note: This blog article is also available at: 
http://withabrooklynaccent.blogspot.com/2012/02/living-in-mayoral-police-state-violence.html

Video: OccupyEducated.org Creates Online Library for Occupy Movement

Greetings: I realize that I've been posting a lot of videos of late, but I share what comes. Lately, a lot of things relevant to street literature have been visual in nature. I believe this is a good thing, as I believe that video is just another form of text. This particular video is very poignant ... please take the time to view it at your earliest convenience ... Time: 03:49 //

This video was originally uploaded to YouTube: December 4, 2011

My 100th Post: A video, short-documentary, STREET BOOKS

Isn't it nice to know that there IS such a thing as a "Street Librarian"?

Isn't it great to know that EVERYBODY reads, regardless of ...?

Isn't it also wonderful to know that there is a website called streetbooks.org ...

Must WATCH!: Friends Group Sponsors 'Back to School Night' program

Thank you to Jeff Bullard, Library Coordinator at the Free Library of Philadelphia for sharing this awesome video.

New Listen: The Roots, 'undun' - a life on the streets

This album .... beyond words ... it will move you in every way. Period.

Featured on NPR:http://www.npr.org/2011/11/28/142873013/first-listen-the-roots-undun

The Roots

Album drops December 6, 2011. It is a must-have to any library collection (I know it's ranked explicit - still order it, I say), and to everyone's personal music collection.

(I actually used to do this as a kid growing up in the ghetto. - Vanessa Irvin Morris)

Reviews for 'undun':

Billboard: "The Roots Go Concept On New Album 'undun'" by Keith Murphy at:
http://www.billboard.com/column/the-juice/the-roots-go-concept-on-new-album-undun-1005571552.story#/column/the-juice/the-roots-go-concept-on-new-album-undun-1005571552.story

HipHopDX: "The Roots Release Full Album Stream of 'undun'" by Steven J. Horowitz at:
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.17262/title.the-roots-release-full-album-stream-of-undun

Glide Magazine: "The Roots - undun" by Nick Gunther at:
http://www.glidemagazine.com/articles/57886/the-roots.html#com

For more on The Roots:

Website: http://theroots.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TheRoots

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/theroots

Twitter: @questlove | @theroots | #undun

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roots

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.