At the “Boston University Occupies Boston Teach-in” Wednesday night, five BU professors weighed in on the American financial market – not from an economic standpoint, but from a social one.
“This rising inequality is very real in American society,” said BU social science professor Susan Lee. “It’s not just unfair, it’s also a problem economically. Where there’s so much money stuck at the top, money does not circulate.”
The teach-in, which addressed 25 students in COM 101, featured Lee and sociology professor Ruha Benjamin, law and philosophy professor David Lyons, theology professor Walter Fluker and political science professor Cathie Jo Martin as panelists
“The term ‘teach-in’ is a throwback to the days of my youth when I was on the other end of teach-ins! I’m tickled pink to be one of the teachers now,” Lee said via email.
During the panel, Lee presented facts, figures and graphs that support Occupy’s claim that there is a large amount of money at the top that doesn’t circulate throughout the economy.
Benjamin compared the Occupy movement to social movements of the past, such as the Poor People’s Movement, the student sit-ins of the 1960s and the Freedom Writers.
“Among the many challenges successful social movements face, the one I’m most concerned about is long-term solidarity,” Benjamin said.
Before the panel, Lyons said he agreed to speak because he believes that the Occupy movement is important.
“As it happens, my work in moral, political and legal philosophy concerns among other things justice, democracy and political resistance,” Lyons said. “These converge with the main concerns of the Occupy movement.”
Lyons said before the Teach-In that he hoped attendees would leave with a greater understanding of the issues.
“It’s often difficult to incorporate discussion of political issues in class, and events like the Teach-In provide an opportunity for us to address them,” Lyons said.
Lee said that the Occupy movement has raised awareness about the increasing burden of student loan debt on college students and recent graduates, an issue that she said struck her personally.
The audience members should become aware of themselves and the events surrounding them, Flucker said.
“What we’re witnessing is a worldwide revolution of consciousness,” Fluker said.
Martin spoke about the broken economic system in America and said the powers that be should take some cues from a number of European countries that are doing “infinitely better.”
“The big public sectors in these countries are actually great sources of support in crises,” Martin said. “Coordination, the great virtue of the European model, seems increasingly difficult to attain.”
College of Arts and Sciences junior Demarius Walker said he appreciated the wide spectrum of experiences that each speaker brought to the panel.
“It’s nice to see this generation participating in this discussion,” Walker said.
Anna Kelsey, a CAS sophomore and a member of BU Occupies Boston, helped organize the panel.
We wanted “to spread awareness of the movement,” she said. “[and] to address some of the misconceptions of the movement.”
BU Occupies Boston did not determine the professors’ topic agenda for the evening, she said.
“We wanted them to talk about what they’re interested in,” Kelsey said. “The audience was really engaged. People could have kept talking, which is always good.”
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