Hello. My name is Krissy Gibbs. I was at the General Strike. I was among the first two hundred people to arrive at the port. What I saw there changed my life. I am part of the 99%. But I am also part of the 5%. I believe in the Occupy movement. I think that it needs to continue and grow. I think it needs to be done through peaceful means only. I grew up in extreme poverty. I was homeless. I stole food to eat. I am a survivor of incest and rape. I had a very hard life. I moved more than 50 times before I was 18. I went to 25 schools before dropping out of high school at 16. I went to graduate school and I taught high school for three years before having children. Now I’m upper class because I married someone who is the son of the 1%. My life was changed because of an accident. When I was five years old I was attacked by a pit bull. The money was wisely invested because my lawyer was the father of my life long best friend. He knew my mother would have wasted the money. He put it in trust for me until I was 18. Then he gave me $1200 every month between the ages of 18 and 30. I turned 30 this year. On my 30th birthday I fretted and fretted about what to do with the money. You see, I got the last check. $35,000 It’s a lot of money for someone with my childhood. An insane amount of money. An amount of money that could have made every dream I had then possible. Because I was that poor. My needs were that simple. Now, I had to try to come up with some ridiculous over the top wasteful way to spend it. Because all of my needs are met. I have extra. I don’t know what to do with it. I want to spend this money on something that is just for me. I’ll tell the truth and say that some of it is gone. My best friend got married in Scotland and that was not an opportunity I could ignore. I have $20,000 left. I want to use that money to repair some of the damage done by vandals in my name. I am Occupy Oakland. I am the General Strike. I apparently fucked up and broke something. I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to. I hope this is enough to cover the damages, and if it isn’t, I’ll ask some of my friends if they have any I can borrow. I think they can. They all have enough too.
Krissy Gibbs
PS: I will be emailing this to the Oakland Mayor, Oakland PD, Well’s Fargo, and Chase. I am not sure to whom I should address the check.
Wow. Equal parts of me are totally blown away by your enthusiasm and generosity, and by your choice to spend the money on repairing the damage (which is probably already covered by insurance). There are just so many needs that the movement and protesters have to keep things going… And, honestly, I assume you must have thought about them a lot. I’m very curious though why you think that is the most important thing. (I wrote my comment on the post below before I read this on, btw). I have very strong feelings about this, but I hope this comment comes off as respectful, because it is intended to be – it’s your choice, obviously, and probably the money will help OWS no matter where it’s directed.
OTOH, I wonder if it’s possible that some of the charges against the arrested might be dropped if the damage is paid for…I’d like to think that could be a far-flung potential outcome of this.