Organizing Principles for 99 Percent Clubs

99 Percent Clubs can be organized at your school, at your workplace, in your home, at your neighborhood community or senior  center or in your church, synagogue or mosque,  Here are four simple organizing principles for these clubs

1. To disseminate accurate information about the Occupy movements in the US and around the world.

2. To provide material support ( which may  in the form of food and clothing, legal assistance,  or pressure on elected officials) to the Occcupy movement in your own city and town

3. To organize around economic inequality issues and threats to freedom of expression where you live and/or where you work.

  4. To create networks among people who support the Occupy movement that enable them to mobilze support for demonstrations organized by that movement.
 
The strength of these clubs is that they allow people a wide variety of situations , including those who are homebound or disabled, to participate in the Occupy movement.

Mark Naison and Ira Shor

Protests and Elections in the Great Depressions- Some Useful Examples for the Occupy Movements

Just to set the record straight on the Left's role in elections during the Great Depression. The Communist Party, the most important force organizing mass protest during the 1930's, did not support FDR, even indirectly, at the polls until 1936. Between 1929 and 1935, the Communist Party ran its own candidates for office, virtually none of whom won elections, while concentrating the vast majority of its energies on organizing people in their workplaces and communities for protest activities ranging from resistance to evictions and foreclosures, to hunger marches on charities and government agencies,to protests against lynching and Jim Crow, and to strikes, boycotts and campaigns for union recognition.

These protests some of which attracted hundreds of thousands of people nationwide, some of which brought whole cities (eg. San Francisco, Minneapolis) to a standstill, helped create a climate where the Roosevelt Administration had to provide cash and work relief to the jobless, institute unemployment insurance and old age pensions, and provide legal protection for workers seeking recognition of their unions



Of course, the Communist Party and other radical organizations were hardly the only forces organizing the working class during those years. Labor unions, unaffiliated with the Communist or Socialist Parties mobilized in behalf of progressive, pro union candidates, the vast majority of whom were Democrats, helping assure not only multiple terms of office for FDR, but a Congress that for the most part- at least from 1933-1938, was willing to pass progressive legislation

But there was an informal division of labor. The "grunt work" of organizing Depression Era protests- at least until 1936- was done by radicals who for the most part eschewed, or de emphasized electoral politics

I think we need a comparable division of labor now, with the Occupy forces building the mass protest movement and others mobilizing for local and national elections

Mark Naison
November 29, 2011



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"That's My Story and I'm Sticking to It"-More on Occupy Wall Street and Elections

If allies of the Occupy movements-particularly labor unions- want to get involved in electoral politics, that would be certainly advance the movements long term goals.

But for the movement itself to link itself to the Democratic Party, or to support President Obama's re-election campaign would undermine its moral force, dissipate its energy and destroy the very "visionary" quality that has energized a generation of young people previously regarded as apathetic or hopelessly materialistic ( Miley Cyrus, for God's sake, has just produced a video supporting the occupations)

Supporting the Obama re-election campaign, in particular, would be the death knell of the Occupy movements.

This is a President whose Secretary of Education just handed off responsibility for teacher recruitment to Microsoft, who is responsible for deporting more immigrants than George W Bush, and under whose watch Democratic mayors and college presidents unleashed a level of force on peaceful Occupy protests comparable to what Southern segregationists used on Civil Rights demonstrators in the early 60's

He is a President of the 1 Percent, just like his predecessor, and the Occupy movements need to hammer home that fact day in day out even while some of their allies mobilize the vote for him.

I think the abolitionist analogy is interesting, but I take a long view

Using the analogy of the anti-slavery movement, I think we are in the 1830's not the 1850's. It took 30 years for American Plutocracy to develop into the political juggernaut it is now, and it may take 30 years to dismantle it. The last thing we need is for forces who dream of a more just social order to compromise those dreams now by relinquishing mass protest for involvement in an electoral process corrupted by big money.

The Occupy movements should retain their role as the conscience of the progressive movement, and as the voice of a newly politicized generation who realize that their future is dismal unless they make huge changes in the way the society is organized

To quote a famous country song "That's my Story and I'm Sticking to It"

Mark Naison

Why Occupy Movements Unattached to Any Political Party Are The Only Hope for Real Change in a Frozen Social Order

Why Occupy Movements Unattached to Any Political Party Are The Only Hope for Real Change in a Frozen Social Order

Dr Mark Naison
Fordham University

Now that Occupy Movements are being evicted from public parks in cities throughout the country, almost invariably by Democratic mayors, many Democratic Party organizes and some labor activists are hoping the movement will fade away and concentrate its energies on electing progressive candidates for office and putting forth a progressive political agenda.

In my opinion, that would be a grave mistake. There are a bevy of important issues that given current political alignments, and the power of money in American politics, cannot be translated into a viable legislative agenda. It will take years of disruptive protest- strikes, boycotts, walkouts, sit ins and occupations- to place them on the national agenda and the only force in American society capable of employing those tactics for a sustained period is the Occupy movement.

Here are some key issues that neither party is willing to take on that the Occupy movement can influence if it keeps growing and becoming more diverse in the next five years.

1. The student loan crisis and the escalating cost of a college education. There is no way, without major disruptions of university life, and pressure on the banks, that student loan debt can be erased, or significantly reduced, and tuition at public colleges frozen or lowered. Until universities cannot carry on their normal business without making dramatic changes in looan collections and tuition charges, you can be sure elected officials won’t touch these issues with a ten foot pole.

2. The legalization of drugs and the release of non-violent drug offenders from the nation’s prisons. Given the powerful interests fighting any dismantling of the prison industrial complex-ranging from prison guards unions, to elected officials in communities where prisons are located, to corporations who benefit from cheap prison labor, it will require massive social movements, to force states, localities, and eventually the federal government, to end the irrational arrest and imprisonment of people who sell drugs no more dangerous than alcohol or prescription medications.

3. The dismantling of a domestic police state apparatus which uses advanced weaponry and intrusive surveillance technology to suppress dissent and control and intimidate minority and working class youth. The weapons that were used against Occupy demonstrators in Oakland, at Zuccotti Park and at UC Davis have been used for many years against minority youth to prevent them from inhibiting the gentrification and re-segregation of American societies and to assure order in schools and communities stripped of resources. Libertarians, civil rights organizations, and a growing Occupy movement can create an alliance to undermine the domestic police state. The two major parties will never do it without immense outside pressure.

4. A moratorium on foreclosures and the passage of legislation to allow arts groups, youth groups, affordable housing organizations and advocates for the homeless to occupy abandoned commercial and residential space in America’s towns and cities. Such actions will only be taken if Occupy groups and their allies make foreclosures difficult, and begin occupying abovementioned properties in such numbers that it will be counterproductive for authorities to evict them. There is no way elected officials will take such steps without being presented with a “fait accompli” by protesters.

5. A radical reformation of the tax system that places the burden of taxation on the 1 Percent and reduces taxes on individuals and small businesses. There is no way, given current political alignments, and the vast power of corporate and Wall Street lobbies, that that such a revolution in the tax code could be legislated. But five more years of disruptive protest could change that Occupy movements have to create a scenario where the only path to restoring social order would be a revision of the tax burden to benefit ordinary citizens

These five policy areas are hardly the only ones which would require years of protest to attain-I am sure people reading this could identify issues in education, environmental protection, job creation and US military policy that would require movements of equal force to implement

But I have identified these five areas to show have far away we are from any real political change in this country through the two major parties We need grass roots social movements of such force that it will reinvent what is possible in mainstream American politics. The Occupy movements have started such a process. It would be a shame if they prematurely embraced the electoral process rather than pushing protests activity to much higher levels

Thanksgiving Message to My Fordham Family

To My Fordham Family

On the morning of this day of celebration, I want to take the opportunity to thank you for the privilege of teaching you, working with you, and counting you as friends.

Thanks to you, I get up every day fired to go to work, inspired to learn new things, and hopeful of applying what I have learned to creating a more just society and a more peaceful world.

Don't worry. I have no plans to retire any time soon! But I just had to express my gratitude to all of you because you are in large part responsible for my having a life so filled with joy and meaning

One final thing. When I came to Fordham in 1970, Columbia was the biggest center of student activism in New York City. But that is no longer the case. During the latest round of demonstrations associated with Occupy Wall Street, Fordham was more visible than Columbia!

I am very proud of that, and very proud of all of you

Happy Thanksgiving

Love, Dr Naison

It’s Time to Start “ 99 Percent Clubs” at Your School or in Your Neighborhood to Support the Occupations

If you part of a large and growing number of Americans who support the Occupy movement, but may or may not be able to “Occupy” yourself, you might want to form a 99 Percent Club at your school, your workplace or in your neighborhood, to organize financial, legal and political support for the Occupy movement and educate people in your community about what it stands for.

The idea for these 99 Percent Clubs came from renowned educator Ira Shor and they are modeled on the “Friends of SNCC” organization that mobilized support for the non violent Southern civil rights movement in the early 1960’s. Given that the Occupy movement is under assault from elected officials and university presidents around the country, and that people in this movement, like their counterparts in the southern civil rights movement, face arrest and beatings, along with more modern police weaponry such as pepper spray and rubber bullets, it is definitely time to create a support group to raise funds and educate the public about these brave activists

A 99 Percent Club is one vehicle that can do just that. We have called for a first meeting of such a club at Fordham and the response, from students, alumni, and staff has been overwhelming. Our Fordham group does not have a program- just a commitment to support the Occupations. So far, nearly 30 people are committed to attend

Occupy Wall Street and its counterparts around the nation have put the questions of economic inequality on the nation’s agenda for the first time since the 1960’s. And the response from policy makers has been ferocious as that of southern segregationists confronting a challenge to their way of life

It’s time for Americans who support the goals of the Occupy Movement,even if they don’t feel they can participate in it directly, to mobilize in support of popular democracy and economic justice. Forming 99 Percent Clubs is one way to do so.

If you would like to start a 99 Percent Club in your area, please email Ira Shor at irashor@comcast.net with a cc to me at Naison@fordham.edu

Dr Mark Naison
Fordham University

Why Non Violent Guerilla Warfare Should be OWS Preferred Strategy

If we have learned anything in the last week, it is that the Occupy movements have NO friends in high places. Liberal mayors and university presidents, with the tacit if not open encouragement of the Obama White House, have used police violence against non violent Occupiers on level comparable to what Bull Connor used against civil rights protesters in Birmingham and Jim Clark used against voting right marchers in Selma. So wedded are they to trickle down economics and protecting the privileges of the very wealthy that they have used little more than raw intimidation to suppress the first redistributionist movement in the US since the Great Depression. Given the virtually unanimous determination of elites to defend the status quo, OWS should find ways of embedding itself among middle class and working class communities, organize quick effective protests then disperse- essentially following the strategy of the Viet Cong in Southeast Asia while maintaining strict non violence.

We can learn a lot from Vo Ngyen Giap, the brilliant history teacher turned military strategist of the Vietnamese Revolution, even though our weapons are ideas not guns. Like our Vietnamese brothers and sisters, we are engaged in a protracted struggle against very powerful enemies, and it may take ten or 20 years to achieve any of our major goals. But we cannot be discouraged by the difficulty of the taskS we face. Our cause is just and with patience, hard work, and continuous revision of our tactics in response to changed conditions we will eventually prevail.

What Occupy Wall Street Has Accomplished in Two Short Months

What Occupy Wall Street Has Accomplished in Two Short Months

Mark Naison
Fordham University


Many people in the media, as well as many citizens, complain that Occupy Wall Street has no leaders and no goals. While Occupy Wall Street and its spinoffs around the nation have certainly not developed “leaders” who articulate its goals to the media or negotiate with public officials, it has already registered a formidable list of accomplishments for a movement this young

Here is my list of some of the important things this movement has done, with more to come as it grows and matures

1 Put the question of economic inequality in the center of national discourse for the first time since the 1960’s, even though such inequality has been growing dramatically for the last 20 years. The vocabulary the movement has developed to describe this inequality “ the 1 % and the 99%” have become a permanent part of our political discourse and has focused great attention on how the mal distribution of wealth has undermined democracy and eroded the living standards of the great majority of Americans


2 Called attention to the stifling impact of student loan debt on young college, professional and trade school graduates who face the double whammy of a stagnant job market and crippling debt. The attention given this issue inspired President Obama to marginally ease the loan burden of current recipients. In the future, it might well prompt a radical reconfiguration of the debt or a major program of loan forgiveness

3. Created political pressures that prompted the postponement of a decision by President Obama to begin construction of the controversial Keystone XL natural gas pipeline

4 Inspired a wide variety of actions to prevent foreclosures and evictions and to bring relief to beleaguered home owners and tenants

5. Put the undemocratic character of many education reform policies, particularly school closings, under much greater scrutiny, creating pressures on policy makers that will make these closings much more difficult to implement them without more consultation and input from parents, students, teachers and community members

6. Given the labor movement a new vocabulary to challenge attacks on collective bargaining and union recognition, providing added ammunition to the successful campaign to defeat an anti-collective bargaining bill in the state of Ohio.

7 Focused attention on the issue of police brutality and the militarization of urban police forces in ways that reinforces longstanding complaints of police misconduct and abuse in Black and Latino communities

This would be an impressive list of accomplishment for a movement that has lasted two years. But Occupy Wall Street has only been with us for two months!

November 16, 2011

Thoughts About the Bloomberg Dictatorship While OWS Is Under Attack

Occupy Wall Street is Under Attack by a huge force while the subways have been closed, along with the Brooklyn Bridge


Here are some key components of the Bloomberg policies that might explain what the Mayor has to take such extreme measure to crush dissent




1. Subsidize luxury housing in Brooklyn and Manhattan and concentrate all afforable housing in the hyper-segregated sections of the Bronx and East New York


2 Undermine public education by closing schools over the opposition of parents students teachers and community members and replace them with charter schools that promote rote learning, obedience and militarized discipline for the children of the poor


3 When when a movement finally arises that challenges the Mayor's plan to turn Manhattan and parts of North Brooklyn into a city for the wealthy of the globe at the expense of the city's working class, middle class and poor who live in the outer boroughs,you close the bridges and subways, bar the press and crush that movement with Riot Police, pepper spray, water hoses.


Not since 9/11 have the police of this city been mobilized to this degree!!!


And for what?


Democracy has been under attack in this city for some time. Now even the illusion of Democracy has been removed


Resist, Resist. Resist

A Novel Coming Your Way in April

PURE BRONX Synopsis

Pure Bronx is the story of a young couple from the South Bronx trying to make it out of the ghetto and have a taste of the prosperity middle class Americans take for granted. Khalil, 21, is an intelligent, respectful young man forced into Heroin dealing by circumstance. Born and raised in the Patterson Houses, he is also the main provider for his mother, two younger brothers, younger sister and her two children. Rasheeda, 19, moved to the nearby Mitchell Houses when she was 8 and has fought her whole life to stay in school and not become a statistic. Now in college, she is struggling to make ends meet for her mother and younger brother as well as pay her tuition by stripping at a local club, Cheetahs. After falling behind in her tuition payments and getting suspended from work, Rasheeda breaks down in front of Khalil, revealing her intense hatred at having to strip to go to school. As a joke she suggests kidnapping her richest client, Robert Seidman, who also happens to be one of the wealthiest men on Wall Street. Powerless to help Rasheeda, Khalil takes her suggestions seriously and they hatch a plan with the help of Khalil’s friends Mamadoo and Juno to kidnap and ransom Seidman. However, after drugging him and hiding him out at Juno’s garage, they find out that Seidman has been involved in a Ponzi scheme this whole time. There is NO money and on top of that, Seidman’s wife is so betrayed she tells the kidnappers
they might as well kill him.


Action packed, set in the first year of Barack Obama's presidency, Pure Bronx is more than just a story of two kids that make it out of the ghetto. It’s a story of the Bronx and diverse people who make it what it is, including hustlers, gang bangers, immigrants, the working poor, and powerful interests trying to make money off its struggling people. But it also has a twist new to Street Literature- a secret organization that helps people in poor communities even the odds against those trying to exploit them, ignore them and push them aside. Khalil and Rasheeda have love on their side, but they also have the PJC, a mysterious organization headed by a Professor named Nelson Temple who knows how to beat the rich and the powerful at their own game.

My Theory About the Penn State Scandal

I have theory about the Penn State Scandal. I think that Joe P and the athletic director knew about Sandusky's awful sexual proclivities well before the rape in the shower, but were afraid to blow the whistle on him because he knew where
" the bodies were buried" in Penn State football- about the illegal inducements football recruits were given to come to Penn States, and the illegal payments ...they were given while playing for the school. These under the table payments-usually given by alumni- have been part of the fabric of big time college football for decades, but attract immediate retaliation from the hypocritical NCAA whenever they are publicly exposed. Given the threat of having seasons forfeited and bowl payments returned if Sandusky "came clean" the Penn State hierarchy chose to remain silent, even at the cost of the creation of new victims. To me, this is yet another example of the deep corruption at the root of big time college sports and yet another reason why college athletes in revenue producing sports should be paid for their services.

Mark Naison
November 10, 2011

Letter to the Teachers of PS 140 in the South Bronx

To The Teachers of PS 140

I want to thank you for your hospitality, your honesty, and your eloquent descriptions of the issues you face as educators during my presentation at your Professional Development Day. It confirmed my conviction that the teaching staff of PS 140 provides a model of integrity, resilience, creativity and commitment to students that those making education policy would do well to experience and observe first hand

No group in our society does a more difficult or important job than our public school teachers, and yet no group is more maligned and unjustly blamed for our society’s problems. The result, as you all know, is that creative teaching , and the mentoring and relationship building that accompanies all great teaching, is being undermined by excessive testing, and the imposition of “accountability” standards based on student test scores that put teachers, and school administrators, under enormous stress.

But not everyone agrees that teachers should be the nation’s punching bags! There is a growing number of people who feel that the work teachers are doing at schools like PS 140, which includes nurturing students, working with their families, and making the school a place where music, the arts, science and history thrive, are what real education is all about. There is a reason why I take people from all over the world to visit PS 140 when I am taking them on tours of the Bronx. Right here, in this school, in the poorest Congressional district in the nation, great things are taking place in every classroom and in a school community which embraces the culture and history of the neighborhood it is located in while trying to cope with the very real problems poverty creates for students and their families.

Someday, America will realize that this nation’s true heroes are teachers in schools like PS 140, people who work under daunting conditions, in the face of great public skepticism and a misguided obsession with high stakes testing, without every losing their passion for their jobs or their love for the children they work with

Please know that while I cannot change the direction of education policy in this city, this state, or the nation, I will stand up for you in every public forum I have access to and point to PS 140 as an example of a public school that is a true community institution and a place which keeps the best traditions of American Democracy alive as day to day practice

And also know that I will always be available to you to correspond, to talk, to visit your school and your classrooms and to help you fight for the respect you deserve, and you have earned

With Deepest Appreciation


Dr Mark Naison
Professor of African American Studies and History
Fordham University
Founder and Principal Investigator
The Bronx African American History Project

Why Teachers Must Become Community Organizers and Justice Fighters

Why Teachers Must Become Community Organizers and Justice Fighters

Mark Naison

There is a long history of Teacher Activism in the United States. In New York City, the tradition goes back to the late 1930s when teachers associated with the Communist Party and the New York City Teachers Union fought to have Negro History Month honored in the NYC Public schools, to force the replacement or reassignment of racist teachers and to challenge the placement of Black students in the lowest tracks and most decayed schools in a highly tracked school system. This legacy of anti-racist activism, always done in collaboration with civil rights organizations and community groups, lasted into the late 50’s when many of the most effective teacher activists were pushed out of the New York school system during the Cold War. This forgotten tradition is described in depth in Clarence Taylor’s new book" Reds and the Black Board: Communism, Civil Rights and the New York City Teachers Union "

After the old Teachers Union faded from the scene, another group of teacher activists, drawing upon a broad coalition of liberals, Socialists and moderate trade unionists,, won recognition for the United Federation of Teachers as official bargaining agent for New York City School teachers, winning them decent salaries , job security, and some level of freedom of expression inside and outside their schools. The UFT from its outset worked to improve conditions in schools for all students and supported the non violent civil rights struggle in the South and the North. Unfortunately in 1968, the UFT found itself engaged in a conflict with some community leaders in Harlem and Ocean Hill Brownsville during a series of brutal strikes challenging community control of school policies in those neighborhoods. These strikes not only created a fissure between UFT and civil rights organizations, it created fissures within the UFT between supporters and opponents of the strike that left a legacy of bitterness that lasted for years to come.

In the wake of that strike the UFT proved powerless to resist a devastating attack on the New York City Public schools orchestrated by bankers who dominated the Emergency Financial Board which took the city into financial receivership following the Fiscal Crisis of 1975. The Board of Education was forced by this unelected body to make budget cuts which closed down the world class music programs in the city’s junior high schools ( most junior high schools had upwards of 200 musical instruments which were lent out free of charge to anyone who had made their bands or orchestras) and ended the after school programs and night centers which were a fixture of every public school in the city in the 1940’s 1950’s and 1960’s. These programs were never fully replaced, leaving children in the city’s schools, from the late 1970s on, with far less in the way of arts and sports and after school mentoring than their parents generation had enjoyed in those very same schools

Nearly 40 years have passed since the Fiscal Crisis budget cuts and our public schools now face a challenge more insidious and perhaps, more formidable. All across the nation, a poisonous coalition of multi billionaire business leaders, test and technology companies, charitable foundations and elected officials are pushing a nationwide education agenda that involves the introduction of high stakes testing at all grade levels, evaluation of teachers and schools based on student test scores, and the introduction of “competition” into public education by the creation of independently managed charter schools given special advantages in funding and recruitment.

This Education Reform agenda, embraced by both the Bush and Obama Administrations and embodied in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top, represents a formidable assault on teachers hard won collective bargaining rights as well as their classroom autonomy and freedom of expression, but it also represents a devastating attack on children in America’s working class and poor communities at a time when our nation is experiencing a redistribution of wealth upward and a sharp increase in poverty levels. Not only does corporate education reform reduce schooling in the nation’s poor communities to test prep and obedience training , squeezing out critical thinking and the arts, it divides those communities against themselves by transforming charter schools into privileged enclaves which promise passage out of the neighborhood to a few lucky children and view the remaining public schools, and their students, with aversion and contempt.

Given the complex challenge corporate education reform poses, today’s teacher activists cannot just have a strategy which is solely school or teacher centered. They must become community organizers who fight school closings, the proliferation of tests, and the weakening of teacher bargaining rights as attacks on the ability of working class people and people of color to fight for better opportunities for themselves and their children. In this setting, Teacher Activists must put forth a vision of Radical Democracy which envisions an education which empowers students as critical thinkers and agents of historical change, not just as obedient test takers and which envisions schools playing a central role in neighborhoods united and mobilized to get a fair share of the nation’s resources. Occupy Wall Street has provided a language and an example to put that model of Radical Democracy into practice. But it cannot work unless teachers link their own fate to that of the students they work with and the people in the communities where their schools are located. Unless Teacher activists become community organizers and justice fighters in the broadest sense, they will lose the battle to defend their classrooms from the incursions of corporate interests..

You Down With O.D.D.? Notorious Phd’s Tribute to Oppositional Defiant Disorder

You Down With O.D.D.? Notorious Phd’s Tribute to Oppositional Defiant Disorder
You Down With O.D.D.? Notorious Phd’s Tribute to Oppositional Defiant Disorder




There’s a new term current in our society
For students who won’t respect authority
Ask questions, walk around, rock beats on the table
Oppositional Defiance Disorder will be your label


CHORUS
You down wit ODD
Yeah you know me
You down wit ODD
Every last homie
When schools become prisons
And testing’s all you see
Every student with heart
Should be ODD


If you doodle during tests or have poems in your head
They’re likely to expel you or drug you brain dead
Tupac, Nas and Biggie, Missy and JZ
They all would have been diagnosed ODD


CHORUS
You down wit ODD
Yeah you know me
You down wit ODD
Every last homie
When schools become prisons
And testing’s all you see
Every student with heart
Should be ODD


If we want to have justice in this nation
Then schools should join the Occupation
We can’t have a country that’s really free
Until most of our students become ODD


CHORUS
You down wit ODD
Yeah you know me
You down wit ODD
Every last homie
When schools become prisons
And testing’s all you see
Every student with heart
Should be ODD





There’s a new term current in our society
For students who won’t respect authority
Ask questions, walk around, rock beats on the table
Oppositional Defiance Disorder will be your label


CHORUS
You down wit ODD
Yeah you know me
You down wit ODD
Every last homie
When schools become prisons
And testing’s all you see
Every student with heart
Should be ODD


If you doodle during tests or have poems in your head
They’re likely to expel you or drug you brain dead
Tupac, Nas and Biggie, Missy and JZ
They all would have been diagnosed ODD


CHORUS
You down wit ODD
Yeah you know me
You down wit ODD
Every last homie
When schools become prisons
And testing’s all you see
Every student with heart
Should be ODD


If we want to have justice in this nation
Then schools should join the Occupation
We can’t have a country that’s really free
Until most of our students become ODD


CHORUS
You down wit ODD
Yeah you know me
You down wit ODD
Every last homie
When schools become prisons
And testing’s all you see
Every student with heart
Should be ODD