Black Demonstrators Launch OCCUPY THE HOOD

You’ve seen Occupy Wall Street, but have you heard of Occupy The Hood?

If Malik Rhasaan and Ife Johari Uhuru have anything to do with it, you won’t be able to escape it in the coming months.

Fed up with a lack of African American  and Latino support and participation in the Occupy movement, Rhasaan launched the @OccupyTheHood twitter account, and has already seen its followers grow to a whopping 3,500 in a very short amount of time.

And that number is steadily rising, thanks to support from some high profile figures and a concept that feels long overdue.

Rhasaan spoke with Loop21:

“‘It was a news story and I’ve always been interested in what’s going on in our country,’ Rhassan said via phone from the protests, where a police officer had asked him to move along. ‘I was just going down and really, just being nosy to see how honest it was. I realized there was a solid movement but that there weren’t enough black and Latinos.'”

And later:

“Though he does not want to take away from the core efforts of Occupy Wall Street, Rhasaan forsees, ‘using this as an springboard to address other things, whether it be crime or health issues in our communities. But we in the inner-city doesn’t know how this pertains to us. We don’t tie our issues to Wall Street.'”

Check out Loop21’s article and interview with the founders of @OccupyTheHood, and be sure to check these guys out on Twitter.

We think this is a phenomnenal idea!