I am a senior at Sonoma State University with a minor in Sociology. If there is one thing that my class in Social Movements and Collective Behaviors has taught me, it is that I have a voice and it needs to be shared. Which is why I find myself truly in awe of the Occupy Movement.

A social movement for Equality and Justice is the title that the Occupy Movement has received for their efforts in trying to change America, yet in spite of their good intentions they have failed to inform a majority of those who fall under the category of “99%.”

The Occupy movement seeks to awaken people to the fact that poorly regulated banks and corporations associated with Wall Street are unsustainable institutions, whose economic and political power is at direct odds with democracy in America. They are fighting for the 99% of us who call ourselves Americans, who get up every morning to work for “The Man,” and those who have been unemployed because a recession caused by the 1%. And while their inspiring intentions are moving and worth starting a revolution for, but their calls to change have fallen on deaf ears of the majority of those who fall under the 99%.

The people whose lives it most affects have no idea about what Occupiers stand for and even worse some people did not even know it was going on. Myself included, I was unaware of the movement until I came to college and even then the only information I had received on the Occupy Movement was from twisted news reports that made the movement seem violent and disorganized.

It was not until I attended a Sociology class based on the sociology of social movements that I truly learned about this movement and all of the great ideas it stood for. I wanted to know more about the movement, and when I questioned my peers on the subject of Occupy, to my surprise, they had little to no idea about what the movement was about.

“It has to do with something in Wall Street," one of them said.

But even those answers were delivered with shaky voices of uncertainty. That was the only answer I could get about a movement that affects all of their lives? I went as far as asking my mother, who I think is a rather well educated individual, about how she felt about the Occupy Movement and all she said, “The Occupy Movement sounded really great and I thought it was going to bring some really needed change to America, but then it just died out.”

Died out? That is when it hit me that the Occupy Movement, although well intentioned, needs to find a way to reach more people. educating fellow peers on that fact that they even exist.

A revolution needs to be talked about; it has to be on every tongue, thought, and heart in every thought and in each heart. We all have to spread the word about the real change that can take place in America if we all just have a little faith.

Those who “know” need to speak, and those who speak need to inform. It takes everyone pulling in the same direction in order for this Occupy Movement to live up to its full potential. No, the Occupy Movement has not died; it is still growing and just as strong.

The only difference is now, the 1% is scared of what we could actually do. Only when we educate our fellow peers will we truly be able to “Occupy.”