The Fight for Student Debt Relief Started a Decade Ago--at Occupy Wall Street
Biden may cancel billions in student loans. The nations first debtors union helped make that possible.
HANNAH LEVINTOVA JULY+AUGUST 2022 ISSUE
As a 28-year-old art student, Thomas Gokey convinced the Federal Reserve to give him bags of shredded currency worth $49,983, the exact amount of his ballooning student loan debt. He had a plan to use the minced cash to make a work of art that would both symbolize his loans and help to pay them off: He pulped the scraps, turned the paste into four enormous sheets of paper, and began offering piecemeal sales$4.22 a square inch.
In 2011, when the artwork was accepted by an annual competition in Michiganthe American Idol of art, as he describes itthat had been founded by the son of billionaire heir (and future Education Secretary) Betsy DeVos, Gokey saw another shot at paying off the debt. Up until then, he hadnt found a lot of buyers willing to purchase bits of his loans, but he did start having conversations with people about their own debt, and about debts role in society. Hed also read anthropologist David Graebers new opus on the topic; Gokey found it a secret decoder ring unveiling how debt enshrines divides of gender, race, and class.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/06/biden-student-debt-cancellation-occupy-wall-street-collective/