Hope

Here is a post from the post-election euphoria of November 2008. One year later I look back upon what I wrote then and I stand by these words now more than ever.

November 11, 2008

Last Tuesday, November 4, 2008 I stood along with 100 strangers at the offices of the Democratic Club of Camarillo and cried as I heard the acceptance speech of president-elect Barack Obama. I thought about my great grandmother and my grandmothers and what they would make of this moment. I thought of my father and his stories of attending segregated schools in the south during the 1950s. I thought of all that I have seen and heard in my 37 years that would allow me to become cynical and think that moments like this one would never arrive. And then I looked into the eyes of those around me and the 75,000 people sitting in Grant Park in Chicago and the billions around the world who stayed up through the middle of the night or awakened early in the morning to share in the moment. And the one word, the once idea or concept that emerged for me was hope. Its an important life defining concept for me; I end all of my books with the word hope, because I know that our humanity is ultimately tied to our willingness and our ability to hope.

But I also know that sometimes it is difficult to hold onto hope during dark times, when hope seems more like foolishness. When the cool people, the intellectuals, or those in power tell us to stop hoping and to start lowering our expectations for our lives and our worlds. And in my own dark moments I fall victim to this way of thinking. But standing in that office alongside people who have given so much time and energy to a cause that they believe in and thinking about my students at UCLA who have been so active and so energized, thinking about my own children and their chants from the bedroom I realized that it was time to permanently expunge the cynic, time to be openly and unabashedly hopeful. And so last Wednesday felt easy still high on life and the fumes of election night mania. One week later, though, I still feel it. I’m not ready to give it up. And maybe that does sound foolish, but I’d rather be a fool than an intelligent pessimist.

And what is so wrong with thinking that a small group of committed people can actually change the world? What is so wrong with thinking that maybe, in a small way, we already have?