So, generally, among Black folks as a collective, there’s this belief in the people and in the capacity for change. But there’s also a realism that few others in America are willing to admit: that progress is nonlinear, often transactional, and it’s almost always partial. That for every advance, there’s a backlash. And that every law won must still be defended.
Even now, optimism sustains Black folks. Not because it’s easy or because we’ve forgotten the betrayals. But because we know what it means to endure without losing sight of the distance. And because we know what it costs to believe—and what it costs not to. Optimism, for us, has never been a naïve hope. It’s been a matter of survival and the only way forward.
I had a friend who was close to me for many years. In 1984 we were delegates to the dem. convention; she from Georgia, me from Virginia,
We were both pledged to Jackson, but I stubbornly refused to release my pledge, along with a few others from my delegation. Eventually five were permitted to abstain and I was escorted out of the convention.
Afterwards my friend and I spent last night in conversation. I was quitting I said, it was useless and the only path I saw was retreating. She (a black woman) who had been my closest friend and confident since we had met at a summer educational facility in 1964—-we broke up that night because I could not see any hope or path forward and she said almost exactly what you wrote.
But it took me another thirty-five years, or so, ever to believe in hope again. By that time she had died.
But even before I began to realize that I can’t hope or believe in increments. Now or never, act and react…I don’t know if that’s “white”…but it’s me.
Be eternally cognizant that "optimism" and "hope" are mind-killers.
ah yes. and so now I try to splash my face with doses of LookingNWords.
Without some connections to realism, optimism tends to reside somewhere in eternity but can never be reached.
That then becomes the despair we are left with, not hope, but foolhardiness and easily deceived into believing the ghost riders will come again.
Ah...but I think the raven said nevermore.
So, generally, among Black folks as a collective, there’s this belief in the people and in the capacity for change. But there’s also a realism that few others in America are willing to admit: that progress is nonlinear, often transactional, and it’s almost always partial. That for every advance, there’s a backlash. And that every law won must still be defended.
Even now, optimism sustains Black folks. Not because it’s easy or because we’ve forgotten the betrayals. But because we know what it means to endure without losing sight of the distance. And because we know what it costs to believe—and what it costs not to. Optimism, for us, has never been a naïve hope. It’s been a matter of survival and the only way forward.
I had a friend who was close to me for many years. In 1984 we were delegates to the dem. convention; she from Georgia, me from Virginia,
We were both pledged to Jackson, but I stubbornly refused to release my pledge, along with a few others from my delegation. Eventually five were permitted to abstain and I was escorted out of the convention.
Afterwards my friend and I spent last night in conversation. I was quitting I said, it was useless and the only path I saw was retreating. She (a black woman) who had been my closest friend and confident since we had met at a summer educational facility in 1964—-we broke up that night because I could not see any hope or path forward and she said almost exactly what you wrote.
But it took me another thirty-five years, or so, ever to believe in hope again. By that time she had died.
But even before I began to realize that I can’t hope or believe in increments. Now or never, act and react…I don’t know if that’s “white”…but it’s me.