Nelson Mandela, the revolutionary South African political leader, one said “Our human compassion binds us the one to the other – not in pity or patronizingly, but as human beings who have learnt how to turn our common suffering into hope for the future.”. By my thinking, Mandela words directly speak to the freedom project African Americans, writ large, have been involved and invested in since the beginnings of our experience in this country. It has been the great task of our people to look squarely at the redundancy of our mistreatment and yet choose to conclude that something revolutionary can come out of something so repulsive.
The burden of hope is not in the idea or feeling itself but rather in sustaining it in the face of that which mitigates against it. Truth of the matter is that hope is often attractive enough to reach for but not always as convenient to cling to. Those desirous of progress are often dissuaded from pushing toward it because the struggles that surround us are more convincing. Those who have deeply invested their belief in advancement only to get disappointment in return can testify to the difficulty of staring into the darkness, being surrounded by it and yet believing that there can be light.
This is the backdrop for them moment many of our brothers and sisters find themselves in. By the time this article will be printed, Brionna Taylor’s murderers will have not been brought up on charges. Citizens of the city of Louisville (and around this country) will have protested in fits of frustration, reacting in righteous indignation to the insouciance that Black life is given in this country. Black median wealth will still be six times lower than White median wealth, our communities remain overpoliced while our schools remain underfunded & the blatancy of white supremacy is only being outdone by the blindness created by white privilege. A critical view of the landscape could cause the most committed citizen of color, the most hopeful of person, to evacuate their hopefulness and give in to the sensibility of pessimism. So much so, to where many of us labor to find the emotional fortitude to act in the name of our own benefit.
The person that promotes the idea that voting is pointless, that doing so changes nothing and that things will always be as they are, has adopted this problematic perspective because of the problems in their lives that persists. Their despondency drives much of that dialogue and recurrently results in frustration fueled function; conduct that makes things worse instead of better.
As we get closer and closer to November, our collective challenge must be to leave room for our real, human moments of anger, anguish, grief & nonfulfillment while, simultaneously, not allowing them to make us believe that there cannot be more for us than what we have now. We must remind ourselves that no matter how deep the darkness may be, it always gives way to light; that even in the face of our brokenness, things can be better than what they are right now.
It is an effort of contradiction to suggest that African Americans deserve better without believing that we cannot or will not ever have it. To not have a mindset convinced and committed to change, paralyzes our power and prostrates our posture at the polls. That mindset emanates in who (and what) we end up electing. Of course you can vote for whoever and what ever you want. But, when we begin to convince ourselves that our highest freedom dreams can become reality, when we believe in better, we want whoever and whatever we vote for. To believe in better for ourselves, our community & our country moves us from simply going to the ballot and voting against something to affirmatively voting for something.
We fail ourselves and our people when we give our vicissitudes victory over our worldview. Might we who are endowed with the blessed beauty of Blackness, those who have been majestically melinated by our Messiah, be committed to the life practice of never settling for what we have at the expense of what can yet become. It is a controversial truth that with each passing generation, the significant sacrifice that those who came before us made cannot be the exclusive reason we go out and vote. Our deep desire to have what we deserve, our unacceptance of that which has become unbearable, should push us to the polls to operate in concert with what a God of justice and righteousness would be most pleased with.
We do not have to wait. We cannot afford to wait. We can create the world we want to live in. But it starts with being brave enough to choose hope in the midst of our hurt. It starts with a belief in better.
