I woke up Saturday thinking, 'Maybe it was all a dream. Maybe there wasn't an inauguration yesterday. Maybe there's hope left for this country.' But no, it wasn't. And yes, there was. Still, regardless of those facts, there is always room left for hope.
I purposefully did not watch any news coverage yesterday. I avoided social media and listened to CD's in my car rather than the radio. I didn't want to hear any of the details of the catastrophe that was unfolding in our nations capitol. But I can't avoid it forever. So today I broke down and turned on the news.
Instead of a pretentious, overblown, tasteless, megalomaniacal dictator I saw crowds marching. I saw pink knit pussyhats en masse. I saw hordes gathered across the country as well as around the world marching in solidarity against tyranny. I saw men, women, and children together waving banners declaring that 'LOVE TRUMPS HATE'. It was a reminder to me that the good thing about bad things is how they draw communities together. Bad things by their very nature give birth to good things.
But good things aren't instantaneous. Tolerance arrives over time and is often spurred on by a
catalyst. In 1872 Susan B. Anthony was
arrested and fined for voting in a public election. This catapulted the women’s suffrage movement
and led to the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a landmark
decision in the case of Brown v. Board of Education eliminating “separate but
equal” statutes and paving the way for the eventual fall of segregation. In 1958 Richard and Mildred Loving, an
interracial couple who were legally married in Washington D.C., were arrested in the
state of Virginia for the crime of cohabitation. Nine years later the U.S. Supreme Court
ruled that the Virginia law used against the Lovings was, in fact, unconstitutional citing Brown v.
Board of Education as precedent. Now, 50 years later, Loving v. Virginia was itself used as a precedent in a new
battle, this time for gay marriage. Because
of the Lovings’ fight for equal rights for all citizens, same sex couples are
now free to marry. While
these individual events in no way display the entirety of the journey and
struggle towards freedom, they do provide an example, and inspiration, calling
all of us to think better, see better, and do better for our society.
Much like today's global protests, we consistently see examples of diverse groups of
individuals working together for the betterment of the community. Wherever a natural disaster occurs,
individuals gather to help one another, neighbor to neighbor, to respond and
rebuild. During health crises, medical
organizations worldwide share information and resources to heal the sick,
protect the healthy, and ebb the spread of disease. In towns across America citizens gather in
common causes to take back the night, end hunger, quell gang violence, or
protest injustice in their communities and governments. It is by the sheer determination of those feeling disenfranchised
that each generation creates a society more accepting and tolerant than before.
And so we march. We raise our voices. We still live in a country where religious
places of worship are vandalized or burned, where women are paid less than men
for equal work, where minorities are saddled with failing educational
institutions and few career prospects.
There are still veterans who fought to defend this country only to end
up homeless and forgotten. We still
battle the lack of support and treatment for those with mental illnesses. We've been saddled with an administration that encourages discrimination and abuse. All of these conditions exist, and may
continue to exist for some time. Bad things happen quickly. Good things take time. In
order to progress as a nation, it's up to We The People to continue to stand together for what we believe in. We cannot rest on complacency. Democracy
and progress only triumph when individuals are given a platform, a voice, and
the opportunity to instigate change.
So there IS hope. There is always hope. We stand together to show our children the real meaning of solidarity. I fear that the next four years will be among the hardest that this nation has faced. But face it we will. We will not back down and we will not compromise. We will teach our children about love and acceptance. And if we try hard enough we might just create a little good out of the bad.
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