Read on Twitter
Mariame Kaba ( @prisonculture) famously said that "Hope is a discipline" . . . I've learned, too, that hope is a thing that can take years to cultivate and experience. Hope can shape-shift, waxing and waning over time. And we don't all have to be hopeful about the same things.
There is also power in despair -- in becoming disaffected and disillusioned . . . in my experience, pessimism about some things can be a gateway to finding something new, different and true to be hopeful about.
An important part of my own discipline over the last years has been getting clear about what I am and am not hopeful about. This is a deeply personal, philosophical and political question that everyone who wants to make productive change must eventually grapple with and answer..
Becoming pessimistic about the ability of policing to provide safety is not really pessimism - it's reality. Becoming pessimistic about the ability of a racist nation to provide freedom is a necessary step in accepting reality--and an opportunity to explore new modes of freedom..
Pessimism about things that aren't going to work, can't work, have never worked is useful. Certain kinds of despair can be instructive and necessary for survival. I'm not optimistic about being able to put out fire with gasoline, for example. Pretty hopeful, though, about water.
The real danger is in believing that our despair about one thing (or many things) means that all possibility for hope has been exhausted. So, for me, the discipline is in committing to the search, even if it takes years. Even if it takes your entire life--and the next life, too.
