Feeling ill-protected and ill-served? Make room for hope. Feeling gutted and disillusioned? Make room for hope. Feeling cut to the quick and disheartened? Make room for hope.
Our president is right, there is an audacity in hope. It is a hope in defiance of injustice. Indeed, it is a hope in defiance of the most deep fault at the founding of our nation - a crime against humanity so heinous the legacy haunts us to this very day. And yet still I say, “Make room for hope.”
Why hope in the shadow of that challenge? Why audaciously hope?
Well first, it is not an idle hope. Not a hope put in a bottle and set adrift. This is an active hope. A hope with justice in its sails and a course set for the prize. Confronted with fire hoses and dogs, confronted with raw hatred, this hope managed to sing spirituals and give voice to the words, "We shall overcome." This is a hope with steel in its spine. A hope powered by the dream of King and ever determined to put in the hard work.
In light of the failure, thus far, to hold to account those responsible for Eric Garner’s death, there can be no doubt that hard work lay ahead. Whatever shape that hard work may take, whether registering voters or marching on Washington, whether combating voter suppression or demanding civic engagement from the powers that be. Demanding the NYPD live up to the values it pledges to uphold: the pledge to "maintain a higher standard of integrity," the pledge "to respect the dignity of each individual," and the pledge "to value human life."
In the spirit of that active hope, we must commit ourselves to build a better day than yesterday for our families, our communities, and our country. The memorial to the lives of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and the lives of far too many others, that memorial cannot be chiseled of granite or cast in bronze. We must build that memorial in the striving of communities across the country for a more peaceful society, a more just society, and a more humane society.
-Jesse