Hope and Action
I started this blog as a way to continue the ideals of research papers I did in undergrad. Those papers gave you prompts to research and study, to come up with a thesis, and to defend that thesis. Along the way, you would learn about the issue and maybe even rework a thesis to account for newly learned information. You would have to sort information that you found based on relevance, bias, and accuracy. In writing about past events it can be a little easier to sort biases as hindsight is 20/20. We have the benefit of seeing things from the other side where the events have taken their due course and most of the information has come to light.
An unattributed media literacy tip I read the other day goes: “There are no facts about the future.” People like George Washington, James Madison, Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, etc. had no idea what the future would hold. The colonies, in fighting for their independence, had no way of knowing for sure that they would win and establish a country of their own. The United States was plunged into a Civil War that no one knew how it would end. Rosa Parks had no idea how much her actions would affect the whole nation. Those who marched for civil rights like Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis had no knowledge that their actions would lead to the Voting Rights Act being passed. All they had was hope and - in the words of Dr. King - “a dream”.
Dr. King’s words are powerful and echo through time because of their indelible nature. The dream Dr. King speaks of addresses salient issues of his time, but the meaning holds no less value to us today. Dr. King in his speech spoke first of a dream that “one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” We too can still dream of this, but dreams cannot come true without action. Later, Dr. King spoke of using this dream to hope and to have faith, and then using that hope and faith “to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”
The American Dream has never been completely open to everyone. People throughout the years have envisioned better lives for themselves and future generations and fought to produce that future. There are many things that I personally dislike about the Constitution, but there are many things to like about it as well. Slaves were counted as three-fifths of a person for apportionment of representation, but the Constitution still allowed for amendments to outlaw this practice in the future. Thomas Jefferson understood that the document his colleagues created should never be unchangeable, and society should rise to the occasion if ever change was needed. He wrote in 1816 that “laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind.”
In the spirit of Jefferson’s argument and the ability for the Constitution to be changed, let us hope and dream of a better world and then put ourselves to work achieving those dreams. In order to do that, we must first recognize the current state of things.
The President has federal agents and the National Guard from D.C. and five other states roaming the streets of the capital city in the hopes of deterring crime. He claims that crime is at an all time high when the Justice Department reported that violent crime is at a 30-year low and his own Press Secretary still stands by those numbers.
Texas Republicans are in the middle of trying to do a mid-decade redistricting to gerrymander their state even more and allow for a potential five extra Republican seats in the House of Representatives. This only came about after the President and his team pushed for it to happen. In response, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that if Texas Republicans were to go through with this, voters of California would decide whether or not to do the same thing. Meanwhile, outside the venue where Newsom made this announcement, federal agents were present with guns in tow: 1, 2, 3, 4.
Similar things are happening in D.C. with federal agents, D.C.’s own police, and the National Guard responding with seemingly excessive force: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. This already seems to be on the verge of a police state to me, but what worries me most is that Trump and Republicans want to take this kind of action to other cities, specially Democratic-led cities. Trump has also teased numerous times about a third term which is explicitly not allowed according to the 22nd Amendment. This article goes into detail about a few other worrying things Trump and Republicans have said and done to indicate that Trump may try to stay longer than is allowed by law. Even while I was in the middle of writing, the Trump administration sent a memo that purported, falsely, that the Attorney General had the authority to replace the Chief of Police for D.C. and named the DEA Administrator as the replacement during the declared “emergency.” This linked article goes into greater detail about why this is false and dangerous.
However, this is only the current state of affairs. We do not know what the future holds. What we can do is hope and dream of a better world, much as Dr. King did. However, we must also take action on these dreams. We must share our dreams with others of what we would like the world to look like going forward. Along the way, we might find people who have the same dreams, or maybe don’t, but have similar ideals. There may also be people who do not think your dream is one worth pursuing. By talking to others, we gain an idea of why we think the way we do because we have to defend our point. We still live in a democratic republic where elections happen and representatives answer ultimately at the ballot box to their constituents. I urge everyone to talk and share ideas of what the future could look like and stand up for those who may not be able to on their own, elevating their voices.
I’ll be writing another post about my dreams and aspirations for reform in this country, but until then, know that this current administration wants people to feel helpless against the constant onslaught of news and shocking stories. Know that nothing in the future is certain unless it is made to come to pass. Dream and hope of a better world and then make it so.