This question surprised me. I had never been asked it before and it startled me at how unsure I was as to the answer. In one of my first lessons on social justice I learned more privileged individuals have the perspective of "we've come a long way" while the oppressed share the perspective of "we have a long way to go".
At times I think we all sit and wonder if there is hope. If we can actually attain this utopia we aspire toward. Does this place actually exist somewhere, someday? I really don't know.
I am reading "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson where the author shares his real life experiences helping individuals on death row who have been wronged by the judicial system and how race covertly (though in some cases it is very overt) leads to a more extreme sentencing. We learn about insanity behind our legal system and how extremely wrong we have gone as a nation. We learn about the impact privatization has had and how money that could be going toward anything else, say education, is given to prisons. We learn about how petty crimes lead someone to a life sentence because that means more money for the corporations who own these prisons.
This book is freaking me out. The prison system is an area of social justice I have not explored and one this book is giving me a big, hard look at. It is terrifying, inspiring and difficult to swallow.
The way Stevenson shares his experiences in this book make me re-think the question posed to me. How is there any hope?
It feels like we need a blank slate...to start over...to literally rethink everything we do as a nation.
But, there is hope. I see it. It is in the little and the big victories.
As we all know, marriage equality is here. Wow. I never imagined I could write that. I never imagined I would see this in my lifetime. To see social media flooding with images of varied couples being able to marry one another is inspiring. To hear the stories of same sex couples sharing a life together for 2, 5, 40+ years and finally being able to legally be bound together seems unreal.
And yet it is here.
The little victory of hearing one of my students' saying thank you for helping them see the world a little differently.
Every little inch and every big step is hope. While marriage equality is not an ending point we can savor it and keep going. We have come a long way, but my oh my is there so much to be done.
