Lazy optimism vs hope in action.

In response to an article posted on FB the other day, in which the author warns that the US will never be the same again, someone responded that "Yes we will be better! You wait and see Germany!" or some other such rah rah nonsense blindly optimistic thing. I responded of course in my usual not-if-this-this-and-this-continue way. She was not amused, not that I thought she would be. 

Look, feel free to call me bitter. Feel free to liken me to bitter melon (caraillie it's called where I come from). I'm entirely OK with it. I prefer to be eyes-open to the world as it is rather than to pretend only to be blindsided by it later. Let me take my bumps now. I'm good with it. 

By Hajime NAKANO - http://flickr.com/photos/jetalone/2914004967/, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5133027 

I took away from the exchange a feeling that we are probably lost. We're lost because empty optimism passes for something and clear-eyed observations about the lived realities and what ytness has tolerated for 500 years, is taken as negativity or bitterness.

Call me Betty Bitter then. *shrugs*

Had I the opportunity, I might have asked this NWL (nice yt lady) what, if anything, she had done or was doing to improve America?

Had I the opportunity. I would have asked Becky where she'd stored her pink pussy hat, or indeed, whether she even owned one?

Had I the opportunity, I'd have asked her what she was teaching her children or any children in her orbit, about American history?

I would have asked her, had we had a discussion, whether she celebrates Columbus Day or Indigenous People's Day.

Hey, maybe she'd have had great answers. Maybe she's busy working for the kingdom. Don't know, can't say. But for every one NWL out there working for the kingdom, there are 3 - at least - quietly working against it. Don't believe me? Check out my pieces on Briana Brochu or the People In The Neighborhood.

Listen, bonbon-eating optimism is easy but it's damn useless. Even hope is useless if you won't make yourself useful. 

Neither 'hope' nor 'optimism' on its own means Bo Jack Diddly squat. Neither hope nor optimism is moving the needle off hate. Work is what has meaning. Optimistic work, hope in action those mean something. Those mean that you are willing to get off your ass and do. 

Y'alls optimism, as I said to that woman, never freed one enslaved person, never prevented the rape of a single slave (male or female), never stopped the sale of a child from his/her enslaved parents. 

Y'alls optimism ain't return an acre of land to a Native tribe, nor bring back a dead elder who died having not seen his/her people's land and lives respected. 

Vapid claims of optimism ain't save the life of a single lynched man, woman, or child nor did it stop a water hose or a dog during the Civil Rights era.

Useless optimism never made a single refugee safe. Let's be damn clear. Your blithe adjurations of "I choose optimism", they ain't worth nothin' to anybody who needs relief from the oppressions they face, but carry on. 

Lazy optimism isn't responsible for a single damn thing that has moved the needle on hate in this country.

Do I need to say that again? Yeah, lemme just say it a-damn-gain: optimism alone has achieved nothing. Hard work has achieved it all. Maybe the workers were optimistic, I don't know. I do know that the workers had no reason for any such optimism. They hoped that America could be shamed into doing the right thing, but hope is all they had. America is still only grudgingly doing the right thing and God knows, America takes every damn opportunity to undo the half dozen decent things its grudgingly done (cf voter suppression for example). So don't come at me with your "I choose optimism" bullshit. 

Optimism din do shit. By itself, it never has and never will. Hope + hard work, including the willingness to die, did that. Ask MLK, Medgar Evers, Emmett Till and the five thousand plus lynching victims, the four little girls in a Birmingham, AL church basement, the nine worshipers at Mother Emmanuel AME, Jordan Davis, Terrence Crutcher, Jimmie Sanders, Sandra Bland, Walter Scott, Tamir Rice, Trayvon Martin, Renisha McBride, Aiyana Stnsley-Jones, Ramarley Graham and on and on I could go.

Lazy optimism vs hope in action. I'll take the latter thanks. And I'll do my part, one essay at a time.