With Hope In My Heart

I wrote this after the election in 2016:

"I woke up with a queasy, low-lying panic deep in my stomach. The last time I felt this way was four years ago when I was told that I was going to have a girl. Today, it's the same fear and anxiety melting into a strange emotion that looks a lot like grief. I don't want to talk. I only want to sink deeper into someone's soft lap and close my eyes to the hatred that's upon us, relentless as a search light."

In the days after, I stopped listening to NPR. I remember saying, "at least she can't read." At least my daughter's exposure to this monster would be limited in that way. I couldn't take another rapist in my ear, uncensored, constantly creeping closer. It felt intolerable. I shut him out as much as possible. Started holding my breathe. But for 1460 days, I couldn't quite get away.

Others couldn't flee either. So many people because of who they are or how they look were in danger more than ever. Evil ran marathons across our country. Hatred knocked daily at our doors. The doors of those who care for others, that is. The people who reply with "All Lives Matter". Hatred became more than a spectator sport, discretely watched. It rose to being raucously cheered on, as if hatred were a beloved sports team.

But Black women saved us. Stacey Abrams and Natasha Brown of course but so many others. Doing the often thankless work that they have been slogging through for centuries. Wetnursing white babies, teaching people to read and write so they could pass voter tests or doing the unfancy, invisible work of mobilizing communities. Black women SAVED us. We owe them a huge debt.

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My child is now eight. She is an avid reader, like her mama. I am ready for her to have leaders that she can look up to again, as Kamala said in her speech. Kamala reminding us that we chose "science, truth and hope" that we were ready to "heal the soul of our nation" and to "root out systemic racism". These are messages that we have been desperate to hear, that our children must hear.

I finally have hope humming in my heart again.