Here we go again. Pain. Fear. Suffocation. Death. Rage. Grief.
I’m supposed to be an optimist. As an academic and now a college president, I’ve lived all of my adult life in hope for the future. I have steadfastly believed that if we do our jobs right, the world will be a better place. This generation, and the next, and the next, will be smarter, better, kinder, humbler, more careful of the world and of each other.
Then comes 525 seconds. A lifetime. George Floyd’s life, snuffed out.
401 years. In all those lifetimes of sorrow and pain and death since the first Africans were sold to other human beings in North America, what room have we left for hope anymore?
Bowing my head in sorrow does no good. Prayer helps for a little while. What can we do?
I planted strawberry runners this morning in small pots. The berries on our porch are a chance sprouting of life. In December, my mother and I placed compost around the boxwoods in our planters. And this spring, strawberries sprung like wildflowers. They are beautiful rhizomes, one begetting another as long arms sprout from the center plant, looking for soil in which to grow. They needed a little help, though. So I decided to take them in hand.
Fixing our country will take more than that. A virus drove us indoors. A violent death drove many of us out into the streets. There is real anger. And then there are, rumor has it, white-nationalist agitators “helping” to set our streets ablaze. To burn not just buildings but hope and life and culture and history. Indeed, in Minneapolis-St. Paul, a Native American resource center burned to the ground, turning heritage to bitter ashes.
Voltaire’s Candide was an optimist, too. That is, until he and his beloved Cunégonde encounter rape, mutilation, forced servitude and slavery, depraved indifference, greed, and the great lies of political manipulation. By the end of the tale, Candide retires in seclusion with Cunégonde, and they decide all they can do is to cultivate their own small garden. It is the expulsion from Eden in reverse.
Human beings may or may not be marked by original sin, a human stain. But we also have human power. Today I will wake up; with my husband I will feed our children and help them try to continue to learn. I will pick up again the light I have in reach — the torch of knowledge — and I will do my best to hold it aloft, and to help teach this generation to look beyond our small garden walls, to open our eyes to the truth.
It is a small thing, in the larger scheme. Yet my work is to teach, to make it possible for others to teach, and learn, and grow. I will do this with ferocity in the coming months, for holding up that light of knowledge is something that, no matter how dark the night, is one of the best hopes for humanity.
A virus drove us indoors. A violent death drove many of us out into the streets.
Each of our disciplines offers something central to that hope. We must teach the histories of humankind, and our dealings with one another, with clearsighted and unflinching factuality. We must shine light on the cultures of the world — the inheritance of humanity. Let us use our art to direct our minds and hands to hidden truths, or old ones newly shaped.
We must harness the tools at hand. Those of us who teach the law or medicine, let us do so with joy, the sharpest of insight, and the highest of ethics. Those of us whose teach in the sciences, let us keep our sights high, and never forget that each small step we take in placing rigorously tested evidence before the world moves us all. If we are social scientists, let us document, discover, develop policies, and help test them. Let us each use the knowledge we have gained to destroy the mythologies and half-truths that make injustice seem palatable, and to make it harder for charlatans to mislead individuals and obscure reality.
If we can’t do that here in our country, and in this world, maybe Elon Musk is right, and space is our only hope.
In the meantime, let’s do more than cultivate our gardens or look to the stars. Let us reach forward our hands, guided by the knowledge that humanity is more than an ideal, and that the ferocity that may come with knowing the truth — that being black is a sign of struggle, a commitment to life in spite of death — can sustain us even in the darkest nights. We will still be here at dawn, eyes open, awake. And perhaps, with peace and strength, we can with wandering steps and slow, find more than a lonesome, solitary way.
