Watching the returns

I told my students today that it is so often two steps forward, one step back. There is always backlash. Considering the course of human history, the amount of progress we have made in the last century on slavery, racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. and so on, the whole panoply of human rights — progress has actually been, I would argue, astonishingly fast.

Too fast for many, clearly. Not fast enough for the rest of us. And there are always lives on the table, lives that will be lost or destroyed or injured because we aren’t moving fast enough. Whatever happens tonight, that will still be true. Maybe the whip is going to crack back a little harder, a little faster this time around.

It’s not a reason to stop pressing forward, or to give up hope. Yes, things are bad, and may get much worse for a time. But I, at least, find the long view comforting. I think of the choices available to my grandmother, the choices available to me, the choices that will likely be available to my daughter, despite half of America voting for Trump, despite everything.

We have already come so far. Don’t give up.

1 thought on “Watching the returns”

  1. I weep for you (I am Canadian)… and then I weep for all of us. This feels like the fall of the Roman Empire; a slow descent into incompetence, punctuated by the occasional resurgence of higher ideals which never last.

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