Watching the memorial for Jesse Jackson yesterday inspired me to remember—and heed—his rousing words:
KEEP HOPE ALIVE!
When our country went to war with Iran a week ago, hope seemed like a light about to be extinguished, caught between battling factions mirroring their respective intolerances. This cannot end well. After spending my entire adult life fighting for the rights of the underserved and underprivileged minorities, I really thought we had made great progress and had established the momentum to keep humanity moving toward equality, tolerance and justice for all, not just for some. Not just for the ruling elites with their own egocentric agendas.
And here we are. Racism has reared its ugly head with a vengeance in the US, not that it ever really went anywhere. It had slipped underground for a while, I guess, only to resurface in a more venal iteration. Now the brown-skinned people have as much to fear as the black-skinned people in our country. Plus any whites who dare to follow their convictions and protest against these atrocities. Oh, and misogyny is alive and well, with a movement afoot to strip women’s voting rights and women’s equality in the workplace, not to mention the Right to Choose. Come on, already! And pedophilia? Apparently, that’s ok, too, so long as you abuse poor children with no support/resources, and you have connections in high places. Super high places.
Okay. I really try to avoid politicizing my writing. But if I don’t speak out now, then I’m as bad as the rest of the silent majority who stick their heads in the sand, saying it doesn’t affect me, or I can ride this out, or let them destroy our constitutional rights. Who cares? In other words, not my problem. Let someone else fight the good fight. I’m tired. But no! It’s up to all of us to speak up and out and protest this illegal war, protest the inhumane immigration policies, protest the murder of citizens in the streets, protest the dismantling of all the humanitarian and civil rights organizations, and protest the rollback of protections for the environment. In short, protest. Speak up. Speak out. In a good way. With a strong, reasoned voice for the good of mankind. In a unifying way. In a way to inspire positive interaction and collaboration with all people, everywhere. If we all don’t play our part, nukes are gonna fly. Sooner than later. We all know that, deep down, that’s where this illegal war is plummeting towards. One way or another, we are on a path to mass destruction…and for what?
There’s still a ray of hope out on the horizon. A ray that’s shrinking at an alarming rate…
Long story short, we need some modern-day heroes to inspire us to have faith and believe in the goodness of humankind. Heroes who will keep hope alive…
Judy Richter 