sarahsincerely: It’s probably a little naive for me to be so inspired and filled with hope and energy tonight. But I’m letting myself indulge for a little while because it feels really good and because I think I can channel these feelings into something more productive. After listening to Josh Healey from YouthSpeaks deliver an incredible poem, “When Hope Comes Back,” and hearing Robert Reich reaffirm to the 10,000 people in Sproul Plaza that this movement is important and these concerns are valid and change is possible, I’m feeling better and more hopeful than I have in a long time. I’ll admit that I am easily caught up in and moved by this kind of rhetoric, perhaps to my own detriment, but maybe this is what I need right now. Positive, powerful rhetoric to combat the cynicism and complacency that have colored and diminished my sense of hope for what feels like far too long. My Ethnic Studies class this semester is titled, “A Comparative Survey of Protest Movements since the 1960s.” In a documentary we watched a few weeks ago, a clip showed a participant in the 1960s civil rights movement saying something like, “We did what we did because we knew there would be a revolution. We could feel it.” I would say confidently that, though they were insufficient and there is still so much left to be done, the gains made by the civil rights movement of that decade were indeed revolutionary. And so is this movement. I have a recent tendency to squirm and feel unsettled when anyone compares movements of today to the civil rights movement. I think about the incredible movement veterans I’ve studied and met and come to regard as heroes more than anyone else. I think about the unbelievable violence they combated regularly and how they overcame, time and time again, with nonviolence and love and an undying dream of something better. I consider all of this and think that nothing I’m involved in could ever possibly compare. But this is incredible too. There are heroes here too. There is violence fought with nonviolence, there is love and hope, and there is an undying dream of something better. “The days of apathy are over,” Robert Reich said tonight. And in those moments tonight, in the midst of applause 10,000 strong and eyes glazed with hopeful tears and attentive silence in all the right places, I started to believe again that change is possible. That maybe this is worthy of some of those comparisons and that maybe it can be just as revolutionary. This scatterbrained tumblr post only scratches the surface of the mess that is my collective thoughts right now, but the overwhelming ones that rise out of all the rest are solidarity, love, and hope. I am physically cold but spiritually warm and filled with a sense of intentionality I can’t remember feeling for years.  I don’t know where this will go or how I will continue to be a part of it, but everything feels so good and magical and possible right now and this is an attempt to bottle that. Hopefully these feelings will last for a while. I’d love to indulge in this feeling with you for as long as we can! She may not be everywhere yet and may not have visited everyone, but I would love to believe that Hope is back in America. 

sarahsincerely:

It’s probably a little naive for me to be so inspired and filled with hope and energy tonight. But I’m letting myself indulge for a little while because it feels really good and because I think I can channel these feelings into something more productive. After listening to Josh Healey from YouthSpeaks deliver an incredible poem, “When Hope Comes Back,” and hearing Robert Reich reaffirm to the 10,000 people in Sproul Plaza that this movement is important and these concerns are valid and change is possible, I’m feeling better and more hopeful than I have in a long time. I’ll admit that I am easily caught up in and moved by this kind of rhetoric, perhaps to my own detriment, but maybe this is what I need right now. Positive, powerful rhetoric to combat the cynicism and complacency that have colored and diminished my sense of hope for what feels like far too long.

My Ethnic Studies class this semester is titled, “A Comparative Survey of Protest Movements since the 1960s.” In a documentary we watched a few weeks ago, a clip showed a participant in the 1960s civil rights movement saying something like, “We did what we did because we knew there would be a revolution. We could feel it.” I would say confidently that, though they were insufficient and there is still so much left to be done, the gains made by the civil rights movement of that decade were indeed revolutionary. And so is this movement.

I have a recent tendency to squirm and feel unsettled when anyone compares movements of today to the civil rights movement. I think about the incredible movement veterans I’ve studied and met and come to regard as heroes more than anyone else. I think about the unbelievable violence they combated regularly and how they overcame, time and time again, with nonviolence and love and an undying dream of something better. I consider all of this and think that nothing I’m involved in could ever possibly compare.

But this is incredible too. There are heroes here too. There is violence fought with nonviolence, there is love and hope, and there is an undying dream of something better. “The days of apathy are over,” Robert Reich said tonight. And in those moments tonight, in the midst of applause 10,000 strong and eyes glazed with hopeful tears and attentive silence in all the right places, I started to believe again that change is possible. That maybe this is worthy of some of those comparisons and that maybe it can be just as revolutionary.

This scatterbrained tumblr post only scratches the surface of the mess that is my collective thoughts right now, but the overwhelming ones that rise out of all the rest are solidarity, love, and hope. I am physically cold but spiritually warm and filled with a sense of intentionality I can’t remember feeling for years. 

I don’t know where this will go or how I will continue to be a part of it, but everything feels so good and magical and possible right now and this is an attempt to bottle that. Hopefully these feelings will last for a while.

I’d love to indulge in this feeling with you for as long as we can! She may not be everywhere yet and may not have visited everyone, but I would love to believe that Hope is back in America.