New Yorker magazine has brought together 16 individuals to write their reactions to the recent tragic election of Donald Trump, each covering a different angle on what his victory means. Contributors include Toni Morrison (“Mourning for Whiteness”), Larry Wilmore (“The Birther of a Nation”), Atul Gawande (“Health of a Nation”), Nicholas Lemann (“Days of Rage”), among others.
All are worthy reads, and yet, it is Pulitzer-prize winning author Junot Diaz’s essay, titled “Radical Hope,” which stands out from the pack for bringing home, as he is so gifted at doing, the personal pain of being there for friends and family including children who woke up the day after the election fearful of their futures in this country.
Writing in letter format, Diaz address his sister:
“Querida Q: I hope that you are feeling, if not precisely better, then at least not so demoralized. On Wednesday, after he won, you reached out to me, seeking advice, solidarity. You wrote, My two little sisters called me weeping this morning. I had nothing to give them. I felt bereft. What now? Keep telling the truth from an ever-shrinking corner? Give up?
I answered immediately, because you are my hermana, because it hurt me to hear you in such distress. I offered some consoling words, but the truth was I didn’t know what to say. To you, to my godchildren, who all year had been having nightmares that their parents would be deported, to myself.”
Diaz goes on to say that while mourning is appropriate, giving up is not an option:
“For those of us who have been in the fight, the prospect of more fighting, after so cruel a setback, will seem impossible. At moments like these, it is easy for even a matatana to feel that she can’t go on. But I believe that, once the shock settles, faith and energy will return. Because let’s be real: we always knew this shit wasn’t going to be easy. Colonial power, patriarchal power, capitalist power must always and everywhere be battled, because they never, ever quit.”
He concludes that fighting will be meaningless if it doesn’t include hope:
“But all the fighting in the world will not help us if we do not also hope. What I’m trying to cultivate is not blind optimism but what the philosopher Jonathan Lear calls radical hope. ‘What makes this hope radical,’ Lear writes, ‘is that it is directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is.’ Radical hope is not so much something you have but something you practice; it demands flexibility, openness, and what Lear describes as ‘imaginative excellence.’ Radical hope is our best weapon against despair, even when despair seems justifiable; it makes the survival of the end of your world possible.'”
Image via Diaz’s Facebook page. Read his entire awesome essay as well as the other 15 writers here.
