It’s easy in our world of instant news, and more specifically, instant bad news, to feel like the sky is falling.
Doesn’t matter if you’re young or old. White or Black. Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Hindu. Poor or middle class. Gay or straight. A parent. A grandparent. There’s something bad in the news for you these days.
Whether you voted for Trump or not, he's created unabated chaos.
It’s not just tariffs, backing Russia over Ukraine or bizarre threats to annex Greenland or Panama. That kind of chaos pales in comparison to many of the other things taking place.
He’s canceled all efforts in federal government to so much as discuss race issues.
From erasing references to decorated Black soldiers on government websites to promising to defund any institution which promotes a diverse world. He's even threatened private companies with punishment if they don’t end inclusivity programs.
He’s so obsessed with race and ethnicity, he’s taken Black History Month and Holocaust Remembrance Day off government calendars and websites.
He blamed everything from airline crashes to fires on Black people. Oops. I mean diversity. All while terminating a decorated Black 4-star general and replaced him with a retired white 3-star general. Talk about preferential hiring.
He’s trying to eliminate the Department of Education, which will have a profound negative impact on Black communities, not only with funding but in providing any redress for people who aren’t treated fairly.
His administration is working to undo gay marriage.
He’s ended funding for programs that feed starving people in parts of the world.
He’s rounded up children and other undocumented immigrant families not even accused of any crimes. A friend of mine was in a restaurant in Aurora, Colorado recently when ICE agents actually removed the undocumented men washing dishes. (And yet still no line of Americans applying for the dishwashing position).
He’s defied court orders when a judge tells him no.
He fired 5,000-plus veterans from federal government positions.
Gutted our national park services.
Turned over government spending oversight to someone (Musk in case you were confused) who gets paid $8 million a day from the same government.
Gave the keys to our forests to timber companies.
His daily chaos has caused the stock market to dive at a faster pace than it has in years. My own portfolio is down a whopping 38% in less than two months.
I could go on.
It’s enough to make even the most optimistic among us feel despair.
But let’s not.
This remains a time more than ever to practice active hope where we look to our ancestors for strength and practice the hope they did in the face of far worse adversity.
My late mother’s best friend was born in a displaced persons camp following Hitler’s mass murder and enslavement of 6,000,000-plus Jews.
The woman’s parents, long passed away, had the sad familiar Nazi-tattooed numbers on their arms. I remember seeing them as a kid. They scared me. This family came to the United States with nothing except the scars of Hitler. No money. Very few belongings.
Nonetheless, when they arrived here, they worked hard. They got jobs. They raised a family. They celebrated their Jewish holidays. Cooked their traditional foods. Oh, I miss the matriarch’s chopped liver.
They sent their kids to college. Their kids then got married and had kids of their own, and those kids had kids of their own.
They didn’t wither away in the face of odds that seemed hopeless. They practiced active hope and beat the obstacles that bad people placed in front of them.
I’m similarly reminded of a 90-year-old Black man who is like a dad to me.
Born in the 1930s, he endured racism and discrimination that most people today cannot even fathom. From the colleges that he wasn’t allowed to attend to the jobs he wasn’t allowed to have, to relentlessly being called the N-word, to not being allowed to go to certain restaurants, theatres and other places. The list goes on.
None of that and other horrors stopped him.
He attended an HBCU. Eventually got a job selling medical supplies. Raised a family. Bought up real estate. Invested. And today he and his adult children are thriving and successful.
They didn’t let despair trump hope. .
Many of our ancestors, regardless of our ethnicity, endured it all. Many died. Many suffered. But the collective never lost hope. They practiced it daily.
This isn’t a call to ignore the challenges. To stop fighting injustice. To pretend racism isn’t in full swing. Or to just think it’ll all go away if we close our eyes.
We can and must fight for ourselves. For our brothers and sisters.
Still, our charge today in the face of renewed but familiar challenges is to continue to practice deep hope and work toward a better life. A better society. And a better world.
In the words of America’s finest of presidents, “Yes We Can.”
This post originally appeared on Medium and is edited and republished with author's permission. Read more of Jeffrey Kass' work on Medium.