The Audacity of Hope: A Throwback
By Rev. Arionne Yvette Williams, Contributing Writer
I write these words just 20 days before the 2020 General Election in the United States. Though I sure hope we would have all voted the time you read this offering, we still may not know the outcome of the election. This is because there has been unprecedented turnout for early and absentee voting. In fact, at the time of submitting this article, a record 14 million Americans have already cast their ballots, up from only 1.4 million around the same time in 2016. I am no statistics whiz but that represents a 900% increase in early and absentee voter turnout.
There could be a lot of reasons why people are voting early in such high numbers. We will only know why American citizens were so insistent on making their vote count—this time—as the days, weeks, and years unfold. We could talk about politics, economics, social justice, health and wellness, or any number of topics that might help us understand this historic surge and real urgency Americans seem to have felt in exercising our civic duty this year. In my view, though, this can only be sourced to one thing: we have recaptured our audacity to hope.
The last four years of life in America have been incredibly challenging, painful, and divisive under our current administration. Though COVID-19 has colored most of our experience of 2020 with broad strokes of gloom and grey, the three years prior have been no bright and sunny paradise. There has been non-stop police brutality and injustice, immigrant children and families separated at the border and held in cages, xenophobic travel restrictions imposed by executive order harming refugees around the world, horrific new tax codes that benefit the rich and heavily tax the middle and working classes, constant attacks on the Affordable Healthcare Act, an actual impeachment, and a global health pandemic and failing economy. We have been through it! The Trump election has delivered an American presidency that is great only in its irresponsibility, lack of compassion, ineptitude of service, and irreverence for the office he holds.
Despite it all, we have not given up. Our voter turnout is proof that despair has not set in, not by a long shot. We have reached for a throwback called hope and are very clearly working for the change that we most want to see.
As Black folks, we must follow the wisdom of the Sankofa bird and look back at our history and pick up the pearls of wisdom available to us. Coretta Scott King wrote in her memoir, My Life with Martin Luther King, Jr.,“Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.” Emancipation taught us that. Reconstruction taught us that. The Civil Rights Movement taught us that.
We can never take our strides for freedom for granted because someone is always trying to snatch them back. So, we stand and fight back, empowered by the same hope, love, and faith that has sustained us all these years. Black folks will continue to be called to lead the journey, for we are very well-versed in the work of freedom. The world is looking at us. What will we do?
Once you read this, the polls will have already closed on November 3. Regardless of who won the popular and electoral votes or who takes the oath of office on January 20, important questions are: How will you engage in the ongoing fight for freedom and justice? How will you allow hope to motivate you? How will your Christian commitment to faith in God move you to action? When we civically engage and hold our elected officials accountable, we speak up for the voiceless, protect the vulnerable, and express real Christian love for our neighbor. Hope does not back down in the shadow of fear. Love does not give up in the face of hate. Faith does not fold when the going gets tough.
If hope, love, and faith motivated you to vote this year, hold them as your own and let them blaze your path. Find your place in the ongoing work of securing real freedom for all. Do so knowing that no matter how hard it gets or how tired we become, God is with us, fueling us forward with supernatural, resurrection, and world-changing power!
The Rev. Arionne Yvette Williams is an ordained elder in the AME Zion Church and the author of The Women of the Bible And You: A Weekly Devotional and Love Like I’ve Never Been Hurt: How To Heal From Heartbreak. She currently serves as an associate chaplain at the University of Indianapolis. You can connect with her at ArionneYvette.com.
