Pipe bombs mailed to leading Democratic political figures.
The murder of two black Americans in a grocery store.
The largest anti-Semitic attack in U.S. history.
Humans arent strangers to pain and fear.
But I thought, What I can do is to write good fiction.
There is a special secret passage between us, and we can send a message to each other.
We speak, we write, we do language.
That is how civilizations heal.
Of course (and thankfully), not everyone is a writer.
Do what you could.
Do you have time?
A technical skill that could be put to good use?
Nothing is too small to make a differenceall of the individual actions add up.
Her 2003 bookHope in the Darkis a must-read in these times of turmoil and divisiveness.
This future is as uncertain as its ever been.
Have continued hope in the things you’ve got the option to change.
Some activists are afraid that if we acknowledge victory, people will give up the struggle.
Marriage equality is not the end of homophobia, but its something to celebrate.
But whether or not theres hope for change is not the question.
We must continue living as decent people.
Looking to our collective history is instructive.
People died, and are dying.
Hope, then, is not about believing everything is fine and wonderful and turning a blind eye.
It is about believing what we do matters.
Some cynicism is goodnecessary, even.
But too much can lead to apathy, and apathy leads to inaction.
Progress in any arena is long and fraught.
Even things that seem to happen suddenly arise from deep roots in the past or from long-dormant seeds.
The only way to effect change to is to make a lot of noise and take action.
We made the world were living in and we have to make it over.
