Hope is Rising
How do I love NYC? Let me count the ways…spring has FINALLY sprung!
I decided that today would be the day I take advantage of what the city has to offer, such as the world renowned Metropolitan Museum of Art aka: “The Met”. It had been a while since I paid a visit and New Yorkers can “Pay What You Wish” so might as well, especially when living here can break the bank easily. I couldn’t wait to see “The New Art: American Photography” exhibit encompassing the medium’s birth from 1839 to mid 20th century and since yours truly loves photography…I thought what could go wrong? Oh right, tourtists. I know better than to go on a Saturday, still I patiently waited in line (GROWTH), and I also thought, I might as well play tourist too, why not.
It occurred to me throughout my visit that the irony of museums is while they’re fascinating and contain a wealth of human civilization artifacts, house priceless works of art, mirror back so much to society where it could improve, why is it that we still cannot learn from it? Why is it that we seem to repeat history?
As I walked through the exhibit I saw images of Blacks and the U.S. in a post civil war era. I also saw a picture of an assassin who was one of five who sought to take down President Lincoln and other members of the Senate at the time and I thought to myself, how are extremists still coming about? Is it the lack of education, is it the systems that were intentionally designed to be flawed and keep the underdogs down? What am I missing if the whole original idea of the Republican Party was decentralized government and yet here we are living in modern day 1984.
Why teach Fascism in American schools when what’s been done to the Jews is happening to my people, and now even 2 year old children. Its atrocious and heinous to say the least and yet, Congress seems slow to move. Immigrants are not criminals, 47 is! How is it that even those who come out of incarceration are barred from certain jobs yet we’ve allowed a highly incompetent one to hold the highest nation in the land. We CANNOT condone what’s happening in America and justify it as “human nature”. Why is it that those who profess to love freedom are also the ones who are highly committed oppressing others who are different? It’s privilege that you love, not freedom. We can never been free unless we’re all free.
Many nations have already lived through what America is experiencing and while democracy seems to be on the brink of extinction I can’t help but ask myself where did we go wrong? It took years for this to happen and why didn’t our leaders do anything to stop it when they had the chance roughly around the 1990s? As MLK once said, “We need leaders not in love with money but in love with justice. Not in love with publicity but in love with humanity”. We quite literally have a criminal in office who’s main goal was to protect himself and avoid prison and is further driving our economy into the ground as his economic polices didn’t cause enough damage the first time. I will never understand the need for power, control, and greed. What does one gain out of it? It’s beyond pathetic.
When will it end? When the last fish has been eaten or the last tree mined? In spite of it all, I somehow have so much hope. I can feel it rising in me now. Besides if we always look for evidence of fault we will certainly find it but if we always look for the glimmers in life, I have no doubt in time the path forward will illuminate itself in due time. I’m grateful for NYC, and while it is a living, breathing, contradiction, it also still represents infinite possibilities. I’m grateful for all of my fellow Americans who are marching and pushing back, I’m grateful to the media outlets who are committed to telling the truth and the courts who are upholding the law, and finally, I’m grateful for the institutions of knowledge that are resisting and refusing to comply with the demands of this administration.
We did NOT come this far to go back, and life never allows us to stay the same, so the only choice we have is to keep moving forward, one day at a time.
Images by: Yours truly
