Hope in double negatives

Yesterday was slow and rainy so to fill time I watched an old movie, "Out of Africa." I remembered the gorgeous panoramas and the always impressive Streep, and I knew the ending. I was prepared, I thought. But what struck me this time was the portrayal of the African natives, and the subtle, creeping, deliberate breakdown of their traditions, their territory, their rights. It is a minor thread in the film, but I saw it differently now, as part of the long, ugly history that makes men like Derek Chauvin possible. It made me incredibly sad.

(It also reminded me of our dark history with Native Americans.)

This morning I woke early, and after Doonesbury—always my first check-in on Sundays—I've been catching up on the news; a different experience with Biden as president. I was grateful for two columnists in the Washington Post who added to my ongoing education about Black life in America. Both referenced the verdict in the Chauvin case.

Tre Johnson is a freelance writer in Philadelphia and his excellent column is personal and moving. "I am never wanting not to be Black," he writes; a statement I found both beautiful and illuminating.

After describing an unlikely conversation in an unlikely place, he relates a favorite childhood story from Marvel's Uncanny X-Men. The heroes, after escaping a battle, find an alternate reality that "drops them into the lives they longed to have." Lives as artists, movie stars, or ordinary people living free of ceaseless fear. "They just get to be," he says.

But is just getting "to be" even possible? Andrea Benjamin, Associate Professor of African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, and author of Racial Coalition Building in Local Elections seems to think so. Absent hope, change is impossible, but the Chauvin verdict "allows us to maintain the expectation that incremental progress is possible . . ."

After the verdict she joined others to found a group in Oklahoma City called Communities for Human Rights, and their efforts are paying off. Her column references progress in numerous cities and it was encouraging to read and to feel her optimism, which has lately been hard to find. The jury, she says, "did not do the wrong thing and that is not nothing."

I can't claim to understand the impact this case continues to have on American Blacks, or what it means for the future. I can say that when the verdict was announced I cried—along with millions of others—tears of surprise and relief.

"Relief" cautions Johnson, "is neither joy nor justice." But relief is respite providing room for hope. And I'll take all of that I can find.