Hope is Ours
Transcript read by a machine from the typewritten page. The typos are mine or the machine’s.
I feel mildly euphoric when the reality that I see is validated by others. When murders by ICE and DHS and Border Patrol are not able to be explained away. It isn't because I feel l1ke "we» are winning in any way. It isn't because I believe these killings will stop. But, rather it is because I an sharing the same reality with other humans. When the facts are agreed upon and the truth is known. It is no small matter in 2026 to have shared agreement with large portions of the population that murder is wrong.
because for so long, we have not been able to agree upon racts. And any agreement nóm feels like a miracle. It feels like a gift from others. They are saying, you are not crazy to want your rights to be preserved and for your neighbors to be able to move freely through the world." And to not feel crazy aven for L lew nours, even for the bare minimum of agreement, is not nothing. It takes me back, even# if only momentarily, to the nonent before the returns started to come in on the night of Nov. 8, 2016. That was the last time I thought unambigiously that I understood America. It was the last time I believed that we shared the reality. That facts were merely things that happened and not interpretations or narratives of what happened. And whenever there is agreement on truth, I to back there.
It isn't that I want to be naive or that I am convinced that we all believe a singular truth in those moments, but rather that hope feels possible. It feels like the actual right strategy when we can all look at the same video and see tne same things•
perpendicular. And that is how I want to feel when everything feels so impossible. Where human rights feel unlikely. When fascism seems to be approaching ever nearer to my home and family. I want at the very least to see hope as something other than fiction
instead of distopian fiction, then hope is right there. It is And when reality is agreed upon. Whem history is being written
close by, coaxing us along. Whispering that il we continue to fight, it we continue to see things as they really are, if we hold those responsible accountable ior their actions, then we fleeting or unfounded. That it could be ours, frought and fragile, just might bring that hope along with us. That it w ll not be #
but ours for the holding onto: Ours for the future.