Hope Is Not A Bird

I see many people defaulting into hopelessness right now. Cynicism. Resignation. It makes sense, given our times. But I want to name something: that response is not (just) a natural reaction to hard times. It is a function of patriarchy and white supremacy. It is trained into us.

Hope is an active force. It is not a bird perched on a branch, singing through the storm. That’s a pretty poem and a lie the patriarchy loves to tell us - the idea that hope is a passive and delicate thing that magically endures, or that some people have and others don’t.

Patriarchy indoctrinates us all, but especially white women, practically from the womb, with the idea that someone will save us: a father. A husband. A government. A God.

We are trained to pin our survival on aligning with the right one: the right man, the right religion, the right organization, or the right politician.

But that is not hope. That is hopeless-hope. And most of us don’t even know we’re doing it.

White men have their own version. Patriarchy trains them into hierarchy - an alpha-male pecking order. And most land nowhere near the top.

They become disempowered “nice guys.” They see women in danger, in trouble, or in need, and they don’t step up. Not because they’re bad or evil, but because unconsciously the hierarchy has convinced them that’s not their job - some other, more capable guy is supposed to do that. A bigger, stronger, heroic guy.

So they wait. Or they become confused (“I don’t know what to do”), or their fear paralyzes them into remaining comfortable. By default, they opt out.

But then it gets worse.

The ones who do step up are usually insensitive at best, violent at worst. They condemn anything that smells of femininity. They like war. And guns. And love to tell everyone the rules for who IS a man and who’s not a man. Who IS a woman and who is not a woman.

In the most virulent version of this system, only certain women deserve to be rescued. Only certain humans with a particular skin color, from particular countries, are deserving of humanity and compassion.

It’s no wonder cynicism and hopelessness are our easy defaults.

But again, hope is not a bird. Hope has teeth!

Black and brown people understand what it means to carry the weight of hope and faith. They have been in this fight for centuries.

From Harriet Tubman to Ida B. Wells to Fannie Lou Hamer to James Baldwin, every generation produced people who spoke truth to power and knew that isolation, repression, or death could be the price they might pay. They marched anyway. They wrote anyway. They organized anyway.

I wouldn’t even have the language to name what we’re seeing without today’s Black and brown leaders. Women like Charlene Carruthers, Mariame Kaba, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Imani Barbarin. These women had the moral clarity of hope for a better future, galvanized with incredible courage. They called out the stink of the shit around them long before it was safe to do so.

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Hope is not a bird with feathers. It’s a woman who’s been punched in the gut, falls to her knees, looks her challenger in the eye, and dares to get up again.

Rebecca Solnit wrote that hope is not a lottery ticket you hold while sitting on the couch. It’s an ax you use to break down a door.

I’d take it further.

Hope is the ax that breaks down the door of a house that is on fire. And we are a country that’s on fire.

Hope doesn’t wait for rescue. Hope is us. It’s all of us.

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