By Chelle Wilson
I have always found joy in being an optimist.. the one who can find the bright side or a way forward in nearly any situation.
Raised by a mother who always reminded me that when God closes a door, it means he has a window waiting for you to climb through with something better than you can even imagine in store.
My mother, like so many of her generation and those who came before, had the gift of foresight. See, they lived and worked in times of limited opportunities, but they did so while envisioning, believing in, and manifesting a brighter future for those yet to come.
Sadly, I think this has become a lost art.
As a mother, I am diligent about making sure my children take ad- vantage of every opportunity to prepare for future success. I am ex- cited about their goals and dreams and give them the same inspirational words of encouragement my mother gave to me.
I even had to sit one of my children down the other day and recite Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son, reminding her too much has been sacrificed for her to give up “Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.”
As much as the poem was intended to help push her into her destiny, it also reminded me of mine.
I don’t know about you, but I feel as though I am living in an almost dystopian state, the kind Octavia Butler warned about many years ago. Every day we are seeing more and more people emboldened to spread hateful and violent racist, sexist, classist, and anti-immigrant propaganda.
There is chaos in Congress, uneasiness around the upcoming election, the rolling back of civil and reproductive rights, environmental issues around pollution and climate change, genocide and famine in Gaza and Sudan, the coup in Haiti and the list goes on and on.
With all the crises, it’s easy to become so overwhelmed that you find yourself sitting in a perceived safety net of do-nothingness. That is, until you are jolted back into the reality of understanding what Willard Pitts used to remind his news writing class every day, “when good people do nothing, the fools will rule.”
This morning, I want to salute Dr. Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, tenured professor at the University of California Irvine, who leaned into Black feminist activism and stood with her students to protest against genocidal policies.
As she was arrested and led away, she refused to be silenced. Dr. Willoughby-Herard stood 10 toes down calling out the foolish decisions made by those in positions of power.
She pointed out the hypocrisy in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in police resources to forcibly remove student protestors when those same dollars could have been used for student scholarships so they could attend classes, purchase textbooks, and afford housing.
When asked if she was afraid of losing her job, she responded by saying, “What job do I even have if the students don’t have a future?”
The passion in her voice and the deep concern for the students stirred something in me. Dr. Willoughby-Herard stood as one person but behind her lifting her up were the spirits of Clara Luper, Daisy Bates, Juanita Craft, Fannie Lou Hamer, and countless other women who stood alongside their students who sought to resist all forms of injustice and threats to civil and human rights.
Dr. Willoughby-Herard helped me again find a way forward even in these challenging times and I want her to know that even if no one else was moved by her courageous action, I was.
I encourage each of you reading, to please think on this, if our children are truly to have a better future, it is absolutely on us.
We must not only lean into our foremothers practice of envisioning, believing in, and manifesting a future beyond that which we can see, but we have to, as a collective, start assembling the stones and pouring the new foundation needed to create it.
In the words of Audre Lorde, “your silence will not protect you.”
The community, the nation, the world needs to hear your voices, now more than ever. Be honest and ask yourself, “What job do I even have if the students don’t have a future?”
Chelle Wilson is a motivational speaker, entrepreneur, journalist and Herstorian. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, the NAACP, Links Inc, and Jack & Jill of America.
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