Raising Hope

55 years this month. The number of times this body has spun around the sun and yet, in so many ways, it feels like it is making its first journey. So much is the same as it was last year and multiple years prior… Black lives still matter, Gay lives still matter, Transgender lives still matter… in short, humanity still matters.

However, at this time, with the embers of a nation ignited by lies and selective blindness still smoldering, I find myself reflecting most on the duality that is naturally represented in that statement. I have never felt more rage, more disgust, more fear, more uncertainty or more hatred than I have in the last 12 months. Yet, these same emotions and the catalysts that fueled them have created a simultaneous and profound connection to one word… HOPE.
Part of this, I realize, is driven by the ongoing evidence of a collective awakening that is manifesting in not just action but actual change. Voices, beyond hoarse from years of screaming into the void, are being amplified, elevated and heard. Hearts diseased from years of being fed a diet of unrefined and processed rhetoric are healing from the fruits of organic support. Beyond that, though, is something much more visceral… the knowledge that I will soon be a father to a Black child in America. A child that will be born free of bias or hate. A child that will initially not recognize his name but know his essence. A canvas that portrays a masterpiece; created not only by the brush strokes that are laid down but by also the layers that are peeled away.

This knowledge both excites me beyond the heavens and frightens me to my core. What do I know about raising a Black child? What can I offer by way of experience or understanding? As a Portuguese-American who grew up in a working class neighborhood in New Bedford Ma, I spent so much of my early life aloof to the challenges of discrimination and, especially, the more nuanced manifestation — systemic racism. We were a ubiquitous blue-collar area whose population was 90% Portuguese with an exceptionally strong sense of culture and community. My perception was that there were no rich kids vs poor kids, there was just us… kids. Hanging out with my friends, we felt we could go everywhere because everyone knew us and we knew everyone. We felt safe. We felt welcomed. We felt optimistic. Little did I know at the time that the feeling of safety and optimism would also create blinders. Blinders that allowed me to “not see color” or put more clearly… allowed me to believe that the color I obviously saw made no difference in how people were treated. Ugh, I was so very wrong.

One of our friends, Fernando, was Cape Verdean and one of the most generous, kind and funny kids we knew. It was also clear that these traits ran in his his family, especially his mom who would run outside and share incredible home-made offerings ranging from cookies to this incredible fried pastry (Gufong, I believe it was called). Lost on me at the time was the undercurrent of racial tides that rose in subtle ways…. Like the days that we were asked to leave a local pinball establishment, but only when Fernando was with us. Or the times that parents would ask why we needed to pickup Fernando “at the projects” instead of him meeting us at one of their houses. To me, the place he lived was no different than the double or triple decker tenements that we all called home. In fact, despite these parents claiming concern for our safety as being the reason for their inquiry, I often felt safest in Fernando’s neighborhood. That didn’t stop us from conceding to the requests or from going to play pinball anyway, even when our friend said he could not join us. We just assumed he was busy. Despite these examples, my 10 year old psyche offered no understanding, much less empathy to the picture that was forming before my eyes. It took years for me to realize that when Fernando would choose to not hang out with us, it wasn’t because he was otherwise busy or didn’t enjoy the time we shared, it was because he wanted to be spared the weight of his color. Put more bluntly, the weight that we allowed his color to place on him. Brushstrokes. Small, at first that became larger over time until the beautiful hues that once represented our friend were replaced with the subdued, sterile, oppressed colors that could only come with a loss of hope. Hope that things would change, hope that we would understand, hope that his friends would prioritize him over their comfort or pleasure. Our ignorance to racism became the fertilizer that actually allowed it to further seed. This fertilizer had no overt smell though — insidious in its design, it permeated our pores and just continued to feed a tree filled with complicity.

I believe that, sometimes, life’s greatest epiphanies come not from what you learn but what you unlearn. For me, this came with the realization that effusive, unchecked, superficial optimism can actually run roughshod over it’s much more powerful cousin, Hope. The former can paint a picture that only some can see and gaslights those who cannot. The latter can represent an opus that is impossible to unsee, whose light is fueled by passion — no gas required. And, therein lies my call. It will be less about trying teach what I cannot possibility know and, instead, ensuring that I learn everything that my child has to teach. Together with my wife, we will educate, inform, influence and fight for equality while never losing focus on the promise of a better world and that our child, born free of stereotypes and possessing full access to a palette of colors, will never lose the grip on the handle of his brush…. just like I will never lose my grip on Hope.