In the shit

I think it's worth remembering that as bad as things are right now, and make no mistake they are quite terrible, it can get better, and it has been worse. The Supreme Court is gonna suck for the next generation or two, there is very little that can be done about that sadly, however the country has survived horrible conservatism before, back when it was the norm, we have survived horrific abuses of workers and even the mass enslavement of a race. We have committed genocide, turned away refugees, and given the wealthy positions of near unassailable power in society, and yet we still progress.

There's no question we are in a time of backsliding on many fronts, and that time has gone on for quite a while in some cases. I am also not minimizing the suffering that is being inflicted on people right now, it is appalling and must be fought at every possible level, because that is how things get better, but they have been worse before, and they got better then, for some more than others sure, even for many more than others. But even in the middle of our glorious leader's more aggressive societal changes, it would be difficult to point to a marginalized group of people, be they Black, Latinx, LGBTQ, or whatever, and say that their lives are worse now than it was in, say, 1950.

I am not saying this as an argument for complacency, even if the shit is only up to your waist rather than your chin, you are still in shit, and there is a matter of scale to consider too, there are a lot more people from more groups in that shit today than there were fifty or a hundred years ago, and none of them want to be there either.

Maybe things don't go on the same, maybe in fifty years America looks radically different than it does now, in borders or culture, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing, what we have had for the past couple hundred years is perhaps the only thing that it could have been to get us here, but that doesn't mean it's the only thing for us going forward. Your racist parents may have given you life, but they don't have to be the sole thing defining your future after all.

I think change is inevitable, whats's more I think positive societal change is inevitable, but, and this is a big but, it's only inevitable when people decide it is. It's not fast, or painless, or easy, and we backslide constantly and to horrifying consequences, but we keep pushing and it still happens. The horrible old men die, the world becomes less white, we all get used to seeing people who don't look like us, we expect less cruelty in our everyday lives and from the mouths of our leaders and role models.

Small consolation maybe, but things aren't entirely hopeless, and often that is all one really needs to keep going.