Yesterday we were walking with my dad, who is in his late sixties. We were talking about all the shit that happened this year, and he said, âYeah, no kidding, what an awful year. Reminds me of â68.âÂ
I said, âWhat happened in â68?âÂ
He said, âOh, man,â and started talking about the various things: race riots, Nixonâs election, the assassination of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr, the Chicago Democratic National Convention, police brutality, the cold war, Vietnam⊠he went on to rattle off several more horrific events (and after a fewârace riots and police brutality, for exampleâhe looked at us and said, âsounds familiar, doesnât it?â).Â
ItâsâŠawful, but strangely comforting, in a way, to know weâve had years this bad before. Maybe not in the exact same ways, of course (there was no freaking plague in â68), but years that felt just as bad. Years that felt just as terrifying and just as hopeless. Years where it felt like the whole world was going to tear itself apart.Â
But 1968 passed, and 2020 will too. I donât know whatâs going to happen, of courseâI donât know how we come back from some of thisâbut I know we will. Time marches on, and so will we. Things will look different (which in many cases will be a good thing), and they may still get worse before they get better (we still have the election ahead of us, after all).Â
But I dunno. Maybe itâs a cold comfort, but itâs still a comfort nonetheless, knowing weâve been through years like this before, and we made it out again. Knowing that progress, no matter how painfully won, refuses to be denied forever. That there always have been, and always will be, and still are, people who will fight for that progress.
Keep fighting. I know itâs exhausting and itâs sometimes easier to pretend itâs not happening (and by absolutely all means, do take breaksâthatâs critical).Â
But keep fighting.Â
And vote.Â
