Optimism in the Time of Corona
I grit my teeth all the time now. Don’t you? I didn’t always, but when everything about existence that I used to reliably count on got flipped on its head, what’s a guy to do? Don’t get me wrong, I have never been an unwavering, Love it or Leave it "patriot" about the United States of America. Far from it. As a lifelong student of its history, I can find all of its warts, scabs, and cancers with a critical eye. Kind of sucks, actually. You see, we’re a two-steps forward, one-step back kind of nation. We always have been. Broadly shared gains seem to always be followed by bitter, aggrieved setbacks. Emancipation leads to Jim Crow, Civil Rights spawns White Citizens’ Councils, Barack Obama is succeeded by Donald Trump. Our “better angels” have been taken to the woodshed time and time and time again. All pessimism aside, I still believe what Dr. King espoused, that “ the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice .” The ongoing struggle he spelled ou