What Gives Me Hope
Photo of mural in The Firehouse Community Arts Center in N. Lawndale, Chicago
In my very first YouTube video in 2020 I proclaimed that we could end systemic racism in my lifetime—if we had the collective will. People would joke with me, saying, at least I didn’t say next week. I’d respond back “And I don’t plan on living to 120!”
I attend conferences, seminars, trainings, zoom gatherings and there will always be someone who says, “Not in my lifetime.” It doesn’t matter if it’s a mostly African American gathering or a white gathering or a diverse gathering. This is the mindset—not in my lifetime.
My thought was then, and is still—if you don’t believe it can happen in your lifetime it will not happen. The person speaking has already given up, having decided what the truth is and it doesn’t include racial liberation. And yes, I understand why. Just look at our history. We don’t have a great track record for progress. And systemic racism may not be dismantled in my lifetime and I can still work towards it as if it is possible.
Are we willing to write another story together—to live in a country where we have dismantled systemic racism?
What gives me hope?
This current administration. Look at what Donald Trump and his administration have accomplished in just over 200 days. Astounding!
I’m not talking about the harm it has caused—it’s the rate of change that has happened—his dismantling of policies and laws that have protected people for years and decades. Gone. Passing new legislation that will further harm countless more people. Signing executive orders.
I’m strictly speaking of what he and others who align with the Project 2025 agenda have been able to accomplish. It didn’t take generations. It is happening right now.
As someone in my 70’s, I have shared that I didn’t think something like this could happen. Definitely not in my lifetime. And yet it is.
Beware: Adolf Hitler came to power through Germany’s legal political process.
As a society we’ve been hypnotized, lulled into believing that it will take generations for any substantial change, positive and/or negative. That’s not the truth.
How does this inform us? What does this tell us? The wheels of injustice and justice can move and do move quickly when people come together, united.
Acting quickly removed decades of secrecy that had shielded police misconduct records from public view. For over forty years, New Yorkers had fought unsuccessfully to repeal Civil Rights Law 50-a, enacted in 1976 to block public access to law enforcement personnel records. Then George Floyd was murdered. Within days of a special legislative session, lawmakers repealed the law and Governor Cuomo signed it on June 12, 2020.
The real story isn't decades of bureaucratic delay—it was decades of political indifference. New York officials had never been genuinely interested in transparency and simply chose not to act. When the moment demanded it, change happened in days. It took a horrific murder that shocked the world to finally tear down a law that had thrived in secrecy for nearly half a century.
The process to pass the American Rescue Plan Act took about two weeks from the time it was introduced on February 24, 2021 to when President Biden signed it into law on March 11, 2021. It was part of the COVID-19 relief legislation.
We have all experienced positive events that happen quickly, from everyday acts of kindness to scientific discoveries, through serendipity or a burst of human action, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall.
I trust there are ways to reach people, to compel people into action for the benefit of all without an event that shocks us, wallops us, into action.
We are a culture that says, I’ll believe it when I see it. That’s crazy! How do we challenge this thinking, this mindset? It’s self-defeating. And yes, throughout time, there are always people who don’t buy into this way of thinking and accomplish much in the world.
Do I trust we have the collective wisdom in this country to turn around what is happening now? Yes. Will it take work, commitment, education and a sense of urgency? Yes.
I think most people will agree that we are currently living in a country where people are experiencing at least two different realities.
How do we captivate, entice, disarm, enchant, woo and fascinate people, communities, organizations to go beyond the existing mindsets that are destructive to one of unity?
How do we unite all the people?
How do we find radical common ground?
What if we can forget the ‘facts’ and open up to something new, creating anew.
We can only create that which we are willing to imagine. Are we willing to imagine something wondrous together—a world where we all flourish?
By Rachelle Zola l September 3, 2025