As this broken world heads toward another loop around the sun, we should think about where we’re headed. “The arc of the moral universe is long,” said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “but it bends toward justice.” Comforting as this thought may be, that arc doesn’t bend itself.
Here’s hoping that, over the next year and through the troubled times to come, we find the courage we need to lean into the fight and bring our own moral weight to bear.
Here’s hoping that the shouts and cries of “I Can’t Breathe” and “Black Lives Matter” build rather than dissipate, and these calls lead us all to question the legitimacy of a system that devalues and cuts short lives based upon the color of people’s skin.
That we can clearly see the ways in which race is used to poison our politics and divide the electorate, and that we will cease to tolerate strategies that prey upon fear and support white privilege.
That access to quality housing, education and employment may become equitably available to all of us.
That we embrace our history as a nation of immigrants and reward the effort of those who contribute to our economy even as they’ve been forced to live in the shadows.
That we face up to the monstrous fact that one in 100 U.S. citizens is behind bars, and that we take action to dismantle the prison state America has become.
That we work toward a system where we are all equal before the law, where we acknowledge that wrecking the economy through criminal greed has consequences and where our civil rights are upheld and defended regardless of our social status.
That we cease the ruthless punishment of felons who have paid for their crimes and extend the support people need to be law-abiding, productive members of society.
That we build on the modest movement we’ve made toward sanity in our gun laws, and that we soon see the day when the potential for tragedies of the future become a thing of the past.
That we continue to move toward acceptance of people loving whom they choose, and, state by state, continue the just march toward marriage equality.
That we end America’s drift toward theocracy and stop passing laws that control women’s bodies. That we honor life by ensuring that all children are healthy and cared for.
That we finally end the shameful “War on Drugs,” which criminalizes and marginalizes the sick without offering the treatment and healing acceptance they most need.
That we stop cheating our way toward “ending homelessness” with cheap and hollow victories based on narrowed criteria and jury-rigged data, and that we adequately invest in the housing and services that a decent society requires for the weak and vulnerable.
That we listen to nature, and that we see the rising shorelines and the droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes of extreme weather as the wake-up calls they are.
That we find the wisdom to invest in renewable energy, and leave dirty, inefficient fuels derived from fracking and tar sands in the ground where they belong.
That we strengthen democracy by curbing the power of stateless corporations that have no loyalty but to themselves.
That we embrace tax justice as the most promising means of curbing radical inequality and funding essential government services.
That we reject the logic of empire and learn to live in ways that do not require the subjugation and exploitation of others.
That we end the wasteful and immoral war economy that drains the national treasury while destabilizing the world.
That we take up the radical challenge offered by MLK one year before he was assassinated, to “rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society,” in order to defeat “the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism.”
That we live every day in love and hope — and remember that a different world is possible.