Looking for Light During Black Futures Month

 How do we envision the future we want to have and bring it into being?

By Keith Rushing

Photo by Joshua Sortino.

I’d love to be optimistic about the prospect of revolutionary change for Black people. I wish I had the sense that the race-based systemic injustice we’ve always faced is fading and a renaissance full of possibilities is around the corner. 

But the reality we face in this polarized nation with hate on the rise is we’re in the midst of an intense backlash.

Just like the Post-Reconstruction era when laws were used to disenfranchise newly freed Black people, our enemies are taking some of what we’ve gained away. The conservative takeover of the courts has weakened voting rights. Elite colleges can’t consider an applicant’s race, as if the well-documented disadvantages of living in a racist society aren't real. Employers are cutting their diversity, equity and inclusion programs, which likely means decreased job opportunities for Black, Indigenous and other People of Color. And we still face inequities in everything from income and accumulated wealth to discrimination in healthcare, resulting in shorter lifespans.

The story of the unparalleled role Black people played in building America as well as the trauma we have faced are being erased from school curriculums.

Just four years ago, companies, and nonprofits were being more inclusive in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd. Black Lives Matter signs were showing up everywhere and organizations were announcing commitments to promote racial justice. Many in the white mainstream embraced the need for national reckoning on race. For a brief time, it seemed that we might be able to make a significant dent in oppression. But, now, the pushback on systemic racism and white supremacy is losing ground to the pushback on racial justice and equity. 

This brings me to the heart of the discussion I want to have.

How do we—specifically Black folks—find inspiration to keep fighting? What form should our struggle take? How do we envision the future we want to have and bring it into being?

We are so exhausted from centuries of fighting seemingly endless manifestations of oppression.

To be honest, I feel somewhat demoralized and cynical.  Will my children and my children’s future children still have to grapple with what we’re facing? Can we do anything differently to turn it around?

In the late 1960s  Black people were collectively trying to heal anti-blackness, internalized racism that made us devalue our features, our hair and our dark skin and envision a future. 

With parents who were part of the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement, “Black is Beautiful” and “Black Power”  and “Power to the People” was how I learned to greet people at age 4 and 5. We rocked dashiki and afros with pride. 

Those in the movement have told me they didn't know what direction the country was going in during the late 1960s. Black panthers and members of Black radical organizations were in retreat, under surveillance, imprisoned, shot dead or in exile. Yet, at the same time ,the sense of enormous possibility was real, built on collective struggle, a sense of sisterhood and brotherhood and shared struggle. 

Can we bring that spirit of collective struggle and possibility back? If so, what do we need to start doing to make it happen?

In many ways, Black people are achieving an unparalleled level of success. Running Fortune 500 companies, serving as presidents of elite universities, serving in Congress and expanding in leadership roles. We’ve now had a Black president and a Black and South Asian vice president, who is the first woman to serve in that role 

But Black people are incarcerated at five times the rate of whites, according to a 2021 study from the Sentencing Project. One in five Black men born in 2001 will likely be imprisoned. And Black women are incarcerated at 1.6 times the rate of white women.  More than one third of those arrested for violent crimes are Black, which is a reflection of racial bias throughout the criminal justice system, such as more harsh charging decisions. But it’s also a result of the excessive violence in our communities, the internalized trauma, lack of resilience and a debilitated sense of self worth. 

As members of the Movement for Black Lives so often have said: We Must Save Us. We must find solutions through working and building together. But how does that happen when hope is withering, like another deferred dream.

When I’ve talked to activists who fought desegregation battles in the 1960s, they told me despite the intense fight they had to wage, great risk and toll it took, they knew Jim Crow couldn’t survive for very long. Clearly, there was tremendous hope and a great sense of possibility.

Now, during Black History and Black Futures Month how do we start reimagining a different future, so current and future generations can live much richer, fuller and freer lives?