the underdogs

The end of 2017 is coming, and it's hard to count the terrible things that have happened in our country this past year. Shootings, fires, hurricanes, accused pedophiles endorsed by major political parties, and more. As the sun set on 2016 I had a pit in my stomach, a deep sense of dread, of what was to come, and in some ways 2017 exceeded my worst fears. Yet in the most surprising ways it revived a sense of hope and wonder at what we can still achieve even when our allies feel weak and few.

I grew up genuinely believing that the world was getting better and better, almost without effort. Surrounded by safety and loving family and like-minded friends, it felt as if we had figured out the major problems of the world and that everyone else would catch on quickly. I wrote off disagreement and pessimism as ignorance, and burrowed deeper into the comfort of my small community. My occasional forays into the outside world were like educational expeditions - "let's get a good picture of the 'before' so that when progress reaches here shortly we'll be able to fully appreciate the 'after.'"

When I took my first job, as a public school teacher, I started my day in a long floral dress with my hair neatly braided and clipboard in hand, and ended it openly crying onto an administrator in the schoolyard. It took me a long time (and I still struggle) to understand that no matter how well-intentioned, well-resourced, or energetic I am, I cannot (and sometimes should not) bend the world to my vision. But still, as the leader of five years' worth of second grade classes, I was in the position of power to shape a small corner of the world, and imagined myself part of a wide swath of enthusiastic young teachers converting challenges and disadvantages into opportunity, equality, and peace-loving enlightenment everywhere.

When Trump won the election in 2016, my view of my country and its trajectory was shattered. It simply had not occurred to me that large groups of people hadn't shared my view (or my privilege) for the past eight years that we were nearing the eternal reign of diversity-embracing optimists. In my mind, for eight years we had mostly been winning, just needed to work out a few of the kinks, and we would continue to add members to our winning team. As that winning team dissolved to make way for Trump's antithetical agenda, I had to face the harsh truth that I was no longer in the position of power and optimism. Things were no longer going to "fix themselves" as my privilege had seemed to assure.

Facing that privilege has been a defining reality check. For all the hopelessness I've felt this year, others faced the actual day-to-day despair of seeing relatives deported or medical coverage disappear or civil rights questioned - and not just this year, but long before. For all of my outrage, others had to bottle theirs up for the sake of keeping jobs and homes. For all of my efforts to protest or make calls, others were already doing far more, and had already been doing it even back when things, to me, had seemed "pretty great." The privilege that affords me the ability to descend into helplessness without costing me my family or my health or my safety isn't distributed equally, which means that every time I think "I could be doing more" I know that people with less are definitely doing more, and have been for a long time.

Underdogs are confronted with the choice of doing nothing and continuing to lose, or fighting against horrible odds for small victories. It's demoralizing to count wins this year among crises averted or lessened, rather than actual steps forward. There's a romance in the movies to being the underdog, but this year has fleshed out the realities of fighting against tides of assault: it is exhausting, it is overwhelming, and it is, at times, nearly hopeless. And there's no promise of a happy ending.

It's been difficult to narrow my goals to the small, local things I can impact, yet I have absolutely seen that it's exactly those things, and not national presidential campaigns, that make the biggest difference. This was the first year that I traded following baseball for following politics, and can barely identify pop stars but can list off a roster of journalists, lawyers, and leaders who have been doing great things for far longer than I've been paying attention. I look at Doug Jones, who chose to devote his year to running an almost certainly un-winnable campaign, and I am astounded by what his team accomplished. With hardly any chance, here we are in 2017 with a Democratic senator in Alabama. Maybe it's my privilege-fueled optimism talking, but most days I still feel hope.

I honestly never really thought much about the title of Obama's book, The Audacity of Hope, but every time I see someone taking a risk or catching a win this year I think of what it means to brazenly keep trying. I am still so accustomed to wins coming easily or costing little, but even after all of the fatigue of losing, I can't help but feel revved up for 2018. Maybe being the underdog means being audacious, or maybe it's delusional, or idealistic, or simply desperate, but whatever it is it's drawing out ridiculously strong, passionate people to the fronts of this amorphous fight.

For those of us underdogs with privilege, let's make 2018 the year of finding where we can help lift up our under-resourced underdogs to bring our collective dreams a little closer in reach. The ones fighting against the biggest odds, full of the greatest hope/delusion, are the stars we need to hitch our wagons to.