A "Langston Hughes" Happy New Year

The departure of an "old" year and the arrival of 2015 leads me back to a Langston Hughes poem often referred to as "Emancipation"...

Long View: Negro

Emancipation:1865

Sighted through the telescope of dreams

Looms larger,

So much larger,

So it seems,

Than truth can be.

But turn the telescope around,

Look through the larger end-

And wonder why

What was so large

Becomes so small

Again.

What do we truly see when we look backward...when we look forward?

What captures our attention...

the spectacular (murder, riots, war, etc.)...

the mundane (everyday poverty, everyday struggles, everyday racism, etc.)...

conventional wisdom, sensationalism, the illusion of equality...truth?

With every step toward progress, liberty looms larger, so much larger or so it seems...

The Declaration of Independence, The Civil War, The 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, WWI, WWII, Brown v. Board of Education, The Civil Rights Era, a "post-racial" America, an increasingly democratic world.

But, it seems what was so large seems to become small again...

A defining of slavery, Black Codes, Jim Crow, American Eugenics, The Southern Manifesto,  the resegregation of America, racial profiling, excessive "military-style" police brutality, increasing fear and paranoia of immigrants, those who are "different", rampant hacking/ spying/ killing of innocent people/ hunger/ hatred.

I hope that in 2015 we can see Liberty sighted through the telescope of dreams...

Let's resolve to take at least two steps forward for every one step back and kill a lot of jellyfish.

Happy New Year!