ESPOSITO: There are reasons to stay optimistic in 2020
Column: Unapologetically
Dear whoever is reading this,
At the beginning of 2020, I used to really hate the 2020 jokes. Stubbornly an optimist, I was always the person to argue that things would get better faster than we thought. The last time I wrote an article was in May.
It is the end of September now, and we are still in a global pandemic. We are in the midst of a war against police brutality, a battle for systemic equality, the world is on fire and natural disasters are wreaking havoc across the world.
The United States Postal Service, of all things, is failing us. And now, if we were not already screwed, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, after battling cancer for as long as she possibly can, has finally succumbed to it.
I used to really hate the 2020 jokes. The “oh, what could possibly come next" and “it is 2020, the world could explode at any minute." Now, I can not deny that I wake up every morning wondering the same thing. What next?
It would be foolish of me to not acknowledge the state in which we are living right now. It would be foolish of me not to acknowledge the people we have lost, the things that have been taken from us and the unfairness in the world that has come to light.
I see it and I feel it. There are varying degrees in which we have all been affected by the mess that is 2020, but everybody feels it. Everyone has had a loss, whether it be of a person, their freedom, their job or their way of life.
I will not sit here and write to you that you should keep thinking positive. I will not tell you that things will get better soon. People older and much wiser than me do not know if that is the truth, so who am I to preach that?
I will, though, write to you about the things I have experienced since my last article in May. My hometown is predominantly white. There is a saying in this town that those who are born here, die here. Not many people leave. We have a beach, we have a tight-knit, close community. Most businesses are locally owned.
People care about each other here, but they do not really care about the world outside of these town limits until the death of George Floyd on May 25, which propelled the world into one of the biggest racial movements we have ever seen.
In the midst of fear and cries of outrage, as a spotlight was shone on the racial injustices people face in the United States, the land of the free, I witnessed something in my little town.
For the first time in 20 years, I witnessed people caring. As protests went on across the globe, 3000 people gathered in my own town, holding up signs advocating for equality, for justice. And that kind of thing does not happen here. For the first time, I think ever, we were united in the motto that change happens in your own backyard.
The death of Floyd was vile and should have never happened. But it made people care. People who have never before cared about politics, registered to vote for a better world. I watched people, who have for so long stayed out of it, march in unity with strangers to protest against the injustice that people of color face every day.
Another thing I want to write to you about is the bravery I have seen. I have worked as an ocean lifeguard for five years. Obviously, in the midst of a pandemic, this summer was much different.
How do you maintain a 6-foot distance when you need to save someone’s life? The answer is, you do not. There is always been a stereotype about beach lifeguards — they party, aren’t the brightest, they are a bunch of young kids who do not really know what they are doing.
For the most part, that is an extremely false representation, and this summer, at least from what I have seen, proved that. The kids that I worked with put their lives on the line every day in order to keep everyone on their beach safe.
In July, my best friend Joey performed CPR on a woman having a heart attack on his beach. He saved her life. After it happened, I asked him, as he called for reinforcement and ran to the scene to give her mouth to mouth, did he hesitate at all, scared of the coronavirus diease (COVID-19)?
"Not for a second," he said. "This is our job, it is what I have to do."
So this is where we are now. There is a lot of darkness in the world. There are a lot of terrible things happening, and there is no use in hiding from that fact. But there are glimmers of light in this darkness. There is hope. There are people in this world caring about others like they never have before. My generation, a bunch of 20 something-year-olds, is arguably the most selfish group of people.
Everybody remembers what it is like to be 20 years old: Everything that happens to you seems like the end of the world, and it is hard to see past anything that does not have to do with yourself. Yet we are the ones who have been in the midst of these protests. We are the ones signing petitions and starting to pay attention.
I am watching people my age care, care more than they ever have before — about the world they are about to enter and about each other. Even in the midst of all this horror, there is hope in us, in our youth.
I have watched people risk their own lives for people around them. I have watched people show up in the middle of a pandemic to protests, to stand in solidarity with their fellow humans for a better world.
So even though 2020 is a horrible time, and there is no denying that, I refuse to be a pessimist about this world. We will emerge from this. And we will emerge smarter and more compassionate than we ever have been before. And that is why we hang on to hope. That is why we keep moving forward.
Laura Esposito is in the School of Arts and Sciences junior majoring in journalism and political science. Her column, "Unapologetically," typically runs on alternate Wednesdays.
*Columns, cartoons and letters do not necessarily reflect the views of the Targum Publishing Company or its staff.
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