I am often asked the question about how I remain hopeful, given our current national romance with self-destruction. In a world that continually induces our rage – through the kind of structural disregard and state-sanctioned cowardice that stood by as 19 precious kiddos and 2 devoted teachers were murdered at school last week, through the malignant social disregard that forces birthing people to have children, only to then abandon the newly arrived to bad policy and catastrophic happenstance, through an anemic response to the continued terrorization of Black folks, Asian folks, Latinx folks in acts of racial terror – what does any one of us look like when we choose hope? Because hope and lament are not a house divided. They walk together. A hope born of lament is perhaps a more honest hope anyway.