Be Dangerously Optimistic

Be Dangerously Optimistic

I was in a meeting with my Academic Dean the other day. He likes to meet with me a few times a year to hear about the things that go on in my life and the dust I kicked up around campus. We’d first met around sophomore year, when I was in deeper trouble, but even then he saw my dangerous tenacity for bringing about liberation. “You’re gonna have a bright future. I’m excited to see you on my TV.”

This time was very similar, but I think since this would be most likely my last time seeing him, he wanted to give me a few departing wisdoms.

 “You getting into any trouble this year?” No, nothing like that. For the most part, it’s been quiet. I went to a couple of protests, wrote a little, but there isn’t anything more than that. No more headlines. Just a little friction in all the quiet.

“Well how are classes? You’re almost done.” Yep, I am. And I’m going out with a bang. Rebel and rebelling even more. I’m talking about the 1969 Black Week and zionist organizations at Duke. Doing what I do, but through a more academic avenue. 

He looks at me, and he starts smiling, shaking his head. I can’t help but think he may be laughing at my stubbornness and my youth. I can tell that he knows these to be quite the combo much like I feel and believe in it now. 

The conversation goes long, but he says this to me: “Why are you doing this? Realistically you are not going to change anyone’s mind. Things like this are already made up in the minds of the majority of people. So why do it? What do you hope to gain?”

This is not new to me nor is it a question that I really like answering (and I’ll get to why in a second). I just looked at him and said: “well, Baldwin wrote in the hopes that one day when he is long gone and no longer relevant—when his work is no longer ‘needed'—that someone will discover his words again and that he will do something with it.” I continued later, calling myself a “dangerous optimist”. He paused at these words. I don’t think he knew what else to do with them.

But I think people need more of that. Dangerous optimism. Not heady arrogance or unfiltered naïveté. That’s not dangerous, that’s just destructive. I mean a kind of optimism that lets you see past impossibility. One that’s almost unbelievable. The one that stays in the hearts of abolitionists, anti-zionists, the commies and anarchists.

This optimism is front and center—you can’t ignore it because you’ve felt it from me before you walked in the room. An optimism that proceeds reputation and name. One that just is before you. One that even if no one else in the world believed it—and, at the same time, did everything to quell it—that you would still have it. 

I want that optimism to transcend me. I want it to be infectious and viral. I want my dangerous optimism to sicken those who thrive from hatred, death, and ignorance. My words should show you my optimism. My actions, too. My being, the way I sit and cross my legs or lay on a sofa or rest my heels or keep my hands behind my head. I want my optimism to be a peace beyond understanding in a world so quick to give me anxiety. A world that wants me to fear and be controlled by it daily. 

My optimism won’t change people’s minds. It will probably piss people off more than anything (as it already has). And that will have to be okay. Some will be mad and angry and hateful, but some will be inspired and energized and ready to really change. Really change.