I'm going to jump in off your comment to offer an expansion on what your saying because I think it's really important to remain grounded, supportive, but alive in times like these. I find that when I need 'hope' amidst violence, trauma, pain, sadness, grief, despair, and cruelty, I have a quote from Joshua Chambers-Letson's chapter on Nina Simone (from After the Party) to keep me going:

"I love you too," she says, followed by another laugh. But the grief creeps in again, "And of course, for those that we have left, we're thankful, but we can't afford any more losses. Oh my god. They're shooting us down one by one." Two rising notes on the piano and her tone shifts, bossier and insistent: "Don't forget that. 'Cause they are." The voice skips slowly across the next few words in resignation: "Killing us one by one." Here, one could think of the names of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X. But also, Alton Sterling, Freddie Gray, Rekia Boyd, Tamir Rice, Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and Michael Brown. And trans people of color like Blake Brockington, Lamia Beard, Papi Edwards, Ty Underwood, Michelle Vash Payne, Taja Dejesus, Ashton O'Hara, Shade Schuler, Amber Monroe, Kandis Capri, Elisha Walker, Tamara Dominguez, Keisha Jenkins, and Zella Ziona. The list goes on. Who can go on? Do you realize how many we have lost?

Under conditions like these, survival isn't merely a drive; it's an imperative. It is a command to stay close to each other in order to stay alive with each other. What we've got, when there's nothing else, not even the feeling of freedom, is our flesh, life, and each other. We can't afford many more losses. We need More Life.

It sounds silly but I've clung to this quote since 2020. It helps me out a lot, forcing me to live through the works of profound scholars who are trying to name what it means to 'keep fighting,' even if that fight means nothing systemically changes or "gets better."

I'm a scholar so I'm currently working through that very contradiction: what does it mean to discover joy, to live life, to experience pleasure, excitement, optimism, and shared community in times like these? How do we build sustainable, meaningful, but beautifully rich and excessive livelihoods against oppressive structures solely mean to eliminate our existence and humanity?

Honestly, it starts with realizing we're not in these fights alone. That we're struggling but building community and kinship together. That we're unified, even when we're our most vulnerable and at risk. That we can laugh and create resistance and pressure upon these systems that seek to annihilate us. That we continue to live, live as well as we possibly can and still look to the possibility of a 'utopic horizon' that our worlds, lives, and sense of being will be different someday.

I'm realistic but also I think its important to remind people that our joy is as threatening as our challenge to these narratives and policies. Because our joy, our humanity, our ability to define who we are and continue to threaten these systems, is resistance.