Social Justice & Advocacy Column November 6, 2024

After the Election

What I want to remind us all is that as much as we must fight for our convictions and stand for what is just, remember that all those people who vote against you are not disappearing after Election Day or Inauguration Day. We have to find a way to live together still. The only way we will birth a multiracial democracy is if we hold up a vision of a future that leaves no one behind, not even our worst opponents. So you might be in the position to have that conversation with the neighbor down the street or the uncle at the family table or the teenager who doesn’t want to vote because she’s too cynical. What might happen if you leave them alone? [Philosopher] Hannah Arendt says isolation breeds radicalization. You might be the person to puncture the [social media] algorithm, to sit in spaces of deep listening—and deep listening is an act of surrender. You risk being changed by what you hear.

Valarie Kaur