#a toast

athelind:

My late biological father was a reactionary, racist, chauvinistic old bastard, and in recent years, as the brand of arrogant, entitled white supremacy he harbored has become ever more assertive on the national and international stages, the hidden meaning of so much of what he said and did in his lifetime has become distressingly clear. His dog whistles have become all too audible to me.

He had a signature toast that he’d give whenever the occasion came to raise a glass and offer one: “Better Days.”

On more than one occasion, I joined him in this toast, and eventually, in my thirties or forties, realized that the phrase meant very different things to the two of us: to him, it was looking back to the romanticized past, where people who looked and thought like him had all the power and the privilege, and everyone else either “knew their place,” or were promptly reminded of it.

To me, raised largely by my relatively-progressive mother and grandmother, it meant looking forward, to the future – equally romanticized, perhaps, but one where the rights and privileges and prosperity that I took for granted as a middle-class white man were extended to everyone, and we were all better for it.

Itstillmeans that to me.

And so, my friends, on this, the first day of 2019, I reclaim those words, and raise a glass to you all:

To the future. 

To resistance. 

To defiance. 

To compassion.

And above all … to hope.

Better Days.
Let us bring them about together.