Between Loss and Hope: Reflections on the Black Revolutionary Tradition

Political loss and hope are imagined to be in opposition to much of mainstream political thought. Emancipatory politics is rendered as a matter of linear progress, or as a matter of decisive coalition building in the face of pragmatic constraints. When emancipatory politics fails—or political projects fail to materialize—resignation becomes the dominant response. But this conception of politics, loss, and hope is much too narrow. And it must be reimagined. Drawing upon insights from the Black revolutionary tradition in the United States, this essay argues that the dialectic between loss and hope is a necessary precondition in advancing a revolutionary politics, and expanding prevailing conceptions of community and freedom. Black revolutionary thought reframes our meaning of temporality, strategy, and the epistemology of activism and resistance. It is this conception of political life that is sorely missing from contemporary conversations around confronting crisis but is nonetheless crucial to nourish for radical democracy.