Skip to main content.
Bard HAC
Bard HAC
  • About sub-menuAbout
    Hannah Arendt

    “There are no dangerous thoughts; thinking itself is dangerous.”

    Join HAC
    • About the HAC
      • Our Staff
      • About Hannah Arendt
      • Our Location
  • Programs sub-menuPrograms
    Hannah Arendt

    We bring Arendt's fearless style of thinking to a wide audience.

    • Our Programs
    • Courage to Be
    • Campus Plurality Forum
    • Race and Revolution
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Affiliated Programs
    • Meanings of October 27th
    • Democracy Through Sortition
    • Global Humanities Network
  • Academics sub-menuAcademics
    Hannah Arendt

    “Storytelling reveals meaning without committing the error of defining it.”

    • Academics at HAC
    • Undergraduate Courses
    • Practice of Courage Courses
  • Fellows sub-menuFellows
    HAC Fellows

    “Action without a name, a 'who' attached to it, is meaningless.”

    • Fellows
    • Postdoctoral Fellows
    • Student Fellowships
  • Conferences sub-menuConferences
    Hannah Arendt
    Conference 2019

    Fall Conference 2019
    “Racism and Antisemitism”

    Thursday, Thursday, October 10 – Friday, October 11
    • Conferences
    • Past Conferences
    • Registration
    • Our Location
  • Publications sub-menuPublications
    Hannah Arendt
    Subscribe to Amor Mundi

    “I've begun so late, really only in recent years, to truly love the world ... Out of gratitude, I want to call my book on political theories Amor Mundi.”

    • Publications
    • Amor Mundi
    • HA Journal
    • Further Reading
    • Video Gallery
    • From Our Members
    • Podcasts
  • Events sub-menuEvents
    Hannah Arendt

    “It is, in fact, far easier to act under conditions of tyranny than it is to think.”

    —Hannah Arendt
    • HAC Events
    • Upcoming
    • Archive
  • Join sub-menu Join HAC
    Hannah Arendt

    “Political questions are far too serious to be left to the politicians.”

    • Join HAC
    • Become a Member
    • Subscribe
    • Virtual Reading Group
    • Join HAC
               
  • Search

Amor Mundi

Amor Mundi Home

 

Change Happens
 

01-09-2021

Neil Roberts called his recently-turned 18 year-old goddaughter after the polls closed in Georgia on Tuesday to congratulate her for voting. One day later, chaos broke out in our nation’s capital. Roberts asks, what he should say now to his goddaughter. 
 

Now what do I say to my goddaughter?
In 1935, the polymath W.E.B. Du Bois remarked in his magisterial work Black Reconstruction in America, “The unending tragedy of Reconstruction is the utter inability of the American mind to grasp its real significance”. We still haven’t learned. But we can learn and we can change. We must. This I will tell to my goddaughter.
Yes, change is demanding.
The word ‘change’ neither is reducible to the three laws of thermodynamics, nor an invention of former President Barack Obama. In politics, change is an effective slogan until it becomes an ineffective slogan (Obama ran for president on the Change movement; his 700+ page presidential memoir, A Promised Land, doesn’t list ‘change’ in the index). Those who condemn change like the mob at the Capitol may invoke hatred. Yet as Audre Lorde teaches us, hatred is a tool used by folks who don’t share our life visions. Anger, in contrast, occurs between peers, friends, and colleagues, and it can be used in the service of overdue change.
Change is more than a platitude. Georgians know this.
Think of Stacey Abrams. Despite losing a fraught and potentially historic gubernatorial race, she remains steadfast in combatting voter suppression and mobilizing new and previously disenchanted Georgia voters. Think of the arduous organizing of Black women across the state who helped turn a longstanding Red state Blue. Think of Georgians espousing a range of creeds who have chosen love and a bright future over hatred and a divided past. Think of older obstacles to change detailed by Du Bois in a 1903 study of Georgia’s Dougherty County, which he dubbed “the Egypt of the Confederacy.”
Change happens.

Footer Contact
Contact HAC
Bard College
PO Box 5000
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
845-758-7878
arendt@bard.edu
Join the HAC
Become a Member
Subscribe to Amor Mundi
Join the Virtual Reading Group
Follow Us
Image for Twitter
Image for Facebook
Image for YouTube
Image for Instagram