By Erik McFrazier
I can’t remember a time in my life where I could think of a better time to look forward. I really can’t. And I wanted to question myself when that thought first came to me, like, really? I didn’t look forward more when I was graduating high school? Or when I was becoming an adult, going to college, starting a family, thinking about how I could be a good parent or a good husband?
Those were big moments, no disrespect.
But the difference then was that my looking forward was personal.
“What am I going to be able to achieve?”
“What kind of man do I want to be?”
That was also about me, with ego tied to that.
What’s different now is that this looking forward has nothing to do with just me.
It’s bigger than me.
And honestly? This is more about selflessness mixed with a whole lot of frustration with the world we’re living in right now.
Another reason I wouldn’t pick those earlier times as the “big one” is because back then I knew so little about life. Let’s be real. I was young, inexperienced, and even though I was hopeful, I didn’t know what I was hoping for. I didn’t know what I was trying to do. I just wanted to experience life. I didn’t know what I’d run into, but whatever it was, I’d try to make the best of it and make something of myself.
Now? I know more.
We all know more.
We’ve seen how this human experience has unfolded over decades, generations, centuries.
And as Americans, with the honest acknowledgment that people were here long before the U.S. existed, our short national history has still been long enough to show us exactly what this country was designed to be. And who it was designed to serve.
Let’s stop sugarcoating it:
This “American democracy” was not created for anybody except white Christian males.
That’s not an insult. It’s just fact.
White women weren’t even considered equal. They were expected to produce, to raise children, to support the system. And yes, they were deeply involved in upholding the racist structures of this country, but the system itself wasn’t designed around them either.
If you were anything outside that category, Irish, Scottish, Polish, Black, Indigenous, Brown, you were considered lesser. Some folks just got to climb the ladder closer to whiteness sooner than others.
But that’s not my point.
My point is:
The entire American experiment has cracks.
And we’re watching those cracks split wide open in real time.
With social media, cameras in our pockets, AI analyzing everything, and information everywhere, there is no hiding anymore.
If something happens, it’s on 100 cameras in five minutes.
No one can claim ignorance.
No one can say “I didn’t know.”
Those days are gone.
And yet somehow, even with all the information we have, we’re living in a moment that feels like the height of ignorance.
And here we are today, entering the holiday season. A time of year where most of us naturally start reflecting. Thinking about what went right, what went wrong, what we survived, what we’re proud of. As a business owner, I do this every single year. I look ahead and think, “What can I do better next year?”
But what I’m talking about now is bigger than a business plan.
Because when you really take a step back and look at the last 20 years, the last 50 years, the last 200 years, you start to see that this country, this system, this “normal,” has been failing a lot of us.
Not everyone, but a whole damn lot of us.
And the last few years?
They’ve tested me.
They’ve tested my patience as an American.
They’ve made me question whether standing on this soil even makes sense anymore.
Twenty years ago, that would have sounded extreme.
Now? It’s pretty normal to wonder.
Some people tell me, “Why don’t you stay and fight?”
Others say, “Man, how do I get out of the United States and have a different experience?”
But the real question for me is:
Fight for what?
My ancestors fought for rights we thought were solid, rights my children still can’t trust will always be protected.
And on top of that, we are still arguing about basic human rights.
About whether certain groups deserve to be treated like humans.
It’s mind-boggling that at this point in our timeline, with all we know, that’s still up for debate.
So yeah, as we look forward, I’m not pretending this is normal.
We are living in extreme times.
Extreme situations.
Politically. Environmentally. Socially. Economically.
In every direction you look.
And my kids, like many of yours. are inheriting all of this.
And they don’t like what they see.
They’re scared.
They’re paying attention.
I watched a TED talk recently where the speaker said something that stuck with me:
“The quality of your life is dependent on the quality of the questions you ask yourself.”
So, as we look back over history, recent and distant, here are the questions we need to be asking:
Have we learned anything?
Are we okay with the system as it exists?
And if we’re not, what is the extreme?
What are we willing to do?
But here’s the shift:
Even though the system is broken, and even though many of us are frustrated and fed up, I can’t ignore the fact that people are not sitting quietly anymore.
Especially Black, Brown, and Indigenous people around the world.
They’re doing the work.
They’re breaking the old systems.
They’re being strategic about creating new ones.
Global Examples
- Indigenous nations in the Amazon have formed cross-border alliances to protect land, water, and sovereignty, winning real legal victories, not symbolic ones.
- Māori communities in New Zealand fought for and won legal personhood for the Whanganui River, rewriting Western concepts of land and ownership.
- African feminist and queer-led movements are actively dismantling patriarchal norms across Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Nigeria, not by mimicking Western movements, but by reclaiming their own cultural power.
U.S. Examples
- Tribal nations across the U.S. have reclaimed land, expanded tribal jurisdiction, and fought successfully for treaty recognition. Land returned, not just acknowledged.
- Black cooperatives and land trusts from Oakland to Boston to Atlanta are creating community-owned wealth outside of capitalist extraction.
Local PNW Examples
- The Whatcom Racial Equity Commission, built by local Black and Brown leaders, is focused on identifying and dismantling systemic racism countywide.
- Land Back efforts across Lummi, Tulalip, and other Coast Salish Nations are reclaiming sovereignty in real, measurable ways.
- Black, Brown, and Indigenous artist and healer collectives in Seattle and Tacoma are creating new models for mental, spiritual, and cultural wellness outside the old systems.
These aren’t “hopeful signs.”
These are power shifts.
These are communities, our communities, refusing to let the old systems define the new world.
And maybe that’s what pulls me forward.
Not hope.
Not optimism.
But motion.
Momentum.
Examples of people building something new in real time.
Examples of people saying, “We’re not waiting for permission anymore.”
So no, I’m not hopeful.
I’m determined.
And I’m looking forward because there are people around the world, and people right here, who are proving every day that the old narrative doesn’t get the final say.
And if there was ever a time to look forward…
It’s right now.
— Erik