If you had to narrow that face down to just one, you could do far worse than choosing Janet Mock.
A self-described "black and Native Hawaiian trans girl from a single-parent home," her Op-Ed piece in the New York Times describes in vivid detail her struggles to be accepted for who she is, and for the challenges she and many others face from the Trump Administration's determination to roll back the protections that former President Obama attempted to put into place for the LGBT community. It does so with candor, with intelligence, and with a determination to not surrender to hatred.
She is part of the generation that will pick up the pieces when the current Disaster-in-Chief and his cronies has ceased to embarrass the nation, the world, and history. And make no mistake about it. Far more than they are local, all politics are generational. I have no doubt that, if we can make it through the next four years (or less, G-d willing), she and her generational compatriots will put things back together so that they will be in far better shape than they were before.
To look at Ms. Mock, to listen to her, to learn of her accomplishments, one wonders why she inspires such fear in the likes of Trump and his followers. Is is merely that she is "different"? Or is it something else, such as the fact that she is obviously comfortable with being "different"?
This much is certain: unlike the dispossessed whites who sit around living off public benefits financed by blue states and waiting for the factories to come back, Ms. Mock is not sitting around waiting for someone to hand her the future. She, and others in her age group, are building it for themselves.
And, perhaps without realizing it, for the rest of us as well. Thank you, Ms. Mock. Somehow, I have hope that you, I, and the rest of us will pull through this together. And yes, we'll ultimately be "different." But we'll definitely be better.
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