The Story of 2020, Pt. 2: Living Through History

Ok so I can finally now say - we made it through 2020! 

*collective sigh of relief*

One thing that was for certain in 2020 was a palpable sense of living through history. Sometimes we don't know that we are living through a historical event - it can be difficult to see how all of the disparate pieces are coming together to create a tipping point.

But in 2020, we knew this was history right here. First the global pandemic of COVID-19 and its unprecedented impact; for when last did a disease or war or natural disaster or crisis bring the whole global economy to almost a standstill? More than half a century ago.

Second was the visceral racial reckoning in the United States and around the world, sparked by the killing of George Floyd.

I have a slightly different take on this story which I've only seen in a handful of other places. 

On the one hand as we watched the protests unfold on television and unfold and unfold and keep momentum for such a prolonged period, it felt very, very clear that this was a historical moment.

But on the other hand, as I watched the protests unfold and unfold, it seemed clear to me that something was different about this moment and that it was part of a continuum. 

And it was this -  there were so many white people.

Even in a year where 'Karen' has become an ominous part of the lexicon (fun fact: all of the four Karens I know are black women), I was struck by the sheer numbers of white people and especially young white women out on the front lines protesting. In some of the whitest big cities in the USA, like Portland, protests roiled on and on.

I'm used to seeing black people and especially black women who look like me, out on the front lines. We have to be. It's our lives and our children's and husbands' lives on the line. 

But this moment was different. 

Young women, some pink-haired, pierced and tattooed but more often than not, brown-haired and average looking, literally flinging themselves between the police and black protestors, taking rubber bullets and tear gas unflinchingly.

I remember at one point about a week into the protests, watching CNN reporting live from heated protests in Los Angeles and being taken aback. 

'These girls 'bout it...where did these white girls come from?' I asked my husband, stunned.

I'm not the only one who noticed. My (and everyone's) new old favourite podcast, NPR's Code Switch summed it up in a brilliant episode 'Why Now, White People?'

I don't think they came out of nowhere and all at once. Rather, I think we are in the midst of a New Civil Rights Movement and all of the events of the last near-decade, and all of the work of activists built to this moment where awareness and calls for allyship culminated in a feeling that action had to be taken and not just by black people.

The Washington Post and Boston Globe have good pieces on this while the always excellent Guardian dubbed the Black Lives Matter movement a new civil rights movement as far back as 2015.

Thus, just as the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s is now seen to have started in the 1950s with 1954's Brown v. The Board of Education, so too is this moment part of a movement going back to the tragic killing of Trayvon Martin in 2012.

I think when we tell the story of 2020 and its racial justice protests, we will see it as a significant flashpoint in the movement, but it is not the beginning, nor is it the end. I also feel like viewing the story of the racial justice events of this year in this way could be helpful to us in those moments where we feel like things aren't moving or are moving too slowly. Those moments can be discouraging but we have the example of other movements to help us understand that sometimes we need to step back to see that what we may think is the whole story, is really a chapter.