I’ve been thinking a lot about how this moment will read in future history books. About all the analysis that future students, historians, and people will read about the moment that began in 2020.
Everything happening this year seems so well orchestrated, not positively or maliciously necessary, but just ordered in a way that has caused everything to happen. Trump’s presidency, the Coronavirus, the civil uprising, all play together to define this moment.
I believe we wouldn’t be seeing the country-wide and world-wide resistance to police and systemic racism if it wasn’t for the Coronavirus. All people found themselves more vulnerable in March 2020 than they even thought was possible. Most people living in America were unsatisfied with Trump’s handling of the virus, whether they thought he took it too seriously, or not seriously enough.
Following the stay-at-home orders there were a plethora of citizens at home, with TIME on their hands. This time and their already disgruntled nature about the way the system failed to keep them safe and financially secure in the middle of a pandemic opened the gates for a huge response to George Floyd’s murder. A response that pushed more non-Black people into the Black Lives Matter movement than I’ve ever seen. A response that has seen, even if superficial, many people, companies, and organizations addressing racism publicly for what seems to be the very first time.
I don’t think this movement could have happened without the people having time on their hands, outside of the usual rat-race, to engage with it. Without being entirely disappointed in our nation’s systems it would have been easier for people to ignore what many Black people and activists have been fighting for for decades.
It feels like America’s melting pot is at a boil, and everything is bubbling out onto the stove. I believe it's going to take a while, but what’s left after everything simmers down will be better than what came before it.
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