So at this point, it sure does seem like 2020 is going to be a year that Americans are going to remember for a long time. The pandemic spring has transitioned into a summer of mass protests, or so it seems here on June 5.

Today is my son’s birthday—he turns five years old. What will this country be like when he, Lord willing, becomes an adult? He’ll turn eighteen in the year 2033. I can’t believe I’m writing this, but 2033 doesn’t seem too far from now.

What if, in 2033, the collective understanding of the recent past goes something like this: “oh yeah—2020, that was when things starting changing for the better. It had a rocky start, but after the tragedy of Floyd’s murder, the momentum of history started going in the right direction. It’s not perfect now, but let me tell you, there’s a lot less racial inequality and police brutality going around.”

I truly think that at this moment right now it is possible that 2020 could become that fulcrum year. But we all got to keep moving the energy forward.

So what can I do to move it forward?

You know, I once heard a folk singer say on the radio that social change is like a teeter-totter: there’s a giant weight of injustice on one end that weighs down the plank toward the bad. All ordinary people can ever do is to put their little spoonful of good on the other end. It seems like those spoonfuls aren’t going to do anything, but after enough spoonfuls, the whole thing switches in an instant.

I guess this blog is my little spoonful. I’m just one more voice on the huge, messy internet, but here I go.

Make 2020 the Fulcrum Year.

Coming soon: a review of Beyond the Usual Beating: The Jon Burge Police Torture Scandal and Social Movements for Police Accountability in Chicago by Andrew S. Baer.