This wasn’t my vision of summer 2020.
This really wasn’t anybody’s vision of summer 2020. Needless to say, it sent our heads swivelling.
I don’t know about you, but I tend to think a lot in general. The pandemic restrictions this summer left me with even more time to think. Probably too much time, because I spent many of my days sitting in my room while my mind fell into a spiralling manic rabbithole of Very Irrelevant and Slightly Depressing Thoughts.
But when I wasn’t spiralling into the rabbithole and my thoughts were somewhat coherent, I learned. That learning had to do with the killing of George Floyd and everything that happened after it. If you think you’ve heard enough about this issue, then stop reading. But I’m going to continue.
This tragic incident and the movement it fueled caused many people, including myself, to reevaluate what they believed about literally everything - from America’s police system to systemic inequity, from unconscious prejudices to violent versus peaceful protests.
I am ashamed to say that I was ignorant about many of these racial and social issues until this summer hit me like a stack of biology textbooks.
As I watched the news, read the stories, and scrolled through the social media posts, I was forced to question a lot of my beliefs, actions, and thoughts. Why did I believe what I did? Why hadn’t I taken any steps in the past to educate myself on these topics? Were there any prejudices I held about different people and ideas? What could I change? And most of all, how could I grow?
Here I am now. I still have a lot (a LOT) to learn, but these are a few takeaways from the summer of 2020.
1. Conversations are important: have them. This summer, I pushed myself to have hard and sometimes controversial talks with people from all different ethnicities, backgrounds, and walks of life. Through these conversations, I was able to grow. I learned to see things from a variety of different perspectives, and through this, I was able to form a more complete stance on social and racial issues. I believe that a meaningful, respectful conversation is one of the best ways to learn more about others and about yourself.
2. The world is a complex place made up of many different components. It’s wrong to simplify deep-rooted issues or ideas into a handful of easy catch-phrases; it’s wrong to simplify complex groups of people into a bunch of hurtful stereotypes. Instead of simplifying things and only scratching the surface of these issues, take time to go deeper. Excavate a space in your mind and dig into these issues. It might take some time, and that’s okay - eventually, you’ll figure out where you stand.
3. Self-reflection is key. Oftentimes, we are very quick to point out the flaws in institutions, movements, and people–but we forget to look at our own lives to see where we’ve gone wrong. I’m guilty of it myself. We have to explore our own beliefs and constructs to the point where we are uncomfortable. This way, when people ask us what we believe in, we can give a firm response. We know what we need to work on in ourselves, and from that, we can grow.
As I thought through everything this summer, one thought kept on surfacing in my mind: Why is there so much hatred in the world? (That, and also why are we so dumb?) But then I realized something: yes, there’s a lot of hatred in this place. But there’s also a lot of love. We just have to learn to show it. And sure, it sounds cliché, but it makes sense. We were all created by the God of love, after all.
This summer may have sent our heads swivelling, but I believe something good came out of it: it forced millions of people to re-evaluate the society we live in and hopefully pushed people to think with a deeper understanding of things.
In many ways, I’m still ignorant, naive, and lost, but I’m eager to keep on growing and hopefully help others to grow in that process. That’s the most important thing, isn’t it? To always seek to learn and to understand--not just in school, but in life. To do this, we need to stay open-minded. We need to educate ourselves and self-reflect, even though it may be uncomfortable. Black lives do matter. There’s no sense in fighting each other, because we’re all children of the King of the Universe. Let’s start treating each other like it.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.