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About a year ago in a June 2020 column, I posed this question: Is the aftermath of George Floyds killing the beginning of a lasting tide or a mere moment in time?

Were about to find out.

To all those who were newly engaged in the Black Lives Matter protests of last summer, please stick around. This eras work to combat racial bias and to realign policing in America in ways less violent for all has barely begun. Perhaps your socially conscious high schooler wanted to march and you, the supportive parent, soon headed out to your first protest.

Maybe it was your pastor who inspired you by preaching about being our brothers keeper, regardless of skin color. Maybe your book club went all-in by reading How to be an Antiracist or White Fragility: Why Its So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism for your June or July 2020 reading.

For some, these steps were conducted in earnest. For many Americans, these actions were to a large extent performative. Or rather, they were preventative. Doing a quick bit of study on Black history and getting familiar with terminology about oppression was a way to avoid unwittingly uttering something racially offensive.

Whatever the motivation, last summer was a catch-up phase for many people new to the idea of racial and social justice, a time for learning history and gaining perspectives on issues that America should have reckoned with long ago. Consider all of last year prep for what lies ahead in summer 2021.

Brace yourself to be challenged as things are about to get rough across America. The next viral controversial police shooting will soon occur, if it hasnt already. Police shoot and kill nearly 1,000 people a year. Many cases are questionable under honest assessments. George Floyds murder stands outside of the so-called gray area of these tragedies.

The person, probably a Black man, will be just as dead. His family just as devastated.

Black activists, people who have spent their lives working to prevent such deaths, will be justifiably enraged. Will white gazes be averted, their attention less rapt this time around? Will they be able to sustain their fledgling activism through another protest-filled summer? Well see.

Its unquestionable that many white Americans had their moral compass shaken by Floyds murder. To watch a man have the life literally choked out of him, that was a step too far to ignore. But generally, across the country, many white people are safely isolated from the brutal ways that policing looks different for people of color.

Systems dont change quickly, even when everyone is aligned in the same direction. Sustained passion, pressure and cooperation from many diverse voices will be necessary for many years to come.

The power of last summers marches was that they drew such a wide spectrum of America.

The goal now will be to stay engaged, to lean into finding avenues beyond marching to be productive. This could be as small as donating to a group working on these causes or being the calm, informed voice among friends and family who continues conversations about policing and race whenever the next high-profile incident occurs.

Because we know that it will come.

People declared that Black Lives Mattered across America in 2020.

They still do, and we need to continue to act like it.

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Will Black Lives Matter in the summer of 2021? - Watertown Daily Times