By Sanaa Mirz

2020 has been a long year. Confusing and extremely odd. It has been an intensely trying year for many of us. From COVID-19, a virus that created a pandemic and threw a monkey wrench into everyone’s plans, to the political landscape worldwide. It has been a year that future generations will have a lot to study about. One of the worst things about being in a pandemic is hearing older folks say, “Well at least you’ll be a part of history”, when you can’t go through the same milestones they did. 

No one wants to be a part of history. That’s the thing. History is messy and terrifying. Every single second counts when you’re a part of history. 

Many people lost those they loved to this virus. And if that wasn’t enough already, black folks had to protest yet again about the murders of black people by the police. Some say that George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s murders were what woke up the world. Black people have long been woken up. Being young and black in 2020 was trying, to say the least. Being young and black during any day and age after the partition of Africa has been difficult. 

So yes, it has been difficult to live as a young black person for hundreds of years. Not because of our skin color, rather because of the way it has been perceived by the outside world. We are either seen as monkeys, beggars, or rebels. Black people’s skin is essentially used as a weapon or a weakness. You either feel sorry for us because we are black or you fear us because of our blackness.

Like many black kids, I was taught all the ways in which to move and breathe in this world to avoid being killed or harmed in any other way for being black. It’s exhausting. But nothing was more exhausting than this summer. The Black Lives Matter protests are not a ‘phase’. One of the most aggravating things to watch this summer was the way in which some white people and other non-blacks protested because they thought it was ‘trendy’ or to show their wokeness. Black people protested in order to fight for our lives the same as we have always done for generations. We protest because we have no other choice. Seeing the murders of so many black people at the hands of people who were meant to protect them was traumatising.

Being black and young in 2020 is trying to protect you and your loved ones from this pandemic while trying to fight against the pandemic that is racism. Racism did not start during COVID-19. It has always been here and for a while I thought it always would. Many people questioned why folks protested in the streets while there was a pandemic going on. While I agree that we need to take the preventive measures in order to protect everyone from this pandemic, racism has been killing more black folks than this pandemic ever has. How many black people died during the slave trade? How many more black people were caught, convicted, and killed unjustly by prison systems around the world? If we don’t protest now, then when? If we, the black youth don’t protest, then who? Who, because many generations of black people before us accepted abuse because they had no other choice. Because they didn’t think there would ever be an end to racism. To be black in 2020 is to say Balck Lives Matter and have those three words used against you to state that you are being too ‘political’. The three words Black Lives Matter convey just a small dose of the importance of black people, yet it is seen as a threat. To be black and young in 2020 is to be acutely aware of this while trying to keep it all together. 

So here's to 2021. A year when we can say more than just black lives matter. When we can say black lives inspire, that black people are important and not have anyone retort, ‘what about other lives?’, when the only intention was to bring attention to the countless ways we are violated.