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The Many Things 2020 Taught Us

Don’t leave this year without reflecting on it

Elizabeth Wellington
Momentum
6 min readDec 17, 2020

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A George Floyd mural in Houston, TX on September 5, 2020. Photo: The Washington Post/Getty Images

“There is no better teacher than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.” — Malcolm X

I wouldn’t repeat 2020 for all the tea in China.

It was a year of pain and heartache, loss and death, uncertainty and fear.

But for all the sadness and downright misery that defined these past 12 months — from the untimely deaths of basketball great Kobe Bryant and actor Chadwick Boseman through the endless months of coronavirus quarantine and the police violence that sparked America’s racial reckoning — it’s become clear the happenings of 2020 were, indeed, a necessary evil.

The country needed these swift kick-in-the-pants moments (I mean, really, was this 2020 or 1920?) to distance us from the false belief that this country’s race problem had been handled. The Donald Trumps, the Mitch McConnells, and the Proud Boys of America are not scepters of yesteryear. They are real, in-this-moment, flesh-and-blood threats.

The country needed these swift kick-in-the-pants moments to distance us from the false belief that this country’s race…

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Momentum
Momentum

Published in Momentum

Momentum is a blog that captures and reflects the moment we find ourselves in, one where rampant anti-Black racism is leading to violence, trauma, protest, reflection, sorrow, and more. Momentum doesn’t look away when the news cycle shifts.

Elizabeth Wellington
Elizabeth Wellington

Written by Elizabeth Wellington

Elizabeth Wellington is a writer at The Philadelphia Inquirer. She’s working on her first novel. Follow on Twitter @ewellingtonphl

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