Reflections on 2020
Reflections on 2020
Walking in a cloak of fear that has been mistaken for a cape.
I’ve been walking in a cloak of fear that has been mistaken for a cape.
It’s possible that is how Wonder Woman felt too: that just beneath the veneer of the superhero uniform -- or, in my case, a confident Black woman helping to lead an organization during a pandemic and social and racial uprisings -- lurked intense insecurity and doubt. I have questioned my abilities these past few months and I’m grateful that I’m not afraid or ashamed to say it. I know I am not alone.
For me, as a leader in an organization focused on the economic and social transformations that can occur in communities at society’s margins during moments of disruptive change, the year 2020 has brought both daunting trauma and great opportunity.
There have been many times during this year when our team struggled to carry on with the business of the day. We sat in our homes paralyzed by a fear; it felt as if the walls were crumbling around us. At the pandemic’s first peak on the East Coast in April, we watched as our social media scrolls turned into digital death marches, obituaries of friends, family, neighbors, Black and brown people who were disproportionately victims of systemic injustices into which COVID played ruthlessly. At first, my role felt passive. I was a captive to fear, moving through the world in the hands of a cruel and unpredictable COVID virus. I was in denial that this pandemic would last as long as it has and in disbelief that this was an American challenge with no solution in sight. I felt angered and frustrated by inept leadership and by the vast unknown of it all. What do I tell my son? How do I guide our staff? What decisions should be made to protect my life and others? I was struck by the global reach and ubiquity of the disease.
COVID is a raging menace that has wiped out members of our community in numbers too stunning to wrap our heads and hearts around. It has forced us to pivot on a dime and juggle remote school and home offices. It continues to test our resilience. But it was not the only major crisis this year.
The murder of George Floyd, not the first nor last in the epidemic of Black men and women killed at the hands of law enforcement, and the resurgence of Black Lives Matter, has been simultaneously tragic and exhilarating. In this staggering year, we’ve witnessed both a rising awareness of the systemic racism that plagues American society and the power, privilege and indifference of the president who has refused to take steps to bring this virus under control. Their callousness and incompetence has directly collided with the will of a country demanding action to contain the virus.
As if that isn’t enough, climate change is accelerating, assailing us with devastating hurricanes and wildfires, droughts and floods. These events, and our responses to them as a society, are not unrelated.
While the list of tragedy and trauma seems to be endless, despite these realities, some bright spots emerged in 2020.
The year of forced stillness and mandatory realignment also brought key moments for reflection and positive change. It is a year in which we learned to push past fear and paralysis to deep listening, community with partners on the ground, and collective action. We learned to take the time to mourn, but then to pick ourselves up, move our minds from thoughts of death to decisions and strategy. We took a step back and looked at our work, and the world, and reassessed what is needed now that might be different from what we needed yesterday.
At CoLab, where our mission is centered on transformative moments of disruptive change, we were able to help advance conversations and actions towards addressing racial justice and systemic racism. We cultivated curiosity and openness and saw our white sisters and brothers wrestling with the “othering” of the white gaze, the guilt of glimpsing the ravages of white supremacy, and the promise of solidarity and collective action.
In 2020 we convened community leaders who saved a critical healthcare system in Brooklyn and explored how we might apply their lessons to drive equitable health during COVID and beyond. We came together with key organizers and leaders and MIT alumni to lay out how we advance racial justice during this moment of disruptive change. And we continued the work we’ve been focused on for more than a decade -- supporting innovative voices at the margins to advance inclusive development in communities from the Bronx and Brooklyn to Quibdo and Buenaventura in Colombia’s Pacific Region. Most of all, we cared for one another and allowed the space we needed to care for ourselves.
This year, as we look to Thanksgiving and a holiday season that poses a unique set of questions and cautions, the traditional leaning into gratitude feels like a different proposition . For me, there is an epic battle of will to remain optimistic in the face of a grimmer reality that can easily chip away at my gratitude. I am healthy, my family has, so far, remained safe; we have a roof over our heads, food in our bellies, and hugs made to order. But I know that is not the case for so many of my sisters and brothers, and I know that we may be fast approaching an even darker winter.
Still, that chasm between my fears and my realities, and my hopes and dreams, narrows ever-so-slightly when I take a moment to breathe, to gather my intention and focus on what I can control. I turn my attention to the team of beautiful and brilliant Black, brown people who I work with each day. We are indeed in a time of great disruption, and it is not in spite of, but precisely because of that disruption that we there are openings to try to drive a more equitable, just and safe future.
The history books will be filled with indelible moments of 2020 that are almost too many to count. And this current chapter is not over. The historic election of the first African American and Indian woman as Vice President was a victory that I wasn’t sure we’d see. I didn’t realize that I had been holding my breath for weeks until the President-elect was announced and my exhale was audible. My shoulders dropped, the migraine tension I’d felt for months subsided. I cried. Tears of joy and relief oozed from my body -- slow and uncontrollable. My precious brown boy is safer today. Not because the white supremacists and white nationalists that were emboldened over the last four years have disappeared, but the leader of the free world will no longer be their Grandmaster in Chief.
Despite Wonder Woman and her reliable cape, I’m embracing the daily reminder that some superheroes don’t have capes at all. Instead, they wear the clothes of Stacy Abrams, Latosha Brown, Alicia Garza, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, Francisca Porchas Coronado, Marisa Franco, Jessica Solomon, Celeste Smith, and Karilyn Crockett. Some even look like Letitia Lewis of Lovecraft Country, who, names herfear, stares it in the eyes, and then runs like hell towards the monsters because the lives of our loved ones and communities depend on it.
Taina S. Mcfield, MIT’s CoLab Deputy Director