Summer of 2020 marked by tragedy at beginning, end

Never has Labor Day been so welcomed. This has been a summer like no other.

I’m not talking about the weirdness resulting from COVID-19, like basketball played in a giant bubble. Or masked walks on the beach. Or drive-in church services.

I’m talking about the violence. The unofficial start of summer — Memorial Day — was marred by the murder in Minneapolis of George Floyd, a Black man, by a White police officer. Floyd’s death sparked outrage across the country. Protests erupted in all 50 states, drawing people of all races and ages.

In the weeks that followed, according to the Pew Research Center, as many as 69 percent of us had a conversation about racial inequality.

Corporations joined the conversation, too, pledging support for the Black Lives Matter movement and promising to do a better job with hiring and promotions. Consumer product companies acknowledged the offensive origins of beloved household brands — like Uncle Ben’s rice and Aunt Jemima syrup — and made changes.

Our frayed nerves gave way to a collective hopefulness — that somehow, we were finally on our way to addressing racial injustice.

Then, with Labor Day — the unofficial end of summer — just around the corner, Kenosha, Wis., police officer Rusten Sheskey shot Jacob Blake seven times in the back as Blake tried to evade arrest.

Blake is Black; Sheskey is White. Blake survived the gunfire, but he is paralyzed from the waist down and unlikely to walk again.

Kareem Abdul-jabbar wrote in The Guardian about what seems to be a dying ember of hope: that America was finally committed to the simple idea that being Black shouldn’t make it more difficult to survive a run-in with police. The basketball legend describes the popularity of the Black Lives Matter movement that swept through America over the last few months as a small but powerful sun. However, in the wake of Blake’s shooting, Abdul-jabbar says, “The small sun set quickly. The dying ember had been extinguished.”

Abdul-jabbar’s former team, the Milwaukee Bucks, boycotted Game 5 of the NBA playoffs to protest the fact that the Wisconsin state Legislature was slow to react to racial injustice in the state. Other NBA teams followed suit. In Major League Baseball, three games were canceled, led by the Milwaukee Brewers.

Perhaps the ember of hope has miraculously flickered back.

Still, we have a long way to go. The twin tragedies of the fates that befell George Floyd and Jacob Blake are the bookends of the ghastly summer of 2020. We must do better. It starts with the uncomfortable conversations so many of us are already having. But it continues with a commitment to move beyond words and take action.

The desire to act was evident on a recent August night. More than 8,000 people — from 15 countries on six continents — joined the San Diego-based National Conflict Resolution Center for a virtual conversation about systemic racism. The event featured New York Times bestselling authors Robin Diangelo and Ibram X. Kendi, and it was moderated by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery.

Both authors believe that each of us can play a role in achieving an antiracist society. In his book “How to Be an Antiracist,” Kendi defines an antiracist as “one who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea.” Simply declaring “I am not a racist” is not enough. Action is required. In fact, Kendi views inaction as inherently racist because it preserves the status quo.

Diangelo, the author of “White Fragility,” frames it this way: Unless you interrupt racism, you collude with it. If you recognize a disparity in an institution or policy, she says, chances are that an organization is already fighting it. You can join that fight, offering your time, expertise or financial support.

L.A. Clippers coach Doc Rivers recently said in a heartfelt speech, “It’s amazing to me why we (Black Americans) keep loving this country and the country doesn’t love us back. You don’t need to be Black to be outraged. You need to be American.”

He’s right. All Americans should be outraged. We need to come together and find solutions. We need to talk openly, rationally and respectfully — with curiosity and humility. We need to move beyond unquestioned ideas and think critically. We need to engage and strive for empathy. And we need to share the love.

Those are the lessons of this summer. And, if we take them to heart, we can stop seeing the last few months as a curse and come to accept them as a gift.