It goes without saying the 2020 will be a significant year to remember. Who would have thought while preparing for our New Year celebrations in 2019 that we were saying goodbye to what we knew as our normal way of life?

Yes, as always plans of renewals, resolutions and change were present amongst the celebrations with loved ones. New beginnings, fresh starts and the usual life filled energy afforded to the turning of the year. Promises; new you, new beginning, new life……..

The early reports of ‘some virus’ from China brushed aside as we continued with the all too familiar chime of Auld Lang Syne, cups of kindness, the linking of arms and old acquaintances.

The speed a ferocity in which the corona virus grasped, gripped and infected copious numbers of lives around the world refused to let go and astonished us all.

World leaders, business owners, community services and our personal lives stunned into a state of paralysis attuned to that conveyed by the Irish novelist James Joyce. A standstill, total shock and bewilderment. No one had the answers, no one knew what to do.

‘Going into Lockdown’ were words I only heard in Hollywood prison movies. The surrealness of the pandemic brought words to life like unprecedented, most difficult and serious times.

Everything shut down; silenced and stiffened by an unknown paralysis.

With no school, work or shops to got to, we were all forced to STOP!

For me, having tirelessly juggled family life, full time work and a Social Work degree for the last few years. The halt in the chaos was welcome; I could breathe once more.

We finally got around to fixing up the garden or that share bedroom. Good or bad we were forced into the company of our household members.

Separation and loss became the theme of the year that held such promise.

We loved our elders and vulnerable loved ones at a distance. For the first time like never before. Computer experts were born out of necessity and need. Adaptations were not only physical and mental but necessary as life shifted online with a lack of human connection; human life.

The month of May should have brought the new spring life depicted in the Darling Bugs of May. But, instead, life ceased for George Floyd, taken, murdered to be precise. All eight minutes and 46 seconds of torture and racial violence posted on social media for the world to witness. Forced into physical paralysis and unable to breathe or move. We hear again and again “I can’t breathe”

We held our own breath in shock and dismay. The paralysis of time and space hindered our ability to push the police officers cold hearted knee off his neck.

George was not the only one, the first or sadly and devastatingly may not be the last. But George prompted a global response, global protest and global unity for those that could connect with the injustice of yet another black life cheapened, dehumanised and taken.

Protest, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, boycotts, heightened frustrations and corporate tick box exercises that do little to change the culture of microaggression in the office, became the new normal. Black people are starting to have more of a TV/commercial presence. The No Room for Racism icon, Kit It Out and taking the knee before playing in the premiership echoes the protest of Collin Kaepernick that highlights police brutality and the systematic oppression of black people.

We are currently experiencing a paralysis of movement, not prohibited to move between the government segregation of tier 2, 3 and now 4. Will there be a tier 5? How might that translate? With the messages of “No mixing of households” Reminiscent of the movie Hunger Games, or, dare I say it…. the Black segregation Jim Crow Laws in the USA.

In the UK the promise of a saviour vaccine brings further debate of its medical validity. I prefer to measure it success by using a S.M.A.R.T tool to medically validate preventative claims. I predict the suggestive language will continue with the administration of the vaccine. How will it be framed when some of us have taken it, and some of us will not. Will it be another opportunity of separation, segregation and ‘othering’, a them and us situation? Adding to the existing separatist ideas with still no true integration and acceptance.

Yes, the acceptance of black skin has been afforded to some over the years. Successful black celebrities, a black president and now a black female vice-president currently leading the New World, however, does this eradicate bare faced racism? The racism that causes black girls and boys to want to bleach their skin to become more accepted. The racism that causes grown black men and women to code-switch and change how they look and speak to be accepted to the ‘white majority.’

The answer is categorically No!!

Racism is very much alive in this country evident by the racist reactions to the Diversity Dance, the Sainsburys advert or even the BLM mention in the New Year fireworks display at the stroke of midnight 2021.

The narrative and the conversation must change in order to wake up out of the slumbered paralysis of racism. To close the gap of opportunity caused by separation based of the colour of black skin.

To do this we must be Brave! Fearless and become a Fearless Race in 2021.

AboutFace are here to change such narrative around racism, discrimination and inequality. To highlight privilege in a bold a fearless way. If racism is there, to call it, own it and challenge it.

Bold! I know, but by offering a solution, a forum, a mechanism to tackle head on and support a change of direction, a brave conversation can surly take place.

Some maybe relieved to see the back of 2020 but it will be membered in history as a year that change the world.

Maxine