Millner: 2020 has been a time warp. Maybe that’s how a new era is supposed to feel

Millner: 2020 has been a time warp. Maybe that’s how a new era is supposed to feel

SFGate

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What a time, what a time.

What day is it? What month is it? Why does it feel like we’ve been living through decades’ worth of history over the past few months — yet the actual hours are passing by so slowly?

The first half of 2020 has been a time warp.

Maybe that’s how a new era is supposed to feel.

No, we won’t be going back to “normal.” I realize we all have moments when we want to return to what’s comfortable. Some people’s desire for what was “normal” is so strong that they’re refusing to wear masks, believe in factual evidence or insist that armed agents of the state be subject to accountability for their treatment of Black citizens.

Maybe you’ve already had a moment when you realized “normal” wouldn’t be coming back. I’ll tell you about mine.

Several weeks ago, I heard through the grapevine of Black-people-who-live-in-the-neighborhood that there would be a Black Lives Matter march in the region of San Jose where I spent part of my childhood. (The stereotype that all Black people know each other isn’t true, but in some places, we seek each other out for our own sanity.)

“I can’t go to the protest myself,” came the missive, “but I gathered up some supplies for them — water bottles, snacks, stuff like that. And I couldn’t believe it — these two white teenagers picked up the bag from my porch.”

At first I, too, was disbelieving.

This is a neighborhood of single-family homeowners who are predominately white, wealthy, aging and primarily devoted to a libertarian ethos and their property values. In other words, it’s a neighborhood that reflects how racial and economic power actually function in this country in general and California in particular, rather than how we say they do.

For two white teenagers from this...

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