The band hall is bustling and lively at 8 a.m. with the members of the high school wind ensemble. Plastic chairs scrape across the linoleum, and double reeds soak their mouthpieces when Mr. Williams takes the podium.

“Okay band. We should be set.”

“They said it’s in the U.S. now. Y’all heard about the girl that died?”

“I don’t believe that. Ebola all over again.”

“Ebola wasn’t half as contagious, not to mention —”

“Percussion, whenever you’re ready.”

It’s January 2020, and I’m in my senior year of high school. We exchange a look as Mr. Williams sighs exasperatedly, his baton and eyebrows raised the same. The winds play the opening notes, and, standing by our keyboards and drum sets, we keep whispering theories about the mystery disease’s validity, passing a mini bottle of Purell between us, discreetly, to be funny. 

Mr. Williams informs the woodwinds that their intonation sounds like “a bunch of warring Indians,” imitating the stereotypical war cry with his hands, and boys playing tubas muffle their snickers in the brass, their red hats dangling off the backs of their plastic chairs.

In Advanced Placement (AP) Government and Politics, Mr. Johnson doesn’t believe in disclosing his political beliefs to his students, so he’s completely neutral when he disallows critiques of the 45th president and openly, objectively offers his critiques of the 44th. It’s with an expert lack of bias that he tells us we’re only liberals because we’re young, and that this and our optimism will fade with paying taxes.

But before we had a chance to participate in our preferred democracy and elect a prom queen, or do our Senior walk through the halls of the elementary school, life as we knew it came to an end. In its place was one where we were all asked to imagine the end of the world, to be confined to one room in a new place for over a year, to realize that “certain” things in life don’t always stay that way, and that what’s important can become futile, and discrimination that’s decidedly nonexistent for some institutions can be unveiled as foundational to them all. 

In the midst of uncertainty, things previously prioritized like blind productivity and grind culture took a back burner to learning how to take care of ourselves and each other during prolonged and numerous forms of suffering. Heartwarming content reminding us to appreciate each other flooded our timelines. The willingness to listen and extend compassion to one another created opportunities for understanding and some of the most meaningful acts of resistance. 

We witnessed the less heartwarming moments in each other’s lives that were also captured on camera, that racism hadn’t in fact “ended,” that microaggressions abound in every setting, that George Floyd and Breonna Taylor were two of an endless list of those wrongfully murdered by the police, that historically white Greek organizations have incredibly racist histories and still perpetuate that racism today, that racial colorblindness doesn’t exist, and that every individual must make an active investment in antiracism and every institution in unlearning the white supremacist biases that support them.

Now things have physically gone back to normal, and today’s college first-years have thankfully never known a virtual Bear Beginnings and a class schedule conducted over Zoom. There will be and have been WILDs, wellness days are a thing of the past, meals are eaten properly in open dining halls, and clubs and organizations conduct business as usual.

There are some things, however, I wish hadn’t resumed so suddenly, things that many are only willing or able to see when everything else in life stops. Many felt they had no choice but to acknowledge the injustices experienced by Black people and other marginalized groups in America, collectively, when we were all home and seemingly unified against a singular set of evils.

Perhaps we became more willing to challenge the problematic beliefs held by loved ones because many were at a distance, so we weren’t able to engage with these relationships anyway; perhaps we were more willing to denounce and secede from certain organizations for their blatant racism, homophobia, sexism, and classism because we weren’t able to participate in them anyway.

In making social movements trending topics online, we also somewhat dissociate from their reality, making the activism itself dependent on algorithms and a majority stance. But we can’t afford to repeatedly relearn everything we committed so much reeducation to in 2020. 

Capitalistic grind culture may be back in full throttle, and clubs and classes and jobs may be back to their regularly scheduled programming, but the epiphanies we had about equity, mental health, and the importance of giving each other grace during COVID-19 weren’t specific to the virus; the racial injustice that gained the world’s attention in 2020 obviously didn’t start or end there. 

At any rate, I hope Mr. Johnson wasn’t right, and that liberalism and activism aren’t confined to the moments we feel least inconvenienced by. As we’ve seen through recent acts of blatant racism on our own campus like the BD egging “incident”— and various responses from people still hesitant to label it as such —  history will repeat itself with repercussions. That is, if we do not preserve a willingness to be honest and uncomfortable, we have decidedly chosen the egos of those with privilege over the search for a genuinely inclusive and liveable space.