Editorial: 2020 in hindsight

2020 end of year

Clockwise from upper left: Ansu Drammeh, a registered nurse, at Oregon Health and Science University, receives the COVID-19 vaccine, one of the few bright spots in a difficult year; Nightly protests this year often ended in clashes between police and left-wing demonstrators and arguments; Right-wing protesters challenging legislators’ special session and the mask mandate demonstrate at the state Capitol; Many downtown stores and businesses remain boarded up. Photos by Dave Killen/The Oregonian; Abigail Dollins/Statesman-Jo­urnal via AP; Jamie Goldberg/The Oregonian

It’s tempting to simply write 2020 off and never look back. From pandemic to wildfire to repeated clashes between protesters and police, this year has pushed us to our limits. 2020 is the year of COVID-19 deaths and business closures; of fire-ravaged homes and social isolation. The year has exposed failures in our institutions and fierce divisions within our communities. As the year comes to a close, we’re left with an inescapable sense of just how broken everything is.

But if we are to rebuild – and Oregonians always have – this chaos must be instructive. Our best chance for creating a stronger community requires us to reflect on the painful lessons and mistakes of this past year, assess where we are and figure out how to address those problems and move forward. Such resilience is key to helping us weather the who-knows-what that 2021 will inevitably bring.

Nothing defines 2020 more than the coronavirus pandemic. And compared to some states, Oregon has avoided the nightmare scenarios experienced across the country – a credit to the leadership of Gov. Kate Brown, Oregon Health Authority Director Pat Allen and county public health officials whose policies helped limit the lethality and spread of COVID-19 in Oregon. The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine that started this month offers a welcome dose of hope.

But Oregon’s pandemic response hasn’t been without cost. More than 1,300 Oregonians with COVID have died. Untold thousands more have lost jobs, businesses have closed for good and the catastrophic failure of the state’s employment department to deliver benefits to laid-off workers for several months marked an unforgivable low point. Meanwhile, school children are struggling with distance learning and the pandemic-related shutdowns have taken a physical and mental health toll on so many Oregonians. While Brown has since made a number of changes – including lifting mandatory state metrics for whether school districts can open for in-person learning – the burden of fighting this pandemic has fallen unevenly and unfairly. The state must prioritize helping those sectors of the community that have borne the brunt of the sacrifices.

But the pandemic wasn’t the only phenomenon underpinning much of the year’s turmoil. The Memorial Day police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis lit the spark for months of protests in Portland and fueled a concerted push for reform of its police force. Crowds that sometimes numbered in the thousands marched every night for months in an awakening that helped many recognize and understand the policies, practices and attitudes that have explicitly and implicitly treated Black Oregonians as expendable. That conviction to make the systemic changes necessary to tear out our racist infrastructure is one of the few great highlights of 2020 – and it must persist.

But the protests also became a flashpoint themselves, drawing excessively forceful responses from local and federal authorities while also giving cover to demonstrators who sought to smash windows, light fires and wreak havoc. Worse, right-wing counterprotesters joined the fray, at times physically attacking Black Lives Matter protesters and upping the ante for conflict. The chaos persisted far too long as Mayor Ted Wheeler and other city leaders failed to intervene. The violence culminated in the August killing of a right-wing demonstrator by an antifascist demonstrator who was himself later gunned down by police near Olympia, Washington.

Police reform efforts, too, have stumbled. What started as strategic cuts to Portland police to fund public safety alternatives has metamorphosed into a poorly-defined, haphazard push to defund the police. Yet shootings and homicides in Portland have skyrocketed to levels not seen in decades as police officers flee the bureau for retirement or other jobs. Residents complain about long waits for police responses to their calls for help. City leaders, Portland Police and Portland residents must recognize that indiscriminate slashing of funds does nothing to create a rational or humane public safety response nor does it instill accountability or trust in our police. We need a thoughtful strategy, not a bumper sticker.

City officials must also recognize the plight of downtown Portland, hit hard by both pandemic closures and destruction related to this year’s protests. With many stores still boarded up and little foot traffic, there’s little resemblance to the gleaming downtown core of a year ago. The decline of this symbolic and economic emblem of Portland in 2020 must be a call to action for 2021.

Perhaps the most perplexing problem that fully emerged in 2020 is the depth of the schism between Oregonians. We don’t have just different viewpoints or different priorities. It’s as if we are living in different realities. That has come through in such conflicts as people’s denial of the seriousness of COVID-19 or their refusal to wear masks. If we’re not even talking to one another from a shared understanding of truth, how is it even possible to find common ground?

The year may be ending but the trauma and divisions will carry on. How Oregonians across the state respond will determine if 2020 has broken things for good.

- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board


Oregonian editorials
Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom. Members of the editorial board are Therese Bottomly, Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung and John Maher.
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