Trash Talk of 2020: The Year in Quotes

-- By Tom Phillips 

2020 was an epic year for news, but not for noble speeches. The Quotes of the Year were more like the oaths of warriors in combat: bravado, trash talk, mayday calls, dying gasps and pleas for mercy.     

What they said: 

"It is what it is.."  Donald Trump on August 31, downplaying US deaths from Covid-19 ".. because you are what you are."  Joe Biden, blaming him in the first presidential debate September 29.

“I can’t breathe.”  George Floyd, as he lay dying under the knee of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin May 25.  When Biden was declared president-elect November 7, CNN commentator Van Jones broke down on camera, weeping for his children and friends.  "It wasn't just George Floyd," he said through a flood of tears.  "A lot of people …felt they couldn't breathe."

 "Kill me!"  Luis Vasquez, a neighborhood resident who fired gunshots into the air in front of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York, following a Christmas concert on the Cathedral steps December 12.  Police shot him dead.  The gunman's sister said he'd been "damaged" by prison time in the 1990s, and his mental state had worsened in the pandemic. 

Gaga at Breezy Point

9/11 Memorial --Breezy Point 

This summer, amid the national uproar over the police killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and a long list of others, I spent a Saturday visiting a friend in the beach resort of Breezy Point, Queens. Wrapped around the western tip of the Rockaway peninsula, this is an enclave of middle-class homes on sandy pedestrian paths, festooned with American flags and sprinkled with Trump signs -- a summer haven for New York City police and firefighters, heavily Irish, overwhelmingly Catholic, 100 percent white.  It was organized as a co-op in the 1960s, with rules that keep it a closed society, a gated community.  

I took a walk by the bay, watching children play in the sand and trading wary nods and glances with the adults.  It was a perfect beach day, a time to relax, but the atmosphere felt subdued and tense.  Some residents had recently been involved in a confrontation with protesting Black surfers in nearby Rockaway Beach.  Others had faced off with demonstrators in the streets. As a stranger with a beard, I was regarded with caution. The last time I visited, in 2017, one guy told me I looked like his dog.  This time there was no conversation.   

It reminded me of South Africa in 1990, in the last days of apartheid, just before Nelson Mandela was released from prison. All those white faces grimly trying to milk their white privilege to the last drop, knowing that the outside world was turning away from them.    

These feelings came back at me this week, watching Lady Gaga's new video, "911."