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Brian: Brian Lehrer Show and others here at WNYC are putting together a time capsule to remember this strange and difficult year. We're gathering your stories and reflections and emotions from this intense year. We've done a few of these segments already, and we'll keep inviting you to call on a variety of 2020 topics. Then we'll take those stories and literally store them safely with our transmitter at the top of the Empire State Building and we will open the time capsule in 2030, when anyone who wants to listen with 10 years of hindsight and distance and perspective will be able to do so.

Right now and it's a good segue from the last caller, we will invite your calls for our time capsule by opening up our lines for your reflections on the state of racial justice and the state of racial injustice in America in 2020 and how anything about this year changed you and do you predict that anything about this year will wind up making the country more just by the time people hear this recording in 2030. 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280.

Listeners, I'll repeat the basic questions here again. How has anything about this year changed you or your thinking or your understanding about racial justice and racial injustice in America? Do you predict that anything about this year will wind up making the country more just by the time people hear this recording in 2030? What should progress from 2020 be measured by? 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280.

If you were one of the people who marched for racial equity this year, or if the traumatic events of this year gave rise to your awareness of past and present racial injustice in a way that you didn't have before, give us a call and tell us your 2020 story. What about the state of racial justice in the year 2020 should not be forgotten and what about your relationship to the state of racial justice or injustice? What changed for you this year? What do you want people to remember about 2020 and measure it by in the year 2030. 646-435-7280 for our latest time capsule call in. 646-435-7280 and we'll take your calls right after this.

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Brian Lehrer on WNYC with our latest time capsule call in to be opened in 2030. What did 2020 illuminated for you about race in America or anything related? 646-435-7280. How about Janine in Springfield, Virginia. Janine you're on WNYC. Hi there.

Janine: Hey, Brian, happy holidays. How are you?

Brian: To you.

Janine: I think that this year it's been a beautiful year, but it's also been a frightening year for everyone. Either things will change dramatically or they will dramatically stay the same and get worse and we'll go backwards. I think that until this country realizes that we are in a caste system that we won't change and it doesn't matter what color you are, if you are linked into the caste system and you're getting the benefits from being of a higher caste, whether it's racially, which actually does it was created to support the caste or financially or by status by education.

The caste system in America will use race to continue to feed the rich and unless we actually see that and start to not be distracted by the caste system, things won't change. We can see that with COVID, people talk about how Black people are getting it and brown people are getting COVID and dying but people don't talk about the systems really, other than that supported that the pharmaceutical organizations and that the rich keep making money off of this.

Even in the Yoga community, we see wellness. Wellness was created so that people who are wealthy can be well and that the people who are the workers will always be feeding the system.

The last thing I'll say is that we all have to wake up and the reason why things aren't changing is because we aren't in the streets right now. We're not in the streets right now because we're not getting the benefits that we need as people are dying. People are dying like 9/11 every day and no one is out in the streets asking for the COVID relief. That to me, yes, George Floyd, I'm a Black person so yes, George Floyd dying was a major shift, but how about all of the thousands of Black people who are dying through every day of everything? Everything, that's what needs to change, Brian, and that's what breaks my heart is that the death of Black people is like a fuel for the caste system and until that changes, none of it's going to change unless-

Brian: I'm going to leave it there for time.

Janine: [crosstalk]. Sorry.

Brian: Thank you. No, no, nothing to be sorry about. Amazing call and I can't wait until people hear it in 2030 because you did certainly give people some very specific things, concrete things to measure progress by. We can play that call a lot of times between now and 2030, and learn something from it every time. Susie in Manhattan you're on WNYC. Hello, Susie.

Susie: Hi, thank you for taking my call. I just wanted to say that this year was the first time I was moved to tears in many ways from the COVID outbreaks in Black and brown communities to the Black Lives Matter protests and marches throughout the city this year. I'm inflamed by the fact that Elmhurst Hospital did not receive the first published highest COVID vaccine today. Experiencing the city coming together this year with the Black Lives Matter marches, I think being able to see all of the different people, all the different colors, all of the different creeds and people that wouldn't have ever come out before, gives me some hope for the rest of the country that New York will hopefully be able to start a movement to increase equity, equality and justice.

Brian: Susie, thank you so much. Jen in Yonkers you're on WNYC. Hi Jen.

Jen: Hi. I've been listening to the callers and I couldn't agree more particularly with the first caller about caste system. I just totally agree. Both my parents died of cancer, my mom this July at stage four pancreatic cancer and did not get any-- Pancreatic cancer is in itself just a silent killer, but it was just phenomenal as a Black woman. My father a Black man, and middle-class.

I think about what Giuliani says that he's a notable person and how he was able to get certain treatments that wasn't to me was he couldn't have gotten what he got. I believe that my parents would be alive if they were richer or well-known. I think people listening who are middle-class whether upper-middle, the lower-middle class can say the same thing. I think that I may be a little naïve. I think that America is starting to wake up. I hope I am not being naïve, I hope that this is the beginning of a beginning of a tide that's turning, but it certainly has not been equitable for many people, particularly brown and Black people, but I do hope we're better.

Brian: Jen, thank you so much. Seresa in Ocean County, you're on WNYC. Hello, Seresa.

Seresa: Hi. How are you? Long time listener, not a first-time caller, but I'm so thankful that you're taking my call for that. I just wanted to say that 2020 was unfortunately a year where I was able to use real time, real life events to illustrate to my 11-year-old daughter how not everybody is the same and that we really need to pay attention to how people celebrate their cultures and not only that, but-- I'm white, my daughter is white however, I was able to teach her that, and this is something that I learned too, is that not everybody has-- same experiences. That's generally because of the color of their skin, because of where they grew up, because of the economic pressures on certain communities.

I was really proud to be able to share with my daughter that if we pay attention to other people's experiences and other people's cultures and learn more about them, there is going to be a level of tolerance and a level of learning that our children, hopefully other parents are having the same discussion, but our children can be the ones to really show the older generation how to actually engage with people of other cultures and other races. It's very important for the diversity of our country, it's important for the diversity of our state, of our school, everything because without that diversity, you will never have the true, true, true unity and the true learning that we can ultimately achieve.

Brian: Seresa , that was great, thank you very, very much. Jessie in Manhattan, a mother of three says Jessie. Hi, you're on WNYC.

Jessie: Hi, after all those other calls, it seems I might have a shorter comment. I studied African-American History and slave history when I was in college, and I never thought that I would have so much to show my children. I used to be an activist when I was younger, but I never thought that I used to protest a lot. Now, I never thought that I could do it again in such a formidable way, right in front of us walking through the streets, right in front of our window. It couldn't have been more important and critical. I didn't even have to explain it. They were just living the history and that's what this capsule is about.

This was actually the history of-- I'm a native New Yorker, and I just was able to speak and show them in similar to the previous caller, the children are the future, and they have to see what's the truth. This couldn't have been more raw with all of the buildings been being boarded up, taken down, boarded up in our neighborhood. I know that this is going to carry all the children into the future in a better way than before, no matter how raw and terrible it all has been. It's going to change.

I'm very convinced that's going to happen. Thank you.

Brian: Jessie, I hope you're right. Thank you. Allan in Brooklyn, we'll get our last word on this one. Allan, we've got our last minute for you about 45 seconds.

Allan: [clears throat] Thanks, Brian. It's just a miracle for me that for the first time ever, the democratic platform has united behind civil rights and environmentalism without having any real conflict between the groups. It's not just about jobs. Ultimately, the right of the future to a safe environment is colorblind and it is a civil rights issue, [clears throat] it's not just about environmentalism or aesthetics.

Brian: Allan, I'm going to leave it there. I certainly get that message about the merging of the environmental and racial justice issues. It's funny when you look all around the world, people took to the streets to demand a racial reckoning, even as far away as the West Bank city of Bethlehem. There now stands a mural of George Floyd, painted by a Palestinian artist. The trauma of this year will be felt well into the future, but maybe, just maybe as some of the callers expressed, racial solidarity will endure, too.

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We will see in 2030, how this all looks. You can learn more about WNYC's, 2020 Time Capsule or add your voice to it by going to wnyc.org/timecapsule. There you can also find an amazing piece of work that was done by one of our producers. It's an audio timeline of this year, through calls from our show, put together by Brian Lehrer show producer Zoe Azulay all at wnyc.org/timecapsule.

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