This chapter reintroduces the U.S. mood in the spring of 2020 when George Floyd’s death and the Covid pandemic launched an uncanny “racial reckoning” based more on awareness of racism than accountability. The focus on one and not the other proved a shortcoming that contributed to a backlash that continues under the Trump presidency. The organization of the book shows that racial reckoning involved three major areas of racial inequality: disparities in policing, wealth and health. Future chapters present evidence that accountability is necessary despite the rise of federal legal and political developments in support of white supremacy and the denial of racial inequality to Blacks. The book ultimately argues that racial reckoning resembles Black wellbeing, which reflects the goals of most Americans and may be most achievable through local democracy.

This chapter reviews the 2020 “racial reckoning”, critiques its unfinished approach, evaluates the backlash against it and chronicles the rise of racial retribution with the second Trump administration. The original protests sought only awareness of racism in policing, wealth inequality and racial health disparities, not the accountability that could bring about structural changes in material inequalities. The Black struggle over inequality required recognizing racial equity as a core American value, something identity-oriented awareness and DEI programs could not establish. Instead, a structural backlash unwound performative support for reckoning and supported a radical inversion of antidiscrimination aligned with both a MAGA Republican political ideology and a Federalist Society legal movement called colorblindness. The country’s cynical pundulation on race undermined reckoning, challenging future progress.