A teenage girl and her cellphone helped bring a murderer to justice and forced a reckoning for the entire justice system in America.

Last May, Darnella Frazier was walking with her 9-year-old cousin to a corner store for snacks when she happened upon a gruesome scene -- a police officer with his knee pressed against a man's neck who was struggling to breathe. Darnella, just 17 at the time, became more than just a bystander the moment she started recording on her phone.

Her witness led to one of the rarest outcomes in the history of this country: the conviction of a white cop for murdering a Black man.

"The world needed to see what I was seeing," she later said to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Her eyes opened the eyes of the world.

She showed us the clearest and most damning evidence refuting the statement the police department released soon after George Floyd was killed. Their press release made no mention of then-police officer Derek Chauvin even touching Floyd. The headline on the police version of events said, "Man dies after medical incident during police interaction."

It was her video, uploaded to Facebook and watched by millions around the world, that showed Chauvin pushing his knee onto Floyd's neck for more than nine minutes. It was her video that provoked a reaction so intense and raw that it ignited the largest protests against police brutality and racism that our country has seen.

It was an excruciating video, and many could not bring themselves to watch footage of yet another Black man dying. But Darnella made us confront the brutality we know exists by revealing its haunting details: Chauvin's casual stance, his hand in his pocket; the ignored pleas for mercy; Floyd, a grown man, calling for his mother. Even if we diverted our eyes from Chauvin, we saw the cops standing by, watching a fellow officer continue to suffocate a motionless man on the ground. Without her video, the police's narrative about Floyd dying at the hospital from a "medical incident" would remain the official version of events. A murderous cop would still be on the force.

Darnella persevered in that moment despite risks to her own safety.

It's easy to praise a hero, especially in retrospect. It's harder to face the questions her actions compel us to ask ourselves: Would I have had the courage of Darnella Frazier? Am I raising a child who would be as composed as she was while witnessing an agent of the state torture and murder someone?

Many parents would reasonably fear for their child's own safety and well-being if they encountered a similar situation. But Darnella and her cousin are reminders of the remarkable resilience that children are capable of. They both testified during a trial watched by millions.

Initially, Darnella faced online backlash from those who attacked her for posting the video. Commenters accused her of seeking attention and criticized her for not doing more to intervene in the moment. The notion that a Black teenage girl should have directly confronted four armed cops while one committed a felony is beyond ludicrous.

But she was still a child in the aftermath, trying to process what had happened.

She told the jury during Chauvin's trial that she cried repeatedly at night, apologizing to Floyd for not doing more to save his life. In him, she saw her own Black father, brothers and friends. She has needed therapy to deal with her own trauma.

She may now realize what her courage made possible.

In the moment when she witnessed the unjust and merciless power of the state, Darnella reclaimed her own power. Hitting record became an act of resistance. Sharing what she saw spoke truth to power. Those who raised their voices against it became a chorus for change.

Her video changed our country.

Her act of recording it should change our hearts.

It was a crummy year to be a high school senior.

Not only did this year’s graduating class finish their final year in a pandemic that canceled most of their milestone moments, but they also applied to colleges in the hardest admissions cycle ever for highly selective colleges.

This week, Ivy League institutions released their admissions decisions. And sure enough, the headlines about plunging, ridiculously low admit rates -- less than 4% at Columbia and Harvard -- dominated the news.

A tiny sliver of the country’s students are educated at these places. More broadly, colleges and universities that accept fewer than 50% of applicants also saw an increase in applications. Part of this dramatic rise can be attributed to this year’s test-optional policies that permitted students to apply without submitting ACT or SAT scores. Also, far more students were stuck at home during lockdowns without extracurricular activities competing for time spent filling out college applications.

But these aren’t the main reasons why it was the hardest year ever to get in, according to Brian Taylor, managing partner at Ivy Coach, a New York-based private college consulting firm. Around 20% of last year’s admitted students at these schools took a gap year, meaning there were fewer seats available in a year with unprecedented application numbers, he said.

Every year, there are hordes of exceptionally qualified, dedicated students denied admission to the most elite colleges. This year, many of these students may have also been shut out of or wait-listed at the next tier of schools -- those in the top 20 of the infamous ranking guides.

Lots of high-achieving, talented students got hit with the bad luck of bad timing.

Meanwhile, less selective schools (defined as those that accept more than 50% of applicants) and community colleges with open enrollment have seen significant declines in applicants. Again, the reasons are multifold. Time magazine cited sobering statistics: Anywhere from 7.7 million to 10 million adults canceled plans to take postsecondary classes last fall because of financial constraints related to the pandemic. Those numbers are based on estimates from U.S. Census Bureau surveys conducted biweekly since August.

Last year, the number of high school graduates who immediately went on to college in the fall declined 11.4% in high-poverty schools compared with the previous year, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The decline was only 2.9% at low-poverty high schools.

In addition to potential students and their families losing jobs and savings, they also lost critical social support due to lockdowns. Many struggled with virtual learning and would have benefitted from in-person guidance in navigating the college application and financial aid processes.

There is, however, a potential silver lining to this bleak year of admissions for students.

Applications from first-generation students to large, more selective private colleges increased by 20%, according to data released by the Common Application (the college application used by more than 900 schools). A similar increase can be seen in applications from low-income students and students of color to highly selective colleges.

So, will this be the year that selective institutions admit a significantly greater number of students from these historically marginalized groups? Will they share data on acceptance rates for those who submitted optional standardized test scores versus those who did not? Have colleges and universities taken advantage of these unprecedented circumstances to come closer to their missions of closing the gaps in higher education, or will they end up replicating the privileges and inequities in the status quo?

It will be revealing to see if these institutions embrace transparency in revealing the progress we would expect to see from these metrics.

In a year that changed the life trajectories of millions of students, let’s hope these gatekeepers can get things moving in the right direction.

A Vietnamese American mother traveling with her young children wonders if a cashier’s cold stare could turn into a verbal assault. A Chinese American nurse hears a patient refusing to be treated by her. An older Japanese American man gets nervous walking by a group of white men.

Even in cities that haven’t reported a high-profile physical attack on Asian Americans, life has changed in the shadow of rising bigotry during this pandemic. For a community that has often felt invisible in the white and Black politics that dominate the headlines, racist rhetoric has heightened a sense of isolation. It has also galvanized those who had preferred the perceived safety of quiet obscurity to speak out about the toll it’s taken.

Min Liu, a professor of communication studies at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, says her volunteer service used to center around cultural events in the AAPI community.

“In the past year, I think I’ve subconsciously moved to more of an advocacy position,” she said. “I have definitely become more alert as a community activist.” Liu helped organize a vigil in March that drew hundreds of people locally; she also hosted a “Stop AAPI Hate” webinar and has advised students promoting civic engagement among Asian American youth.

Liu’s shift into advocacy has been fueled by the concerns she’s heard from others in the St. Louis area. She recently met with a group of Chinese American women, who told her they have never felt this unsafe before. One shared the experience of her elementary school-aged daughter, who loved helping her teacher by passing out papers and supplies in class. A classmate told her, “I don’t want you to touch my desk. I don’t want to get the virus.”

The teacher intervened and told the student that was not OK.

Another friend confided that her second grader had seen one of the videos of an elderly Asian woman being beaten. She came to her mother, terrified, and said, “What if someone tries to kill you?” She begged her mom to let her dye her black hair.

Even before the mass shooting in Atlanta that killed eight people, including six women of Asian descent, hate crimes and assaults against those who appear East Asian have been increasing.

“These things cumulatively make people fearful and anxious,” Liu said. And yet there’s a fear that reporting such incidents may invite backlash or alienate those who perceive criticism of racial slurs as “political.”

Katie Xu, a senior at John Burroughs School, is part of the Asian American Civic Scholars, a group that advocates for more Asian American participation in civic life. She said some of her peers used to be hesitant about sharing their experiences because they would say it “felt less significant than the other forms of discrimination that other groups face.”

The past year changed that attitude.

“People my age are speaking out a lot more than I have seen in the past,” she said.

Ron Sakai, 60, is a compliance officer and a third-generation American of Japanese descent. His parents were imprisoned in internment camps in Arkansas in the 1940s: His mother was freed after about 18 months so that she could resume nursing school, and when his father was released, he petitioned to go back in order to rejoin his mother and younger brother. Sakai’s father was drafted into the service once he was released, made to fight for the country that had discriminated against and imprisoned him.

“My parents didn’t talk about it much,” Sakai said. They wanted him to assimilate. He didn’t have many Asian friends growing up, but that’s changed as he’s gotten older and more involved locally.

The rhetoric around the virus perpetuated by some political leaders is a reminder that some will always consider people who look like him foreigners.

The battle against xenophobia is a “centuries-long journey,” he said.

It’s one he plans to keep fighting.