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Jul 30th 2021

WOKEISM, MULTICULTURALISM, all the -ismstheyre not who America is, tweeted Mike Pompeo in 2019 on his last day as secretary of state. Until a few years ago woke meant being alert to racial injustice and discrimination. Yet in Americas fierce culture wars the word is now more likely to be used as a sardonic insult. How did the word turn from a watchword used by black activists to a bogeyman among conservatives?

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In 1938 singer Huddie Ledbetter warned black people they best stay woke, keep their eyes open going through Scottsboro, Alabama, the scene of a famous mistrial involving nine young black men. The word was first defined in print by William Melvin Kelley, a black novelist, in an article published in the New York Times in 1962. Writing about black slang, Mr Kelley defined it as someone who was well-informed, up-to-date. Black people used it in reference to racism and other matters for decades, but the word only entered the mainstream much later. When the Black Lives Matter movement grabbed global attention during anti-racism protests after the killing in 2014 of Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, it was inseparable from the phrase stay woke.

As the word spread into internet culture, thanks in part to the popular #staywoke hashtag, its usage quickly changed. It began to signify a progressive outlook on a host of issues as well as on race. And it was used more often to describe white people active on social media than it was by black activists, who criticised the performatively woke for being more concerned with internet point-scoring than systemic change. Piggybacking corporations, such as Pepsi and Starbucks, lessened the appeal to progressives. Wokes usage went from activist to pass, a common fate of black vernacular that makes it into the mainstream (other recent victims include lit and on fleek, two terms of praise).

Almost as soon as the word lost its initial sense it found new meaning as an insulta linguistic process called pejoration. Becoming a byword for smug liberal enlightenment left it open to mockery. It was redefined to mean following an intolerant and moralising ideology. The fear of being cancelled by the woke mob energised parts of the conservative base. Right-wing parties in other countries noticed that stoking a backlash against wokeness was an effective way to win support.

Another semantic conflict is brewing. This is over the term critical race theory, a new bte noire of the right. What was once an abstruse theory developed in American law schoolsone that helped seed core tenets of modern-day wokeism like intersectionality and systemic racismhas burst into the open. Conservatives panic that it is being taught in schools. Christoper Rufo, a conservative activist, told the New Yorker that woke is a good epithet, but its too broad, too terminal, too easily brushed aside. Critical race theory is the perfect villain. Progressives insist that it is a more honest way of teaching history. Despite using the same terminology, both sides seem destined to talk past each other. No sooner is a language battle of the culture wars over than another emerges.

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How has the meaning of the word woke evolved? - The Economist

Republicans in the United States are in for a rude awakening. The extent to which the media fog of U.S. right-wing culture wars has obscured the level of socioeconomic achievement which China has already reached is truly jarring. First, some relevant data points:

In August 2019, Pew reported that 70% of Republicans believe the United States is still in the lead and just 21% believe it is China.

In contrast, the same survey found 40% of Democrats believe the leading economic power is the United States and 40% believe it is China.

In purchasing-parity terms, the Chinese economy is already nearly 30% larger than that of the United States. Because China is also growing much faster, that means the United States will continue to shrink on a relative basis.

Of course, the question of the significance of the China challenge is just one example of a broad cultural phenomenon.

Conservative triumphalism in the United States combines bullying anyone who doubts U.S. supremacy in the world with the paranoid pursuit of policies of America First.

There are two problems with that triumphalist approach. First, it lowers the expectations and standards of competence that conservatives set for U.S. government officials and public servants.

Second, it leads to unrealistic, self-destructive strategies. In fact, it is a little like a boxer deploying a body-mass strategy against an opponent who weighs 20 kilos more.

With the Biden administration now in office, it is also important for Democrats to think more deeply about the socioeconomic achievements which China has already reached.

Only then it is possible to develop a China strategy that can be said to work for the United States over the long term.

What is particularly helpful in that regard is to think of China as actually three major countries rolled into one.

To the north, the Yellow River flows through the ancient university town of Xian to a delta near Beijing. This is the China of government, academia, security and the machinery of the Communist Party. It is Chinas answer to Americas East Coast.

Given the governments preoccupation with it, Beijing has become the center of AI research. It is where you find Baidu, the Chinese Google.

The Yangtze in Chinas heartland flows through two-thirds of the countrys rice paddies and the cities of Chengdu, Chongqing, Wuhan and Hangzhou to Shanghai, the commercial and financial capital.

It is a Chinese Mississippi River with five cities larger than Chicago and the metropolitan area of Shanghai, with a population 50% greater than Texas, in pole position at its mouth.

In the garden city of Hangzhou on the outskirts of Shanghai, you will find Alibaba. It is Chinas Amazon, but one playing a far more pervasive role in the lives of its hundreds of millions of customers than the Seattle-based firm does for Americans.

In Chinas south, the Pearl River Delta waters Guangzhou, the tech factory of the world. It alone has a metropolitan population greater than Californias.

This is Chinas answer to the United States West Coast. It is also the birthplace of Deng Xiaopings great economic experiment. Here you find Tencent, the social network to which Facebook aspires, as well as Huawei, Chinas Cisco.

It is also the manufacturing hub for Apple, Google, Intel, Cisco, IBM, HP, Dell and so on.

In short, any open-eyed assessment leads one to conclude that Chinas three river basins match all of the United States diversity from its east coast through the Midwest to the Pacific. However, China replicates this structure in much greater volumes.

Much worse for U.S. supremacists, todays China already overmatches the United States strength for strength, except perhaps in research universities.

The world of Chinese supremacy, in other words, is not a distant possibility. It is here. We are well into its first few decades.

What lies in the future is the eventual emergence of this economic and political reality from the United States current political fog. Once Americans recognize the practical effects of Chinese economic supremacy, however, their expectations of their leaders and government will change drastically.

After decades of Republican triumphalism, cynical nationalism and calculated deception, realism will be in demand again.

One can only hope that the American people, facing a future far more uncertain than they were brought up to anticipate, will demand facts about the problems the country faces.

It will be a demand for officials with the competence to solve those problems, a restoration of democratic accountability and a simple end to lying tactics that have become a hallmark of the United States once-conservative party.

Wrong-headed, even disastrous, Republican triumphalism has made the challenge of adapting to Chinas rise that much more challenging. Ironically enough, it may be todays populists that will demand change most forcefully.

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The Globalist The United States as Number 2? - The Globalist

By Tariq Rauf

The work-from-home culture wars are reaching a fever pitch. Between Goldman Sachs commands to get back to the office and Apples hybrid battle with employees, the way we work has never caused so much debate.

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Millions have now adapted to a fundamentally different way of working, and for some, the prospect of hybrid threatens to introduce even more upheaval.

Before taking the plunge, companies would be wise to challenge their assumptions. Is hybrid a silver bullet for creating trust? Is it a fast-track to a more creative workforce? Are hybrid and flexible work mutually exclusive? This lens helps expose foundational issues regarding trust, flexibility and creativity in modern work, and is an important starting point before considering the transition to hybrid.

Over the past year, weve become accustomed to living within specific apps at work. Branding teams might live in a project management app like Asana, content teams organize their work in an online wiki like Notion, and sales teams track everything in a CRM like Salesforce1.

The problem is that around two-thirds of us dont know what our colleagues are actually working on. This impedes trust: How can you trust that the sales team is on course to meet its targets if you have no visibility of conversations with prospects?

Hybrid is scattering our teams among homes, headquarters and coffee shops. Thats more fragmentation, and a higher risk of Team Remote becoming suspicious of Team Office. Leaders are waking up to the urgency of shaping a culture that promotes transparency between teams across organizations, but the hybrid model is making that harder.

Companies are often tempted to bring employees back into the office because of the lingering myth of the watercooler moment. But theres no evidence that this really does anything for serendipitous creativity. Were blindly pinning our hopes of creativity on totally chance encounters.

Unfortunately, fostering creativity isnt easy sailing in the virtual office either. Sure, weve had this explosion in tools that simplify collaboration, from Zoom to Slack to Google Docs, but its chaotic.

Forty-three percent of people report spending too much time switching between different applications, and losing up to an hour a day in the process. Context switching drains cognitive function human brains are not wired for a working day of glancing among your inbox, documents, slide decks and everything else that has become core to the world of work.

Enabling a culture of fair, structured creativity that spans the physical and digital needs urgent attention before taking the hybrid plunge.

Worker expectations for flexibility have never been higher. If remote work was no longer an option, 1 in 3 remote professionals would quit their job. Indeed, a record 4 million people in the U.S. quit their jobs in April alone including engineers at Google who quit over directives to go back to the office.

But hybrid and flexibility dont have to be mutually exclusive. Hybrid can be an option for workers, not a command. Authentic flexibility happens not just because you can work from home, but because the culture puts you in control of your work. This culture is brought about through transparency, clearly defined policies and clarity around goals. Transparency and clarity cut the need for constant check-ins, giving people more freedom to plan work around other responsibilities.

Unfortunately, we found that as much as 52 percent of workers say different departments track their goals in different ways. This inconsistency puts as many limitations on flexibility as a hybrid model, and is crying out to be fixed before returning to the office.

The WFH culture wars are reaching fever pitch, and rightly so. Work isnt working, and this battle will help us break from the outdated norms of the 9-5.

If anything, hybrid work is a distraction from the foundational issues of trust, flexibility and creativity that need attention in the modern workplace. Leaders should focus on these before jumping into the unknown and risking employee unrest.

Tariq Rauf is the founder and CEO of digital work hub Qatalog, a new kind of work infrastructure for modern businesses.

Illustration: Dom Guzman

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Is Hybrid Work A Distraction From The Real Pain Of The Modern Workplace? - Crunchbase News

Barack Obama's 60th birthday offers America a chance to reflect on its past, contemplate its present and look toward a future indelibly shaped by the nation's first Black President.

The occasion of Obama's milestone birthday on August 4 touches a personal chord in those of us who witnessed, participated in, or did a mixture of both during the historic 2008 presidential campaign. The former President is celebrating on Friday with an outdoor party in Martha's Vineyard, where he has long vacationed. Citing a source, CNN reported that rather than bring gifts, guests are being asked to consider supporting non-profits that aid both boys and young men of color and adolescent girls around the world, along with those that help train upcoming community leaders.

I remember watching the 43-year-old Illinois state senator deliver the 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote at Boston's FleetCenter on July 27. Obama, who looked so much younger than his age, spoke for 17 minutes about the virtues of American democracy.

That speech, which made him a political superstar, deftly introduced autobiographical themes that would become familiar beats in Obama's public narrative. Obama presented his biracial background -- as the son of an immigrant Kenyan economist and a White anthropologist with Kansas roots who met as students in Hawaii at a time when interracial marriage was illegal in parts of America -- as a lens through which to view the dynamic racial progress the nation had not yet fully achieved but remained committed to.

In retrospect, parts of the speech that pushed back against dividing America into red states and blue states appear now nave or hopelessly romantic, cynical even, considering the deadly and racially charged partisanship of our times.

But the power of Obama's keynote speech -- and his presidential campaign four years later -- was the way in which it tapped into democratic aspirations best reflected in the Black freedom struggle he took pains to both celebrate and, at times, distance himself from. Obama delivered a speech from America's cradle of liberty that could only be given by a Black politician able to acknowledge historic divisions of race, class, gender, religion and sexuality, while crafting a vision of an American citizenship capable of transcending these divides.

Obama offered his personal biography and political ambitions as a bridge between past and contemporary civil rights activists. More than that, he positioned himself as a political leader whose rhetoric and vision framed the nation as a patchwork quilt of diverse communities that grew stronger as they recognized the common ground of citizenship and dignity that united them.

As he approaches 60, Obama's hair has turned grayer, he looks even thinner now than he did as commander in chief and one can see the impact of time -- and being President -- in the wrinkles and creases that appear visible on a once unlined face.

Last summer, Obama said that "Black Lives Matter" but decried efforts to "Defund the Police" as bad politics that alienated potential allies.

Yet, time out of office has radicalized the preternaturally cautious Obama into calling for an end to the filibuster, if that's what's required to preserve democracy. His characterization of the filibuster as "another Jim Crow relic" offered further proof that Obama 2.0 displays a willingness to confront America's long history of structural racism with the kind of bracing candor he rarely embraced as President.

Obama continues to serve as a Rorschach test for the American political imagination. He likely always will. The first Black president didn't so much as flip the script of American politics as write himself into it. Obama proved to be a fervent believer in American exceptionalism.

Boston launched Obama's national political career, setting the stage for his successful campaign for the US Senate that he would win that November and for his presidential campaign, which he announced from the Illinois State House in February 2007.

Obama's keynote speech turned his memoir "Dreams of My Father," first published in 1995, into an instant bestseller. He followed this up with "The Audacity of Hope," a more conventional but still insightful book about the sources of civic nationalism that united Americans far more than they divided us.

He took the title of his second book from a phrase used by his then pastor, Jeremiah Wright, the fiery Black Liberation theologian who headed Trinity United Church in Chicago. Wright came from a tradition that criticized White supremacy with the kind of candor that -- although very much mainstream in 2021 -- proved scandalous when clips were played by conservative news outlets during the presidential campaign.

Obama's pastor problem took the lid off the most explosive issue of the 2008 Democratic primary contest and the subsequent general election: a Black man was running for president and had a good chance to win.

His candidacy blew the lid off far-flung conspiracy theories that would move from the margin to the center of American political discourse over the last 15 years. Fabricated rumors that Obama was a secret Muslim, had been born in Kenya and educated at an Islamic madrassa as a young boy in Indonesia abounded. Clips of Wright excoriating America's imperial domestic policy seemed to confirm that Obama -- handsome, telegenic, and brilliant -- was a Trojan horse (his middle name was Hussein after all) sent by America's enemies to destroy us from within.

Obama pushed back against this characterization by delivering a bravura March 18, 2008 "race speech" in Philadelphia's Constitution Hall surrounded by a backdrop of American flags that unsubtly signaled his fealty to the American dream.

In that speech, Obama portrayed both Black anger over racial slavery and Jim Crow and White resentment against affirmative action as morally equivalent. He refused to dissociate himself from Pastor Wright (but did several days later) and he recounted that his own White grandmother (Toot, short for Tutu, in the affectionate Hawaiian parlance) expressed fears of Black men that made him cringe. The speech was an enormous success, touted in some quarters as the most significant speech on America's racial divide since Lincoln.

Obama went on to be elected in what still represents the equivalent of a modern-day landslide, with 43% of White voters forming part of a new political coalition: he was also backed by 95% of Black voters and two-thirds of LatinX voters.

Obama's victory ushered in America's Third Reconstruction, a period that continues to this day and has been marked by stunning and unprecedented instances of racial progress. But it has also touched off a fierce backlash symbolically represented by Donald Trump and his MAGA followers. Black people in America experience voter suppression, racially disparate impacts of the Covid-19 health pandemic, police violence against their communities, mass incarceration and the stubborn persistence of racial segregation and economic impoverishment.

By 2020, even Obama seemed to come around and understand the existential dangers posed by the resurgence of White nationalism in American politics. Sixteen years after the fresh-faced young state senator delivered a soaring, optimistic keynote speech in Boston, the now-former President delivered a virtual address that warned that racism might produce the end of the republic.

America's long, rough and tortured road toward a renaissance that might achieve Black dignity and full citizenship has produced thunderclap historical moments. The ratification of the 13th amendment on December 6, 1865, that abolished racial slavery was one. The Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation decision announced by the Supreme Court on May 17, 1954, was another. Barack Obama's November 4, 2008, presidential election victory proved to be the third of these hinge points in our nation's history.

Each of these moments ushered in periods of reconstruction; political, legislative, legal, and personal soul searching that had far-reaching consequences, not only for their eras but most especially our own.

Obama's victory, against the backdrop of economic recession, a mortgage crisis that disproportionately impacted Black Americans, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq inspired domestic and global celebrations and outsized political expectations.

Obama proved to be the last American President to lead under the hard-fought national civil rights consensus on Black citizenship that had been rhetorically supported by commanders in chief since John F. Kennedy. This bipartisan era compelled Democrats and Republicans to offer support for the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday and acknowledge the importance of Black History Month, and it led to the creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the first-ever built with federal funds.

Beneath such public displays of unity around race matters lay policy divisions over affirmative action, racial integration in public schools and neighborhoods, racial disparities in health, wealth, and employment and culture wars over the very meaning of American identity, democracy and citizenship that roiled Obama's presidency before exploding during the Trump Era.

The trauma of the past four years, most notably the partisan response to a health pandemic and rioting at the US Capitol, makes many nostalgic for the era that the young Barack Obama thrived in. Such longing yearns for a period before the Birther movement, QAnon, White riots and GOP-led voter suppression and anti-Critical Race Theory legislation. Before Trump conjured the Big Lie of a stolen presidential election, there appeared an alternative course for the nation to embark on.

Barack Obama's enduring power is his ability to allow us to imagine ourselves as a better country, society and people. As a young state senator, presidential candidate, and commander in chief, Obama called America to be its aspirational best.

The Obama campaign's signature innovation was not the use of social media nor the trappings of celebrity that eventually consumed aspects of the American presidency. Obama's ability to tell Americans a fresh interpretation of their own national story helped to make history. Obama's narrative explained that "what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored -- that will not be deterred, that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation -- repair this world and make this time different than all the rest."

The poetry of these words continues to resonate, now more than ever, within Americans who recognize that, however flawed and imperfect a political vessel Obama turned out to be, the freedom dreams he expressed at his best are bigger than any one political leader and can thus never be betrayed.

Obama called us to be our best selves in a manner that allowed supporters to criticize, empathize with and celebrate his successes and shortcoming as our own. He imagined America as a large national family where even political opponents could find kinship in their love of civic ideals rooted in a generous reading of the founding documents as expansive enough to include all those who had been left out at the time of its writing.

Keenly aware of the historic divisions, conflicts and disagreements that perpetually threatened to undermine the republic, for a brief period Obama allowed the world to see America as a place of endless possibilities. His 60th birthday calls us to reflect on the seemingly vast distance between that time and our own, as well as the steps necessary to renew the nation's democratic faith and confidence in the ability to achieve the country we have always imagined ourselves to be.

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Barack Obama at 60: Why he matters - Action News Now

The TAKE with Rick Klein

It takes less than ever to find partisan grooves these days -- and the fact that they've been etched deeper out of the fallout from Jan. 6 serves as a case in point.

That's the reality that confronts President Joe Biden with this next uncertain phase of combatting the pandemic. New federal guidance on mask mandates and the consideration of a vaccine requirement for federal workers run into longstanding political arguments about individual liberties and personal accountability.

The push for vaccinations has become less partisan of late, with prominent Republicans adding new emphasis -- and giving special credit to the previous administration -- to make the case.

Families protest any potential mask mandates before the Hillsborough County Schools Board meeting held at the district office on July 27, 2021 in Tampa, Florida.

Yet mask-wearing and vaccine requirements have long since taken on cultural as well as political significance, and the fallout of Biden's latest comments offer just a taste. Former President Donald Trump is offering strong pushback to mandates, and consider as well how readily some Republicans are using Dr. Anthony Fauci as a foil -- raising money off the mention of his name, and even threatening legal action against him.

Biden indicated that he will outline next steps in the push to vaccinate the country on Thursday, as some statistics showing rates going up of late. The president on Tuesday also served up a reminder that as a candidate he "promised to be straight with you about COVID -- good news or bad."

Another reminder: 11 months ago, Biden said he wouldn't hesitate to order another shutdown if that's what his advisers recommended.

"I would shut it down; I would listen to the scientists," he told ABC "World News Tonight" Anchor David Muir last August.

The campaign was quick to clarify that comment at the time. Biden's statement Tuesday about masks and vaccines framed them as a way "to avoid the kind of lockdowns, shutdowns, school closures and disruptions we faced in 2020."

"We are not going back to that," the president said.

The RUNDOWN with Averi Harper

The testimony of Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn underscored the additional layer of trauma Black law enforcement officers experienced on Jan. 6.

Dunn's heartbreaking testimony chronicled the racial slurs he endured as he tried to defend the seat of our nation's democracy.

U.S. Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn becomes emotional as he testifies before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., July 27, 2021.

Among the insurrectionists were attackers who carried Confederate flags, donned shirts with anti-Semitic messages and freely hurled the n-word at Black officers.

"No one had ever, ever called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police officer," said Dunn.

He also brought with him the stories of other Black officers, later adding, "Another Black officer later told me he had been confronted by insurrectionists in the Capitol who told him, put your gun down and we'll show you what kind of n***** you really are."

For many, listening to Dunn recount the epithets stung as they were broadcast uncensored. The attack at the Capitol is often referred to as one of our nation's darkest days, it's particularly poignant that racism crept its way into the ugliness of it all, too.

It's a vile reminder that racism in America, even in its most blatant forms, still exists.

The TIP with Alisa Wiersema

Republicans in Washington have one more representative joining their ranks -- but the victory serves as an upset to Trump, despite his looming influence over the Republican Party on a national scale.

Nearly three months after the May 1 special election, State Rep. Jake Ellzey came out on top in Tuesday's runoff election for Texas' 6th Congressional District. Ellzey faced off with fellow Republican, Susan Wright, who had Trump's backing going into the contest due to the political legacy of her late husband, Rep. Ron Wright, who died in February from COVID and complications with cancer.

Jake Ellzey, center, campaigns for congress with other Texas Republican politicians.

The conclusion of the race is the latest indicator of the former president's looming influence over his party in a state that is increasingly becoming ground zero for intraparty battles.

On Monday, Trump waded into another high-profile Texan battle by endorsing incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton for another term. The move served a devastating -- and complicated -- blow to Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who was the only member of his storied political family to publicly back Trump, despite the former president launching repeated attacks against his father, Jeb Bush.

THE PLAYLIST

ABC News' "Start Here" podcast. Wednesday morning's episode features former acting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Richard Besser, who breaks down the new CDC guidance around mask wearing for vaccinated people. ABC News congressional correspondent Rachel Scott recaps the testimony from police officers during a Jan. 6 House committee hearing. And ESPN Senior Writer Alyssa Roegnik explains why Simone Biles pulled out of the team all-around finals in Tokyo. http://apple.co/2HPocUL

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Download the ABC News app and select "The Note" as an item of interest to receive the day's sharpest political analysis.

The Note is a daily ABC News feature that highlights the key political moments of the day ahead. Please check back tomorrow for the latest.

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Culture wars threaten to overtake war on COVID: The Note - ABC News