Monthly Archives: April 2020

There has been much talk in the appraisal profession about the adoption of a specific appraisal issue by former Vice President Joe Biden as part of his platform seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Specifically, Mr. Bidens inclusion of a policy to tackle racial bias that leads to homes in communities of color being assessed by appraisers below their fair value has appraisers wondering what, exactly, they are doing that could be perceived as systemically devaluing homes in minority communities. After all, USPAP specifically prohibits any kind of explicit or implicit bias from affecting an appraisers opinion of value.

In a recent letter to Mr. Biden, ASA worked to bridge the gap in the conversation, both by acknowledging that USPAP and its enforcement by state licensing agencies is sufficient protection from overt acts of bias against communities of color, but also addressing a concern expressed in multiple conversations that something in the appraisal process has the effect of carrying forward historic bad acts such as redlining that disadvantaged communities of color in the first place.

In the letter, ASA makes it clear that [t]he cornerstone of USPAP is its requirement that an appraiser must be objective, impartial, and neutral in determining an opinion of value in connection with any appraisal assignment. This bedrock, and its enforcement, demonstrate clearly there is no need to establish a national standard specifically focused on appraisals in minority communities. A standard which addresses this issue already exists.

ASA goes on to discuss how a potential overreliance on the Sales Comparison approach by the mortgage lending community and a nearly exclusive use of a retrospective approach to developing an opinion of value could lead to unintended outcomes that perpetuate historical acts of bias in housing finance. By encouraging lenders to more fully and appropriately incorporate the Cost Approach and Income Approach into the process, and allowing appraisers to apply appropriate weight to the findings that each approach shows, there is more opportunity for single family and multiple dwelling homes in communities of color to reflect values to those in similar, non-minority neighborhoods. ASA does caution, however, not to push for intentional overvaluation where no evidence exists to support higher home values.

The letter closed with this summation of ASAs point: [T]hat comprehensive use of all the approaches to value, and reviewing and analyzing future trends, could begin to overcome historical factors that led to depressed home values in minority communities in the first place.

When asked about ASAs letter, International President Douglas Krieser, ASA FRICS noted There are a range of experiences with the homebuying process, including when the home is appraised. While we believe and would expect that no one is intentionally depressing home values simply because of someones race or ethnicity, we are sensitive to anything in the appraisal process that can unintentionally disadvantage communities of color. We welcome a full conversation around the issue, and hope that open minds from all corners can figure out if theres a problem and, if there is, developing solutions that are well-thought out and based upon the excellent Standards already in place.

To read ASAs letter, click here.

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Seeking All Perspectives, ASA Writes Letter to Biden on Appraisal Impact in Minority Communities - Appraisal Buzz

Now, more than ever, it is important to be cognizant of brand messaging and how it may be perceived by the public. Concerns about COVID-19 have us operating at a higher level of awareness, and it's vital to keep this top of mind while continuing to execute successful marketing campaigns.

While influencers are a wonderful way to connect brands with viewers, more importantly, they add a human touch to what could otherwise be seen as opportunistic advertising in a tense social climate. Let's go over three ways to practice mindful influencer marketing during a crisis.

1. Rely On Trusted Influencer Partners

Uncertainty is currently a big theme in many of our lives, but coming back to what we know can be reassuring and comfortable. The same idea can be applied to influencer marketing: By partnering with known brand collaborators, you can give viewers something familiar to lean on. Because a large portion of the population is practicing (an often mandated) social distancing at home, social media content use has begun to increase dramatically (paywall) meaning many people are likely checking in with their favorite creators a lot more often.

To use this increased viewership productively, work with creators who have a true and authentic track record with your brand. This means that creators will be able to speak about your brand intelligently and with a strong personal testimony the keys to promoting mindful brand messaging.

2. Keep Messaging Brief And Personal

As much as we'd like to keep things business as usual, they're pretty far from it, which is why evergreen brand messaging is a good starting point but needs a bit of tweaking. Consumers do not want to feel sold to right now, and most of them will see straight through any attempts to do so. On top of that, many feel the need to be more conservative with their spending. These are two limiting factors when it comes to consideration and conversion.

So how do you find a happy medium? By keeping things to the point: No fluff. No exaggerated claims. Just direct and honest communication. Instead of complicated talking points and impersonal brand advocacy, a brief explanation of your brand's value proposition combined with personal testimony from trusted influencer partners can help mitigate viewers' skepticism.

3. Understand What Consumers Need Most

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, seek to understand what consumers actually need specifically, what product or element of your brand will be most helpful to them during a time of crisis. Whether it's providing advice about finding child care, online learning services, meal kit delivery, mental health services, etc., there are ways you can serve communities by simply making them aware of what's available to them.

It is important to be intentional when considering what consumers need, and who better to understand this than the creators that an audience has chosen to follow and look to for insights. Creators know their viewers like one big extended family, and they can act as a positive liaison between your brand and your audience at a time when consumers might otherwise be apprehensive about brand messages.

Wrapping Up

Mindfulness has become a bit of a buzzword in the marketing community, but its importance is staggering in our current state of affairs. Influencers can provide a way to connect with consumers during a time of need, but in a way that personalizes their experience with your brand. Keeping messaging brief and personal arms them with the tools for success at all points of the marketing funnel. They are able to effectively communicate with their viewers and, in turn, help your brand understand what consumers need most. The road ahead may be rocky, but you can rest assured knowing that you've humanized your brand experience even if only a little.

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Three Ways To Be Mindful With Your Influencer Marketing In A Crisis - Forbes

Change and transition are constant and infinite. When our social norms are negatively impacted, we tend to initially react with fear and a mindset of scarcity to the situation and circumstances rather than be proactive and challenge our beliefs and thoughts to take ourselves through a cognitive and abundant process for positive and lasting results.

Rather than allowing ourselves to become intimidated and suppressed from reactive behavior and limiting beliefs, we have an opportunity to stop, pause, think and open our hearts and minds to connect to others while evolving through change. This is a mind shift from living in isolation, frustration and anger from past experiences and anxiety and fear from future unknowns to that of being present and having courage, confidence and discipline and being accountable for our intentions, thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, actions and, ultimately, the outcomes and consequences.

Take a moment to reflect on the possibilities you have to create value, growth and opportunity in times when life and work are disrupted with constant uncertainty and change. These six communication insights can help.

Six Communication Insights For Creating Value, Growth And Opportunity

1. Intentions And Gratitude. Begin with setting positive intentions each day and recognizing and expressing appreciation and gratitude for the value that is being added in the present time. Spend 2-5 minutes before your feet touch the floor in a quiet state, breathing deeply while setting your daily intentions. Begin and end each day with three statements of gratitude. As simple as it seems, these two mental exercises will afford your well-being and life more empowerment and clarity and reconnect you to the purposeful you.

2. Expressions And Shares. Be intentional and purposeful when using the power of verbal, written, physical and environmental language. Writing things down opens the conduit of heart-mind action and connection. Journaling, posting online in blogs and social media and even handwriting a note, letter or email to share and express your vision, intentions or thoughts connects us through an intimate experience, whether virtual or physical. Make it thoughtful and purposeful. Use the power of video connection. Our phones, computers and online apps and tools give us a forum to link, click, dial in and connect to each other, live and in-person, at least virtually.

Use the infinite power of nature to inspire and ignite creativity and joy. Combine walking and talking. Take a brisk, five-minute walk. Clip your favorite flower and foliage to place in a cup or vase to bring the outdoors inside to a colleague or friend. If youre able, host a leadership development exercise outdoors, incorporating the power of nature itself into your curriculum.

3. Creativity And Development. Lets use this moment to indulge and engage in opening our hearts, minds, bodies and souls to the gift of learning and growing. Exploration, discovery, observation, invention, listening, reading, testing these are actions we need to give ourselves permission to do daily, to the extent we schedule ourselves and prioritize time to expend our energy in this space where continuous learning and growth affords us an expansion of wisdom and value to be shared.

4. Vulnerability, Courage, Humility And Discipline. All greatness comes from these four attributes that are naturally internal and eternal to all humans. Great leaders master these attributes to achieve and experience success. Not living in fear of rejection, failure and other limiting beliefs is the purest and most powerful form of vulnerability. Finding the courage, humility and discipline to strike the match to ignite the energy that creates the momentum and builds the energy to take us into that state of abundance and value is the start. Be present with your well-being, and for the sake of others well-being, as able and willing. Even in times of challenge, assuming positive intentions and holding productive dialogue to work through and eradicate limitations, miscommunications and distortions establish a trusting and productive foundation for quality relationships.

5. Service And Sharing. All this would be null and void if we did not share and extend our highest and best selves to our family, friends, co-workers, colleagues, peers, teammates, organizations and communities. Knowing your purpose and purposing the best of into creating value, growth and opportunity for others exponentially extend a lasting and positive experience.

6. Cognition. Lets continue to challenge our own beliefs and thoughts first. Recognize and acknowledge our own limiting beliefs and distortions that trigger our reactiveness. Refrain from criticism, shaming and blaming. Be intentional and assume positive intent of others. Actively engage in investigation, identification, discovery and exploration of meaning and understanding before labeling and confirming a belief or thought. Ensure the decisions you are making stand true and align to your personal values and purpose. When taking action, be responsible and accountable for your behavior and the consequences to come from your part. Retrain yourself to stop, pause, be cognitive and then move into productive action. Enjoy the process. Practice the process by sharing your experience of change and transition with others. This is cognition at its best where we are able to continuously learn and grow while connected to others and making a difference, day by day.

It is important to note there is no perfection in communication, and time is of the essence. The threading of these attributes affords joy and delight in our experiences. At its best, humanity is designed to be evolutionary and experiential. Be grateful for the good and learn from the challenges. Try not to dwell in the muck, where you will remain stuck and miserable.

So why not begin the shift in mindset and mastery of aligning ourselves with our true and best selves, imperfectly and abundantly creating value, growth and opportunity for ourselves, others, our organizations, communities and in the world? Join the transformation and experience the abundance of connection, even in socially disruptive times.

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Six Communication Insights For Creating Value In Times Of Disruption - Forbes

The Jacksonville Bar Association is seeking nominations for the annual Jacksonville Daily Record Lawyer of the Year award.

Nominees must be a member in good standing of the JBA, exemplify the standards and characteristics of the associations values, and practice with professionalism and integrity.

Candidates also must display outstanding commitment and service to the community.

The 2019 recipient was Kathy Para, who retired from Jacksonville Area Legal Aid after a decade as pro bono coordinator and pro bono director, recruiting attorneys to represent low-income clients who otherwise would have faced often life-changing legal issues without benefit of counsel.

Mike Freed, a shareholder in Gunsters Jacksonville office and founder of Freed to Run, was recognized as Lawyer of the Year in 2018.

For the past three years, Freed has run six marathons in six days from the state Supreme Court in Tallahassee to the Duval County Courthouse.

For the past two years, he was joined by relay teams from the business and legal communities that pledge donations and run a marathon leg alongside Freed.

The event raises money for the North Florida Medical Legal Partnership endowment at JALA that helps local pediatric patients and their families by providing free civil legal aid.

With a 125% match from Baptist Health Foundation, Freed to Run has raised more than $1 million toward the $2.25 million goal.

The 2020 award will be presented May 6 during the JBAs annual Law Day meeting.

Nominations can be made by linking to the form at jaxdailyrecord.com/loty2020 or by email to [emailprotected] before 5 p.m. April 24.

The JBA Law Day poster contest exhibit traditionally is installed near the staircase at the Duval County Courthouse, but with it closed to comply with the COVID-19 social distancing directive from the state Supreme Court, this years contest is on the internet.

Posters drawn by students at West Riverside Elementary School to represent the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution are displayed on the JBA website.

Visit jaxbar.org/postercontest2020 to see the virtual entries.

Votes may be cast by JBA members and the public.

The young artist whose poster receives the most votes will be recognized May 6 at the JBA Law Day meeting.

Duval County Tax Collector Jim Overton says a common inquiry is how to renew a vehicle registration now that all the branch offices are closed.

Overton said there are four choices:

Renew online at duvaltaxcollect.net.

Mail your renewal form and payment to Duval County Tax Collector, 231 E. Forsyth St., Room 440, Jacksonville, 32202.

Call (904) 255-5700 and renew by phone.

Visit the website and request a call back.

After learning of an incident that occurred after a member of the Jacksonville Sheriffs Office apprehended a suspect, State Attorney Melissa Nelson issued the following statement:

Unfortunately, despite having to deal with all of these challenging circumstances, I have become aware of at least one incident in which a defendant, while being detained and ultimately arrested, informed the officer that she was infected with the COVID-19 virus, and then intentionally coughed into the officers face.

In light of this inexcusable criminal conduct, the purpose of this memorandum is to make clear that the State Attorneys Office for the Fourth Judicial Circuit shall have a Zero-Tolerance Policy for any intentional COVID-19-related criminal conduct that either harms or threatens to harm any law enforcement officer or first responder, Nelson said in the memorandum.

According to State Attorneys Office spokesman David Chapman, the charge could be corruption against a public servant.

Thats a second-degree felony, punishable by up to 15 years in prison if actual harm occurs; or a third-degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison if its merely a threat of unlawful harm.

Because of the duties that law enforcement and first responders are required to perform, they are at considerable risk of being infected by the COVID-19 virus. Just like health care practitioners, law enforcement and first responders on a daily basis are faced with the reality that they are likely to come into contact with an infected individual. In addition to the potential health hazards related to contracting the COVID-19 virus, law enforcement officers and first responders are also experiencing considerable stress due to these increased pressures and obligations both inside and outside of work, Nelson said in the memorandum.

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The Marbut Report: Nominations open for Lawyer of the Year - Jacksonville Daily Record

As we watch unemployment numbers rise and markets flounder, it is painfully clear how pandemics not only impact individuals health and well-being, but also devastate the entire global economy. The scope and scale of COVID-19 and its related economic fallout stem in large part from the fact that the worlds social and financial systems with their interconnected businesses and supply chains have become so intertwined and interdependent that a disruption to one can ramify, rapidly wreaking havoc for all.

Yet, most investors continue to operate on the assumption that they somehow operate separately from these systems and that systemic risks are beyond their control. We believe theyre wrong. We think individual investors and the financial system at large can and should invest and lend in ways that intentionally enhance, and not destroy, these systems.

Although finance cannot prevent the threat of the next pandemic, intentional system-level decision-making by investors and lenders can help us prepare for it more effectively and mitigate its worst societal and economic impacts. We need better guardrails. By taking a few decisive steps, we can help put these in place.

Heres what we need to do.

Allocate assets to the sovereign debt and municipal bond markets. Only local and national governments have the authority to take the draconian steps necessary to slow or stop pandemics. Investors need to invest in governments strong enough and with deep enough pockets to build guardrails and kindle economic recoveries. In addition, through the municipal bond market investors can support those non-profit hospitals that make up the vast majority of our acute care healthcare system and disproportionately serve low-income communities.

Many institutional investors, in search of yield today, have drastically cut their allocations to fixed income, chasing short-term returns by shifting assets to alternatives such as private equity and hedge funds. This is a short-sighted decision.

Investors should also stop investing in companies that dont pay their fair share of taxes and in financial services firms that promote tax avoidance services. What they are doing may not be illegal, but they are starving government of one of its most basic sources of revenues.

Insist that companies understand their business models and prepare backstops for their meltdown. Todays airline industry may never recover. Why? Because it did not understand that it is in the business of bringing people together: uniting families, convening businesses, solidifying friendships. If it had, it would have invested in Zoom or established its own telecommuting subsidiaries. Flight delayed? Stay at home or stop by our lounge and use our remote conferencing platform.

Todays fossil fuel companies, with few exceptions, lack the imagination for anything more than running out the clock on their current business models in as orderly a manner as possible, although decades ago some among their leaders had active renewable energy portfolios that they since opted to sell. At least the automobile and electric utility industries have an inkling that they should adapt to a future of alternative fuels.

Be willing to invest in firms that invest in the health of systems and prepare for potential systemic breakdowns. Excess manufacturing capacity may not be the most profitable way to run a business, but efficiency is not about letting people die because no one planned for ramping up ventilator production. The pursuit of efficiency has to stop short of abandoning all protection against disaster. If a firm makes belts, investors should ask whether they have a suspender line in the wings. Suspenders may be redundant and inefficient but its best not to be caught with your pants down.

Pharmaceutical companies that emphasize vaccines, generally a less profitable line of business than patented prescription drugs, deserve credit for understanding that prevention, particularly of pandemics, is part of their industrys mandate. A drugstore chain can remake itself into a full-service preventative healthcare provider. Invest in the system today or pay the price tomorrow.

The financial community thrives on lending. Debt is the most efficient way to boost the consumer economy. It works its magic for corporations too. Except when it cannot be repaid. We lent profligately to the housing market in the lead up to the 2008 financial crisis. Corporations loaded up on debt in the days before COVID-19 hit. The bonds of debt are excruciating to unwind; it can feel like forever; it can turn worlds upside down. The economic, social, and human costs of doing so destabilize.

The equivalent of belts and suspenders for lenders is the willingness to forgo a loan that is in fact too risky and to forgive those that cannot be repaid through no fault of borrowers. That means tough love to strengthen borrowers and lenders both. That strength will be needed to get through the next systemic crisis, pandemic or otherwise.

Being prepared means anticipating the worst, building in circuit breakers and guardrails, assuring redundancy and resilience, even when the worst seems unimaginable. Being prepared means investing in the health of fundamental systems.

We may be lucky and dodge the worst-case scenarios of the current fast-moving pandemic and the slow-motion train wreck that global warming will bring, but the 21st century will see other such systemic disruptions and we had better be ready for them.

William Burckart and Steve Lydenberg are the authors of the forthcoming book 21st Century Investing: Redirecting Financial Strategies to Drive Systems Change (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2021).

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Five investment strategies to mitigate systemic risks before the next pandemic - ImpactAlpha

Wait, what? You read that headline correctly. Just daysafter The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, Ohioslargest newspaper, laid off 22 newsroom employees, the remaining 14 employeesreceived more bad news. They have been prohibited from reporting on Cleveland,Cuyahoga County and Summit County, as well as any statewide news, reportsCleveScene.com. Those regions will now be covered by sister publication,Cleveland.com, a non-union shop. If the remaining newsroom employees want tokeep their jobs, they will be restricted to covering Geauga, Lake, Lorain,Medina and Portage Counties, other counties in northeast Ohio, instead of beatstheyve covered for years.

The Plain Dealer Newspaper Guild, representing the union, spokeout on Facebook on April 7 about this latest blow to a once-respected mediaoutlet. The post received 634 reactions, 274 comments and 770 shares, as of 8:30p.m. Eastern yesterday. Here is an excerpt:

The Plain Dealer newsroom will no longer be coveringCleveland, Cuyahoga County or the state of Ohio.

Editor Tim Warsinskey announced Monday to the 14 remainingstaff members that the newsroom would, with a few exceptions, become a bureaucovering five outlying counties: Geauga, Lake, Lorain, Medina and Portage.

The move would bar most of the reporters from coveringstories in Cuyahoga and Summit counties, as well as statewide issues, wherethey have developed expertise and have institutional knowledge.

This latest announcement comes as the newsroom has workedceaselessly in covering this unprecedented pandemic, putting aside their ownpersonal family and financial situations to cover the news and tell the storiesof health care workers and the community

Warsinskey called the move a company-wide strategydecision. He did not say which company.

The Plain Dealer, which is owned by Advance Publications,consistently has maintained that The Plain Dealer and Advance Local, areseparate companies. Advance Local operates the nonunion Cleveland.com newsroom,which has not announced layoffs.

The two-newsroom operation was never going to becometenable or permanent, Warsinskey told staffers.

In effect, he is admitting that this decision is part of abroader move to eliminate The Plain Dealer and its staff altogether and not anattempt to provide meaningful coverage on areas the company has stoppedreporting on in any depth for years. The announcement comes three days afterThe Plain Dealer laid off 22 people in the newsroom, including 18Guild-represented journalists and four nonunion managers.

Its clear that the company doesnt value the expertise ofits veteran reporters and it doesnt think the community does either, said thepost. Readthe complete post on Facebook.

In another interesting move, last night, there were nostories on The Plain Dealers website. There were scrolling photos, but noarticles. A Google search directed us to Cleveland.com/plaindealer,but there was no link to that site from PlainDealer.com that we could find.

It is not clear if this move was intentional, or perhaps atechnical glitch. It seems to foreshadow what is coming. Cleveland.com willtake over news reporting for what used to be the biggest paper in the state.Meanwhile, Cleveland.com looked like this. It contained Cleveland-based storieswith bylines from Cleveland.com reporters.

The Plain Dealers editor TimWarsinskey shared The Plain Dealers position with News 5 Cleveland on thechanges:

There are two separate, but related, newsrooms inCleveland, and two outstanding news products The Plain Dealer andcleveland.com. Together, they serve the market well with The Plain Dealerstories appearing online at cleveland.com and cleveland.com stories appearingin print in The Plain Dealer, an approach that has been in place since separatenewsrooms were established in 2013.

By design, this approach helps provide thoughtful, impactfulcoverage in the most efficient way possible and ensures that Greater Clevelandhas more access to local journalism via digital platforms as demand for thoseplatforms continues to grow.

Today, there are 77 journalists and content creators inthese newsrooms covering Greater Cleveland, doing outstanding reporting,writing stories and creating content that our readers want and deserve. Thisnumber is comparable to the staffs in similarly-sized metro areas in Ohio andacross the country. But its not just about the numbers of journalists we haveon hand. Its how they are deployed to create a broad base of coverage for allof the communities we serve in Greater Cleveland.

On Monday, The Plain Dealer shared a new reporting focuswith the members of its newsroom, one that offers to bring high quality localjournalism to five counties in Greater Cleveland, and the nearly 1 millionpeople who live in them. Lake, Geauga, Portage, Medina and Lorain counties havebeen underserved by media in this market for years despite making up a largepercentage of The Plain Dealers subscription base.

The Plain Dealer, along with our sister companyCleveland.com, has an opportunity to change that with The Plain Dealers newfocus on these five nearby counties. This broadening of our coverage area isespecially important in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a time when all ofour readers, regardless of where they live, deserve to know how the virus isaffecting their local communities and how their local communities areresponding, Warsinskey said. Readthe full statement on News 5 Cleveland.

Cutting staff at a time when local journalism is more importantthan ever seems ludicrous, even if financially necessary. This latest move, however,makes absolutely no sense. Why would a media organization take skilledreporters with well-honed beats and move them to a bureau-type operation thatno longer reports news from the newspapers largest coverage area? It is almostunfathomable. We understand the guilds frustration and can only imagine how newspapersubscribers feel. It seems like Warsinskey and Advance Publications are notgiving the full story here. From the outside, it looks like they are cutting unionstaff and hoping the remaining staff will hate their plight so much that theywill leave voluntarily without a buyout or a mass firing. That would free thecompany up to transition to a digital model with non-union staff.

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Remaining Staff at The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer Prohibited from Covering Cleveland - Subscription Insider

On February 15, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opened An American Project, a retrospective, of the work of multi-award-winning photographer and teacher Dawoud Bey. The show was supposed to run through May 25, before traveling to other museums, including the co-organizer of the show, New Yorks Whitney Museum of American Art. But due to the COVID- 19 pandemic, the SFMOMA and other museums, closed temporarily in March. Recently the museum put up a short video of Bey talking about visualizing history, and he took over the museums Instagram account the week of March 30.

Bey came out to San Francisco for An American Project, and at a preview had a conversation with Corey Keller, (who curated the show along with the Whitneys Elisabeth Sherman), in which he talked about going to see protests of the widely criticized 1969 exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art,Harlem on My Mind, which mostly excluded African American artists.There was no protest that day, and Bey ended up going into the show, which made him think seriously about being a photographer.

An American Project includes Beys first show, Harlem USA, along with The Birmingham Project, commemorating the 1963 dynamiting of the 16th Street Baptist Church in that city which killed four girls; Night Coming Tenderly, Blackabout the Underground Railroad; and Class Pictures, portraits of high school students accompanied by their words.

Bey sat down with 48 Hills and talked about changing from wanting his photos to show people in a positive light to just making honest photos; how for The Birmingham Project, photographing children the age of the ones who were killed makes history more specific; and the way the darkness and positioning of the photographs in Night Coming Tenderly, Blackpull viewers into the experience of being on the Underground Railroad and running for their lives.

48 HILLS Your godmother gave you a camera when you were 15. When did you start using it?

DAWOUD BEY When I got the camera, and it was a very basic Argus C3 Rangefinder camera, I had no idea how to use it. I was more fascinated by the camera itselfthe fact that the lens came off, and I began to figure out when you turn this dial the shutter would open slowly. I had no background in photography, and I didnt any think of it in terms of what would my subject matter be. So I just started walking around with this camera. I never made any memorable photos with that camera, but I did start to notice photography magazines like, Oh, theres actually magazines about this stuff. So it got me engaged with photography, and I started looking at photography books and magazines, and then the possibilities of what one might do with a camera opened up.

I guess the pivotal thing that happened was the following year when I was 16 and I went to see Harlem on my Mind at the Met. I actually took the camera with me, and I did take a picture of the banner in front of the Met.It was seeing that exhibition that began to expand for me considerably the notion of what the subject of photographs might be. Even though Harlem on My Mind was not an art exhibition, clearly the photographs were not that ones I saw in everyday newspapers and magazine, which up to that point was my only frame of reference for what photographs were.Seeing that exhibition and thinking about my familys history in Harlem, because my mother and father met in Harlem, and beginning to realize one has to have a kind of nominal subject around which to wrap their picture making, that allowed me to begin making photographs.

48H So that led to your first show, Harlem USA.

DB Yes. They were photographs of everyday people in Harlem in the public and semi public spaces of Harlem, largely in the streets, and a few in churches and in barber shops and greasy spoon luncheonette restaurants. Those were very much in the tradition of other pictures I had been looking ata lot from photographers of the WPA and Farm Security Administrator. Walker Evans became an early influence and Roy DeCarava.I started looking at the lot of photographs, trying to get a sense of how photos are made and what good photographs look like.

48H With that show, Harlem USA, what kind of photos did you want to make?

DB When I started out, I guess I wanted to make photographs that in some significant way contested the stereotypical notions of Black urban communities like Harlem, which are often described through a lens of some form of social pathology. So when I started out, I probably would have said I wanted to make photographs that represented the people of Harlem in a more positive light. But as I continued on, I couldnt quite figure out what a positive light looks like. This was merely people in the act of living their lives.

I eventually came to this notion of wanting to make an honest representation of everyday people in Harlem. It allowed me to let me let go of this binary notion of positive and negative, and just try and describe clearly the people in front of me without trying to put them in a box. Just allow them space to breathe, and I realized that was enough.

48H You have talked about showing your work in the communities where you took the photos and how the act of being seen is political.

DB I thought it was very important that the work I was making in that community be shown in that communitythat the people who were the subjects of the work would have access to the work. Certainly a number of these photographs are made in places very different from where theyre shown, but theyre first shown where they were made, from my first show at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1979. It gave me a very clear and intentional way of thinking about the institution as a place of display. Not just the end point for the work, but to use the space of the museum to set up a series of particular relationships: between the museum and the community in which it sits, and trying to use the work in a way that a piece of community is in the work. It creates a different relationship between museum and the community, where they are aware theyre being exhibited in this space, which makes them more likely to want to have access to that space.

I think it changes the dynamics. Certainly at the Studio Museum in Harlem, its a very different set of circumstances because that place is set up in order to have a place for art objects within the African American community. I wanted my photographs in Harlem to extend that conversation. Usually the first showing of the work is in the place in which the work is made. The Birmingham Project was first shown in Birmingham because it has a very particular relationship with that history. The Class Pictures project was made in several different communities around the country, but each piece first shown in the city in which it was made.

48H Why did you decide to have the students you photographed in Class Pictures write something to go along with their portraits?

I thought it was necessary because I wanted a very dimensional representation of those young people. Im always acutely aware of the limitation of photographs because photographs dont do a lot more than they do. Theyre mute visual objects that present a particular piece of information. But all the information that lies out of the frame, which is a lot of information, tends not to be what the work is about.

In terms of making a contemporary portrait of young people in America, I thought it was important they not only be visualized in my photographs, but that they have a place of self representation and talk about their own lives in a way that the photograph is not capable of. That the two thingsmy portrait of them and the textcould add up to something more than either alone can represent. In that project I though it was really important to give them a literal voice in the construction of the image.

48H You talked about your work having a through line? What is it?

DB A sense of history and place. Theres always been a kind of close looking at a place. Photographs become history the moment that theyre made. They begin to recede into the past as soon as they are made. Its about bringing all of that into the conversation through my work. To have them become a part of the conversation from which theyve been largely excluded.

48H You said you went to Birmingham for years getting to know the city before deciding what you wanted to photograph to commemorate the bombing the 16th Street Baptist Church by white supremacists.How did you decide on young people the same age as the children who were killed in a diptych with someone who would have been their age if they lived?

DB I didnt want to just photograph young people in BirminghamI wanted them to be those specific ages. The girls were 11 and 14, and the two boys killed that afternoon were 13 and 16. I wanted them to be that age because for me, the work resonated more deeply in terms of what does an 11-year-old Black girl look like, because one of the girls who was killed in the dynamiting of the church was 11. Not just what does a young girl look like, but what does an 11-year-old African American girl look like.

Its a way of making that history less mythic and more specific.History as time passes tends to become very gauzy. The four little girls. It almost sounds like a girls singing group. Like what is that? I wanted to very specifically give you a sense of what a 14-year-old African American girl looks like, a 13-year-old African American boy. I want them to be that age as a way of invoking their presence in the work, not a presence, but their presence through those young people.And through the adults who were the same age they would have been if they had not been murdered.

48H The photos in your Underground Railroad series, Night Coming Tenderly, Black, are very dark. Why did you want them to look like that?

DB I wanted the viewer to think about moving through that landscape under cover of necessary darkness, as they moved, in that case, toward Lake Erie. I wanted to make photos that evoked that particular sensation. It kind of allowed the viewer to momentarily, through the photograph, inhabit that space under those circumstances, to imagine oneself moving though that terrain under threat of death.

The positionality of all of them is eye level and meant to be experienced as if one were the person moving through that landscape. I wanted it to be a heightened physical and psychological experience.

I had a very interesting experience at the Art Institute of Chicago when I showed them for the first time. I came into the gallery and two women had just finished looking at the work and they looked disoriented and they said to me, Youre the one who made these photographs, right? I said yes. But you made them now, right? Obviously you didnt go back, but why am I feeling Im someplace Im not? It kind of pulled them back. I really want the work to pull you into the experience, so its not just a space of the imagination, which it is, but that it resonates as experience.

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'Change the dynamics': Dawoud Bey on photography, place, and history - 48 Hills

In speeches, commentaries and conversations about the coronavirus pandemic, we keep hearing war-like metaphors being deployed. It happens explicitly (we are at war, blitz spirit, war cabinet) and implicitly (threat, invisible enemy, frontline, duty).

This, after all, helps project an interpretation of the extraordinary reality facing us which is readily understandable. It helps convey a sense of exceptional mobilisation and offers to decision-makers an opportunity to rise up as heroic commanders.

It is also true that the language of biomedicine and epidemiology is already heavily militarised. We battle a virus, and our body has defence mechanisms against the pathogens that invade it.

But the coronavirus crisis is an international, pan-human challenge. It certainly requires exceptional collective mobilisation, but no real weapons, no intentional killing of fellow human beings, and no casting of people as dehumanised others. Militarised language is unnecessary.

Explaining and encouraging community resilience and togetherness in the face of adversity by evoking images of war conjures up distorted myths and narratives of heroic past national glory and military campaigns. This might function as a cognitive shortcut to evoke collective effort, but the narrow narratives it reproduces are open to exploitation by opportunistic politicians.

We could just as much favour analysis of the evolving situation in calmer scientific and medical terms. You dont need ideas about war to tell a story of the human race naturally coming together when faced by a common danger.

Indeed, one striking phenomenon has been the huge proliferation of organic networks of mutual aid. From street-level up, and often with the help of social media, a huge number of people have been organising solidarity networks to help each other and especially the most vulnerable.

People have come together and organised within neighbourhoods, cities and regions but also across nations to help each other without needing to call it a war or military duty. The language of mutual aid and solidarity works just as well.

Anyone interested in political theory and ideologies must be watching all this with some intellectual curiosity. Different perspectives come with different assumptions about human nature, the role of the state compared to other institutions, and so on.

War is the business of the state par excellence. Some argue it was war-making that actually made the modern state. Framing the response to COVID-19 in military language will reinforce such statist thinking and the statist project itself. It will reinforce the state and its power.

It is of course true that, given the political architecture in place as the crisis hit, states do hold much organisational capacity and power. They have a crucial role to play in tackling the current emergency. But other political entities matter too, from spontaneous bottom-up networks and municipalities to regional organisations and the World Health Organization. Military metaphors, however, either conceal their contributions or co-opt them by describing their efforts in military terms.

One could just as much pitch the crisis as being about medicine, health workers and human communities across the globe. One could analyse events around particular socio-economic classes, such as supermarket workers, delivery workers and essential equipment manufacturers, in every country affected by the virus. Looking at socio-economic classes across borders could also set up more searching discussions about homelessness, refugee camps, working conditions and universal healthcare.

An analysis based on class or social justice is just as appropriate as one revolving around military metaphors. But instead of reinforcing statist and military thinking, it would explain the crisis in anarchist, Marxist, feminist, or liberal internationalist terms, for example.

Language matters. It helps frame particular stories, interpretations and conversations while at the same time closing off alternative perspectives. It reinforces particular theories about how the world works, and sidelines others.

Framing political issues in the language of war both illustrates the prevalence of militarised thinking and further enables it. The more we use military language, the more we normalise the mobilisation of the military and the more we entrench military hierarchies. When the next international crisis arrives, rather than examining the deeper structural problems that caused them, we jump again to heroic narratives of national militarised mobilisation.

Who benefits from this? Politicians can project an image of decisive generals protecting their lot. Agents of state coercion can project themselves as dutiful and robust but popular administrators of the public will. They can then mobilise this (typically masculine) brand for their own political agenda later on. If you are Trump, perhaps you can even egg up some anti-Chinese patriotism.

Missed is the opportunity to develop a more nuanced understanding of human capabilities not restricted to national boundaries. Yet this international solidarity and these pan-human capabilities might be what we need to tackle other problems of international scale, such as the climate crisis.

When a crisis of global proportions gives rise to organic expressions of mutual aid, our imagination has grown so restricted that we find ourselves framing the challenge in statist and national terms. Instead of seeing the whole of humanity rising to the challenge together and observing the multi-layered outpouring of mutual aid, our imagination is restricted into encasing this in military language.

But that does not capture the full story. The human race will come out of COVID wiser if it does not frame its understanding of its response to it in narrow military language.

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Stop calling coronavirus pandemic a 'war' - The Conversation UK

April 7, 2020 | :

After varying amounts of struggle, universities across the country moved online for the spring semester in response to the coronavirus pandemic. But now the question is, whats next?

While some hope campuses will re-open come fall, no one knows for certain. In the meantime, university leaders are girding themselves for the possibility theyll have to offer another semester online and asking themselves how to best prepare for more long-term remote learning.

Many are thinking outside the box and outside the (virtual) classroom about what resources students will need if online classes continue next year.

Over spring break, most campuses didnt have the time to build the highest quality online programs as they scurried to open their virtual doors, but fall may hold new possibilities.

Clare McCann, deputy director for federal higher education policy at the think tank New America, stressed the importance of not only intentional instructional design but online student support now that schools have a small (albeit very small) extra amount of time to prepare, she wrote in an email.

Dr. Alison Davis-Blake, president of Bentley University, is working to create a true virtual campus, not just online courses, she said, to offer as much of the campus experience as possible online.

For example, the school held an online career fair and continues to offer remote career counseling. Groups of 40 students virtually meet with a student affairs representative for weekly check-ins and coaches continue to touch base with their athletes, even though they cant play. Student government is up and running, alongside fraternities, sororities and other student groups that continue to virtually meet.

The university plans to look at student and faculty surveys this summer to assess its online education this spring, and most importantly, what could be improved in the fall if remote classes continue. The hope is to offer more experiential learning opportunities and to make more on-campus services remotely available.

But as Davis-Blake pointed out, an online fall semester would pose a new challenge: on-boarding a first-year class amidst the pandemic.

University leaders are asking themselves, How do you orient students when youre not face to face? she said. What can you do over the summer to bring students in?

Shes thinking through a number of options virtual tours, group chats for new students, or even small regional group gatherings, if theyre safe when the semester starts.

Preparing for the possibility of a fall semester online, its almost as if youre building a university from the ground up, Davis-Blake said. For colleges, the key is thinking about what is an important part of your campus experience? And [then] trying to bring that forward.

Its a question Dr. Wayne A.I. Frederick, president of Howard University, is contending with as well. The historically Black college (HBCU) is known for its family dynamic, he said, so hes considering what that means and what that looks like if students remain online in the fall.

The camaraderie students feel at an HBCU is difficult to create in a distance learning environment, he said. We do have to start thinking, What are our values, what are our traditions, and how do we uphold those in the middle of a crisis such as this?

For all universities, but particularly schools like Howard, which serve high percentages of low-income students, the possible continuation of online learning comes with another worry retention rates.

Frederick is concerned that students financially impacted by the coronavirus may not come back to campus next year, so continuing online options in the fall even if on-campus classes are safe might help students who need to work and might otherwise struggle to return, he said. In the meantime, part of the schools preparation for fall is carefully monitoring students and reaching out to those who may need help with their finances.

Frederick finds that the crisis, and the accompanying shift online, is impacting his students in diverse ways, with Black communities disproportionately affected by the coronavirus. Some need mentorship, others need devices to just to get online, and as a student survey found, many need quiet spaces to study at home.

So, as time goes on, he wants to continue tailoring services to their individual needs. For example, if places like libraries reopen before campuses next semester, Howard University might create a guide to finding safe, local study spots.

In preparing for the fall, we need to ask our students what they need rather than be proscriptive, he said.

Though everyone hopes for more normalcy in the next academic year, Davis-Blake thinks the process of making emergency plans for fall might actually help universities understand and address their students needs better. Campuses may find that some supports actually reach more students more effectively online, while others require an in-person touch.

I really believe this is a period not just to hunker down and say, Well, how do we get through? she said. This is a time for creativity. Even if we come back to campus and were all face to face, there are things were learning and will keep learning about how to deliver education even better through virtual and in-person activities. In every calamity, there is a possibility and an opportunity for innovation, for growth, for the human spirit to really rise.

Sara Weissman can be reached at sweissman@diverseeducation.com.

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Campuses Might Still Be Closed in the Fall. How Should... - Diverse: Issues in Higher Education