A scene from Artica 2019

Artica is an outdoor event that is far-out by just about any standards, with no confines other than the limits of your imagination, so it is better suited to survive in COVID-19 time than just about any festival one could think of.

Artica returns under the triumphant title of Artica 2020: Eternal Return from noon to 10 p.m.Saturday and Sunday, October 10 and 11. The location is on the grounds of the old Cotton Belt Building at thecornerofLewisandDicksonstreets on the North Riverfront north of Lacledes Landing. But there are no actual barriers: Artica disappears off into the city, into the night, into the unknown.

This is a free open-air event for all ages featuring two days of music, sculpture,interactive art installations, roaming performers and the Burn, organizers promise.The Burn is a public burning of Our Lady of Artica, a wooden effigy, that closes the festival on Sunday night. If that sounds too far out, then just wander off when the burning is about to begin.

Artica ends Sunday night with the Burn though socially distant in 2020

Each year, Artica establishes an art city uninhibited by commerce, organizers promise, and that checks out Artica is the unbranded anti-festival, an annual celebration of creativity, innovation, and exploration, organizers rightly claim.

It is not, however, underground or outlaw. The festival has been approved by the city Health Department. Masks and social distancing will be required while on the festival grounds. Guests are encouraged to wash their hands often at the provided handwashing stations and to use hand sanitizer with at least 70% alcohol in between hand washings.

If you are not feeling well, organizers request, please stay at home, which is never a bad idea anyway.

Of this years theme in particular, organizers say: Artica 2020: Eternal Returnis a creative celebration and exploration of the apparent paradox of existence, that every step forward, somehow takes us closer to what we imagined we'd left behind.

Artica is a free open-air event for all ages featuring two days of music, sculpture,interactive art installations and roaming performers.

The title is borrowed from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (18441900), a thinker suitably edgy and unsettling for the disrupted here and now. Nietzsche returned to the idea of the Eternal Return (appropriately enough) several times throughout his work; one classic statement of it comes in a demonic thought experiment.

What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequenceeven this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust! Nietzsche wrote.

In the nightmarish year of 2020, its daring indeed to conjure the notion of the Eternal Return. Who now wants to contemplate the possibility that this life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more?

Actually, embrace Artica (at a social distance) and you just might find yourself enlivened by every joy and every thought, and maybe you will want them to return after the Lady burns and youve wandered off into the long, dark night of 2020.

Visitarticastl.com for more information or email articafest@gmail.com.

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Artica makes its 'Eternal Return' October 10 and 11: 'Annual celebration of creativity, innovation, and exploration' on North Riverfront - St. Louis...

FROM THE LECTURE SERIES: Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science

Burrhus Frederic Skinner, a Harvard psychologist, who was influenced by logical positivists, adopted Watsons work. He, too, was interested in studying human behavior in response to certain stimuli. He found a mathematical relationship between environmental factors and human responses as well as the influence of positive and negative reinforcement on such responses. For example, he studied how room temperature influenced how long it would take a subject to drink a glass of water. Even further, he observed how reward and punishment would make the subjects behave in specific ways that he wanted.

These findings had both theoretical and practical implications. They helped gain knowledge about the structure of reality and also to manipulate people.

Skinner wrote a book titled Beyond Freedom and Dignity, which was reminiscent of Friedrich Nietzsches book Beyond Good and Evil. According to Nietzsche, good and evil are not inherent properties of the world. They are human-made features manufactured by the weak to restrict the strong, which has helped the weak prosper and keep the strong behind. Thats why human progress has been restrained. Similarly, Skinner held that moral concepts of freedom and dignity are not features of the world. They are created to glorify the individual and have retarded human development.

Rather than autonomous agents capable of rational thinking, human beings are regarded as creatures of habit. If these habits are shaped randomly, they will have no consequences for us. If they are correctly shaped, they can lead to our advancement. They can also be formed in a way that they limit human progress. The only way to achieve human growth is to identify the best culture that contributes to such growth and prepare the conditions for humans to thrive. Freewill is a mere myth that deters human flourishing.

This is a transcript from the video series Redefining Reality: The Intellectual Implications of Modern Science. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

Learn more about solving psychological mysteries.

John Watson was fired from John Hopkins University, where he held an academic position. He pivoted his career to advertising to use his expertise in enriching business owners instead of advancing humans. By manipulating the masses, he used his knowledge of the human mind to create gold, like the alchemists philosopher stone.

Psychology gave him the power to shape individual minds and culture as a whole. He found out fear, rage, love, habits, or needs were crucial for making humans take the action we want. Testimonials from ordinary people and celebrities were two powerful marketing strategies proposed by Watson.

The same ideas were adopted in the fashion industry by Sigmund Freuds nephew, Edward Bernays. He found out that he could use the results of his psychological studies in the world of fashion and advertising.

The term public relations was his idea to replace propaganda. He rightly thought that propaganda had negative connotations because it was associated with the military and the Nazis. So, he used a propagandistic term as a euphemism for the word propaganda.

In one of his books, Propaganda, he outlines the instructions to engineer public opinion, which formed the basis of modern public relations. Due to the collapse of monarchies replaced by democracies around the world, he believed that Power had been taken from the king and given to the people. So, the power of masses had to be harnessed by controlling the peoples behavior to achieve profit and authority. Now, rather than a tool for searching the nature of the human mind, psychology was used to manufacture false realities in the mind of people to make business owners wealthier and help certain politicians get elected.

Learn more about how human nature evolved.

In the realm of arts, the same notion was adopted, too. In the 1910s, Marcel Duchamp started a series of works called Readymades. He treated mass-produced goods as works of art by putting them in galleries. He made people rethink the way they looked at these everyday objects by putting them in not-so-familiar places.

The same approach was taken by Andy Warhol with his paintings of soup cans and Coca-Cola bottles. In the same vein, he took objects out of their standardized contexts and made his audience see them from another angle. He meant to show us that we were conditioned and manipulated by advertising, and, as Skinner had in mind, we could finally behave like autonomous beings with freedom and dignity.

John Watson is the founder of behavioral psychology. He was the first person to introduce the doctrine of cognitive significance to oppose the idea that psychology was the study of consciousness.

Fredric Skinner was an American psychologist. He found a mathematical relationship between environmental factors and human responses as well as the influence of positive and negative reinforcement on such responses.

Edward Bernays was Sigmund Freuds nephew. He coined the term public relations to replace propaganda. He believed in controlling human minds to gain profit and authority.

Readymades are mass-manufactured products displayed in galleries as art. The concept was first introduced by Marcel Duchamp to make people see everyday objects in a different way.

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Behavioral Psychology and its Practical Implications - The Great Courses Daily News

Close to the end of Hari Kunzrus new novel, Red Pill, the narrator is telling a Manhattan therapist about his deranged attempts to expose Anton, an alt-right screenwriter who he believes is stirring up dangerous political forces. The therapist scoffs that Antons television shows hardly make him a significant figure: Dragons, that sort of thing. Surely I could see that this was not a field for anyone with serious political ambitions. It would be hard to think of anything more purely escapist. But he demurs: There were underground currents, new modes of propagation. It wasnt even a question of ideas, not straightforwardly, but feelings, atmospheres, yearnings, threats Essentially I was talking about fascism. The therapist dismisses it as anxiety about the presidential election. It is polling day, 8 November 2016.

The narrator is a restless New York intellectual who accepts a fellowship at the Deuter Centre, an interdisciplinary institute at Wannsee, outside Berlin. Alienated by its clinical and rigid atmosphere he takeslong, bleak walks around the lake; encountering the grave of the romantic poet Heinrich von Kleist, the villa where theNazis devised the final solution, and a former East German punk haunted by her past as a Stasi informant. He also lurks in his room, binge-watching footage from war zones and Blue Lives, a trashy cop drama whose nihilism and unacknowledged quotes from an anti-rationalist opponent of the French Revolution beguile him. Meeting Anton, the shows Nordic supremacist writer, in Berlin, he develops an obsession, pursuing Anton to Paris and a Scottish island.

Back in New York, his wife is devastated by his melodramatic self-absorption, friends regard him with pity and detachment and the therapist dismisses his sense of dread about the future. The novel concludes as his wifes fashionable Brooklynite circle gathers to watch the election results coverage, champagne at the ready to toast a Hillary Clinton win and the natural next step on a timeline in which the future is predictable, an extrapolation from the past, a steady progression. Donald Trump triumphs, their world collapses and suddenly the momentum seems to be with Antons people, the alt-right trolls with their memes, in-jokes, sinister Nordic symbology and conspiracy theories; a rival timeline in which all this normality is a paper screen over something bloody and atavistic that is rising up out of history to meet us. It occurs to the narrator: My madness is about to become everyones madness.

A presence looms over Red Pill but is not named in it: Friedrich Nietzsche. He looms thematically, as the supreme theorist to emerge from the mists of German Romanticism. And he looms intellectually, his arguments echoing in the contrast that strikes Kunzrus narrator towards the novels end. The world experienced by the narrator at Wannsee and in Antons oeuvre is not the orderly, rational, linear system of the therapist or the Brooklyn sophisticates, what Nietzsche dubbed the Apollonian. It is revealed disorder, frenzy, urges and appetites, or what the philosopher dubbed the Dionysian. Nietzsche argued that Greek tragedys synthesis of the Apollonian and the Dionysian order forged in the very affirmation of the chaos of reality made it the highest and purest form of art. It is such a tragic synthesis that Anton finds in his fascistic nihilism, and that the narrator, too, finds in his own, doomed quest to stop Anton.

Four years on from the fictional Brooklyn party, the madness seemingly unleashed at the last US presidential election hasindeed become everyones madness to some extent. Established assumptions about the march of progress are not gone, but are less glib and more qualified. The Dionysian forces tribes and masses, mysticism and disorder have announced their presence behind the paper screen. It is now widely accepted that desiccated liberalism, the weightless technocracy of Stronger Together (Clinton 2016) or Stronger, Safer and Better Off (Remain) is vulnerable when up against rival offerings that speak to the human yearning for emotional story-telling, for operatic goodies and baddies, for the recognisable narrative of a Make America Great Again (Trump 2016) or a Take Back Control (Leave). Once more a US presidential election approaches and once more a liberal candidate looks likely to win. But this time few are willing to predict that outcome with confidence.

Even if Joe Biden does triumph on 3 November, this should not be mistaken for a restoration of some temporarily disrupted order. The Dionysian will still lurk below the surface, and with it myriad chances, for those willing to take them, to mould it into forms and stories. Trump will almost certainly decry the result as illegitimate, urging his supporters to agitate against it. Violence may ensue. Disinformation and myths will continue to ripple across social media. More previously apolitical types, isolated by lockdowns and spending too long online, will be drawn into conspiracy theories such as the QAnon claims that Trump is secretly battling an elite, Satan-worshiping paedophile ring; modern-day Quixotes driven mad by reading too many fanciful tales.

None of which is to say that these threats should be overblown in a way that flatters their propagators, or to deny that humans also have an immense capacity for reason and science and individuality. But it is to remind ourselves that there is something universal, eternal and, like it or not, innately human about the atavistic passions that seemed to come out of nowhere four years ago. They existed beforehand and will long outlive any Biden presidency. Feelings, atmospheres, yearnings, threats will stillshape and define experience. History will not be over, nor will it have been proved to be linear. Stories will still matter.

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Liberalism will remain vulnerable unless it can speak to our need for emotional storytelling - New Statesman

With its recurring lockdowns and periods of isolation, 2020 has been a year of intense philosophical reflection. Many turned to works that would speak to the current situation, reflected in a surge of sales about fictional pandemics, such as Albert Camus The Plague. Milan Kunderas novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1984) offers the same philosophical musings but with significantly less deaths. The book will persuade you of the insignificance of your individual existence whilst also managing to feature a dog as one of the central characters.

Kundera spent his life and career in exile. But he has recently regained his native citizenship, and been awarded the prestigious Czech literary award the Franz Kafka prize. The news brings me back to Kunderas most influential work, The Unbearable Lightness of Being,to see how it can still speak to a reader today.

The novel tells the story of a group of romantically involved intellectuals and artists in Czechoslovakia during the period of Prague Spring in 1968. As accurately reflected in its grand title it is the philosophical musings (rather than the plot) that make up the force of the novel. The personal lives of the characters are aligned and juxtaposed to the wider political drama in Czechoslovakia. Kundera creates an immersive read on an almost predictable whirl of love, sex and infidelity between Tomas, Theresa, Sabina and Franz.

The political landscape and communist occupation of Prague intensifies the drama of the characters lives. The pressure on Tomas to submit to the communist ideology eventually leads him, followed by his two lovers, to Switzerland. Sabina then meets Franz, in a short-lived illusion of a happy resolution to their love triangle.

The narrator consistently places the lives of the individuals in perspective. Nietzsche is name-dropped in the first sentence of the novel, and the text is concerned with the burning philosophical questions that plague our existence. Ideas of eternal return, time and the question of lightness vs heaviness of existence are interrogated in the course of the novel. The narrative is a case study of different perspectives on life in a complex historical moment.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being often leans towards the nihilistic through the narrators insistence on the meaninglessness of a single existence. However, the story also focuses on the interconnectedness of four people in difficult times which becomes a lot more exciting with the entry of Karenin. Karenin is a female dog, and her presence is among the reasons why the novel has aged so well.

The portrayal of the dog is uncommonly generous. The navigation of the relationship between Karenin and the human characters invites broader discussions on the treatment of animals, and how that reflects on human nature. This and other themes that the novel tackles have not only remained, but increased in their relevance to this day.

Kunderas provocative insights have maintained their relevance thanks to the novels focus on the eternal its main advantage that could not be conveyed to film. The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a worthy read in-between all the hours we are currently spending hooked to screens.

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Lockdown read: The Unbearable Lightness of Being - The Mancunion

A blogger-become-minister, Reinaldo Iturriza has written creatively and insightfully about Chavismo and its contradictions. His work includes El chavismo salvaje (Wild Chavismo) and La poltica de los comunes (Politics of the Commons). In this VA interview, Iturriza addresses what is possibly the most difficult question facing Chavismo today: the political disaffection that can be found in important sectors of the Venezuelan people.

You have developed a creative reading of the Chavista identity over the years. Could you tell us something about this?

First, there is what is laid out in the El chavismo salvaje book, which basically gathers writings that go from 2007 to 2012. Among other things, it is a first attempt at identifying the tensions within Chavismo, an effort to present the logic of the different lines of force that traverse the movement, how they are expressed in practices, etc.

Writing these texts involved some abstraction in the attempt to capture the real movement it was a dizzying exercise , but at no point did I intend to position myself as an observer of Chavismo from the outside. On the contrary, these are militant writings. At that time I considered it imperative to explain what we had learned, what we had been, and where we were as a movement. It required working in two registers: on the one hand, recording what the experience of the Bolivarian Revolution meant to us; on the other hand, we had to construct a story outside of the propaganda, not make concessions to self-indulgent approaches.

The very concept of wild Chavismo'' is far from being a mere metaphor or attempt to provoke. What I pinpointed then is that there was an attempt to brutalize [brutalizar] Chavismo (in fact this is one of the founding practices of anti-Chavismo), but there was another attempt aimed at "stupefying it" [embrutecer] this latter would become a characteristic of what I call officialism in my reflections.

Nonetheless, I highlighted that civil service, for example, was not by definition officialist, and that it is also possible to reproduce an officialist logic inside the grassroots movement. In synthesis, I tried to problematize the question of power, of its exercise, and also the question of the state and its institutions.

In the book [El chavismo salvaje], I raised issues of this kind and left open, as is inevitable, many questions. It was a starting point. From then on, I have tried to go deeper into some of these issues, while other themes have emerged.

In 2017, I wrote an essay (still unpublished): Chvez, lector de Nietzsche [Chvez, Reader of Nietzsche]. During the last years of his life, Chvez was a committed and unprejudiced reader of Nietzsche. And, as one would expect from a man like Chvez, his were not mere philosophical cavilings.

The Nietzsche readings, with others, inspired some major decisions. In fact, Chvezs Commune or Nothing, the famous slogan, was born, at least in part, from Chvezs peculiar and very heterodox reading of Nietzsche. Finally, in line with the analysis initiated in El chavismo salvaje and taking as a reference Gilles Deleuzes interpretation of Nietzsche, I suggested that there was an active Chavismo that would set itself apart from reactive Chavismo.

In 2018 I wrote another book (also unpublished), La poltica de los comunes [Politics of the Commons], in which I collected some already published texts on the communal question in Venezuela. Among other things, I attempted to demonstrate that Chavismo breaks with the political culture of Accin Democrtica [the social-democratic party that ruled for many years in Venezuela]. In other words, I argued that although there is a clear line of continuity between Accion Democraticas political culture and that of Chavismo, what distinguishes the latter is precisely its singularity.

What does the singularity of Chavismo consist in? When is it born? A real epistemological rupture as Chvez would call it occurred in the 1990s when a young Bolivarian military contingent discovered the ide-force of participative and protagonist democracy. We were in the presence of a full-fledged theoretical and political event: by gravitating around this idea, revolutionary politics in Venezuela would never be the same. It marks a before and an after. I do not think I am exaggerating when I say that the Bolivarian Revolution becomes possible with this breakthrough. It changed everything and, in particular, the way of relating to the popular subject.

More recently, in 2019, I wrote a series of articles called Radiografa sentimental del chavismo [Sentimental X-ray of Chavismo], and I began to work on a line of research that I called Cuarentena [Quarantine]. The latter has nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic, but with the fact that, in 2017, the most reactionary anti-Chavista lines of force became fervent promoters of the total economic blockade against Venezuela a quarantine to contain and eradicate the contagious disease that is Chavismo.

Radiografa is an update of the analysis that I began in El chavismo salvaje. For example, what I identify in Radiografa as disaffected Chavismo is the most contemporary expression of wild Chavismo which, as far back as 2010, has been fed up with dumb politics, with the aggravating factor that [in recent times] this phenomenon of disaffection has become massive.

In Cuarentena I tried to identify the conditions triggering the phenomenon of political disaffection by delving into an area which I had not paid enough attention to until then: the economy. More than a pending issue at the personal level, Im thinking that this understanding the economy is a pending collective task.

To give you an example, we have to understand the class composition of Venezuelan society today. But more than a snapshot of the current historical situation, I think we should understand the evolution of the class structure in Venezuelan society since the 1970s. Until we begin to gather such basic and crucial information, we will be condemned to repeat the same old generalizations about oil rentierism, post-rentierism, and other vague analyses.

A grassroots Chavista gathering in Caracas, 2018. (Voces Urgentes)

Have you come to any conclusions from your recent research and thinking?

Some of my working hypotheses right now are the following. First, there is a close relationship not mechanical but not casual either between the emergence of the first revolutionary cells within the Venezuelan Army in the 1980s, and the growing informality and unemployment of the time.

Second, there is documented evidence of the strategic insight of the Bolivarian military regarding what would have to be the backbone of the revolutionary subject in Venezuela: those who as early as 1993 Chvez identified as the marginal class, fundamentally made up by what some scholars call the sub-proletariat, which is the fraction of the proletariat most affected by the economic crisis: they are the poor who work, but those whose work does not guarantee the minimum conditions for the reproduction of life.

Third, the support of this sub-proletariat turned out to be decisive in Chvezs 1998 electoral victory, and that support became even more decisive in the resistance against each and every one of the attempts to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution, including Chvezs extraordinary victory in the 2004 recall referendum.

Fourth, the social, economic, and cultural policies advanced during Chvezs presidency had, as a fundamental purpose, improving the material and spiritual conditions of this class fraction.

Fifth, Chvezs effort to build a popular and democratic hegemony had this class fraction as its center of gravity: its aspirations and demands, but also its organization; this perspective is key to understanding the creation of the communal councils and, later, the communes.

Sixth and finally, the 2015 parliamentary defeat rang an alarm bell, warning us of a fracture in this popular hegemonic construction.

I think that, with sufficient information at hand, it is possible to demonstrate that this sub-proletariat is the economic (and no doubt political) correspondent with that which I have called wild Chavismo. Once we have undertaken a rigorous, detailed analysis of the evolution of Venezuelan societys class structure during the last decades something that, as I said before, is a pending task I believe we will be in a better position to confront the challenges that face us today. The question of wild Chavismo today for the most part, a disaffected bloc is also the question of the sub-proletariat. The answer to this question would give us fundamental clues about how to proceed in reconstructing a popular democratic hegemony.

An assembly at the Che Guevara Commune, Merida. (Sinco/Condiciones Capt. 4)

Can we contrast what you call wild Chavismo its desires and aspirations with the governments way of doing politics? I am aware that we need to take into account all the external factors that condition Venezuelan politics, but I want to focus on its day-to-day modus operandi in the country.

It is practically impossible to reflect on the daily practice of governing here without taking these external factors into account. If there is something that overdetermines our daily life, its precisely the US economic blockade that weighs on the whole of Venezuelan society.

The effects of the blockade are almost unspeakable. It produces suffering, stress, anxiety, fear, anger, distrust, and death. To that, we should add uncertainty and the narrowing horizon that the pandemic produces. We are talking about an experience that is difficult to explain to people who have never had to suffer through such a criminal blockade.

Additionally, wherever the imperialist story is effective, we can observe what Walter Benjamin would call empathy with the winner. This translates more or less as follows: if in Venezuela we are going through such a historical crisis, it must be because we deserve it. This idea expresses itself in different ways, including the convoluted discourse about the existence of a dictatorship, regime, and so on.

There is empathy for the winner for two reasons. First, there is the logic of the executioners accomplice in this case, the most lackey-like anti-Chavistas. Second, there are those who fear experiencing a similar blockade, which keeps people from raising their heads and encourages them to either look away or even turn against their own neighbors, to employ Benjamins terms.

Cooking with wood has become common in Venezuela. The blockade limits Venezuelas capacity to purchase gas from Colombia, but the poor upkeep of gas plants, distribution infrastructure, and the impact of corruption are all to be blamed for the current situation. (Archive)

This brings us to another difficult question: have the Venezuelan people been defeated?

Well, anyone could say I'm wrong, and they would likely come up with convincing arguments, but my answer is no. I do not think the Venezuelan people have been defeated. One of my reasons for saying this is my deep conviction that an important part of the population even as it struggles with the harmful effects of the blockade has preserved a margin of maneuver. In other words, our destiny is still in our hands.

What I observe is that, for a large sector of the population, the blockade is not seen as an inexorable fate: it is a crime that produces deprivation and death, but it is not inevitable. It is because they see it this way that so many people of all walks of life strongly reject the typical official story that the root of all our suffering is to be found in the blockade. In fact, the worst thing we can do now is to take an event as serious as the blockade and turn it into a pretext.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it exonerates those with government posts from assuming responsibilities and, worse still, it frees the society as a whole from responsibility. Its a discourse that turns us into victims that have to be protected or, in another reading, we only have the obligation to resist preferably without too much complaining. There is a false epic attitude in this story and also a lot of fatalism.

Should the Venezuelan government cease to fulfill its obligation to protect the population? Of course not. Has everyone in the government adopted this story [of the blockade exonerating them of responsibility]? I don't think so either, but the story is gaining ground.

To me, it seems evident that there is a crisis in the Bolivarian narrative. How can we overcome it? By keeping in mind two elements: on the one hand, the blockade, the effects of unilateral coercive measures, and the imperial siege; on the other hand, our margin of maneuver, the alternatives we have, what we can do. To do this, however, there must be confidence in the collective spirit which is to say, one must trust the popular subject which, at the end of the day, is what made the Bolivarian Revolution possible.

Does this mean that each and every one of the government's decisions must be debated publicly in an assembly? Clearly not. But it is also evident that the there is no alternative discourse cannot become a practice every time that people question decisions or express disagreements.

If the there is no alternative principle of politics were to become normal, we could just as well turn off the lights and close shop. We should understand the consequences of closing the door on the people that Chvez politicized. In fact, it is one of the reasons why there are so many disaffected people people who have come to not expect anything from Chavismo or from the opposition. This is the fact that should concern and occupy us, and not the fact that many are expressing their dissent... Dissent, at the end of the day, is actually a sign of political vitality!

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The Wild and the Disaffected: A Conversation with Reinaldo Iturriza (Part I) - Venezuelanalysis.com

Because of the lack of competitive golf due to the coronavirus pandemic, Lee was having a "tough time" adjusting to life without the ability to "continuously do well" in the sport.

And ahead of the showdown with two of the world's 10 best golfers, Lee again sought advice from Song-Hee.

"She told me that I did well in everything I can do, so just show everything I had in the playoff. I think that helped me to get comfortable."

After winning the ANA Inspiration thanks to a six-foot birdie on the first playoff hole while her competitors floundered, the 29-year-old Lee's emotion wasn't immediately one of elation. In fact Lees reveals she "didn't feel anything."

"Instead, I thought about the hard times I've been through," she explained. "I was happy, but I recalled memories of the tough times more than the happiness of winning. It was my first time crying after winning.

'It's crazy!' Until a month and a half ago, I told her [Song-Hee] that I don't want to play golf because I was too exhausted.

"Even just a month-and-a-half ago, you used to say this. This is impossible!' She couldn't believe it as well. I changed in a month! I changed after struggling for three years, not playing well, so she said: 'This is really crazy! You're mad!'"

Prior to the ANA Inspiration, Lee's last win on the LPGA Tour had come at the Kia Classic in 2017. Since that win, she had finished in the top 10 just five times.

According to Lee, she didn't prepare "anything differently" for her ANA Inspiration win.

"It is a major competition, but for me it was more of a testing opportunity to show what I had practiced with Song-Hee. It is a major, but I participated as if it's not a major. I think I participated to test my shots."

Lee's preparations were also unsettled when her usual caddie, Duncan French, discovered he wouldn't be able to obtain a visa to travel to the US from his native New Zealand.

While she used the expertise of caddie Matt Gelczis -- who joined her by jumping into the iconic Poppie's Pond as is customary after winning the ANA Inspiration -- Lee still leant on French's advice from afar.

"He contacted me after the second round. He told me that I was doing well and gave me a lot of advice. I told him I'd like for him to get here ASAP. I kept telling him: 'I wish you were here; when will you get here?'"

Looking back on the ANA Inspiration, Lee thinks her play initially had suffered by her getting ahead of herself.

"Until the secod round ... I tended to focus more on the score than what I had practiced. I think I was getting eager to win."

But having spoken to Song-Hee back in South Korea, she was able to relax more and play her natural game which enabled her to have the excellent final day.

When she started the final day two shots behind Korda and Henderson, the South Korean also felt as if the pressure was off. While others faltered, Lee chipped in a remarkable three times during her final round, including on the final hole to qualify for the three-way playoff.

Her final hole chip didn't come without controversy though.

While usually the 18th green would be surrounded by onlooking fans, with people prohibited from attending because of the coronavirus pandemic, a large blue wall took the place of those spectators instead.

Lee's approach to the final green would have normally sailed into the water over the green, but instead, she purposely played her shot off the wall so that it stopped just a few feet off the putting surface.

She chipped in from there, qualifying her for the playoff. And Lee says that hitting the ball against that wall was something that she practiced after seeing other players do it.

"I think every player used that wall. I had heard that you can get a drop when the ball lands near the wall. All the players that I played with in the first and second round were hitting the ball towards the wall, so I thought I could do it as well."

Even after Lee had chipped in to cap a final-round 67 and give her the clubhouse lead, Korda had still yet to finish the final hole. Despite having finished so strongly, Lee was convinced she'd end up in second place.

"Going into the 18th hole, I set my mind to at least finish second or third. I hit an eagle at the 18th hole, but I still didn't expect to win, because I thought Korda was going to finish with a birdie without a doubt.

"I was thinking that finishing second is still a good result. Because Korda can hit long-range, I expected her to easily hit a birdie."

But Korda had to settle for par on the par-five 18th, forcing the playoff. For Lee, the playoff was where she thrived.

"Actually, I was more comfortable in the playoff than the rest of the final round. In fact, I think I showed all the performance I had at the playoff. I did a comfortable swing that I couldn't do during the final round. I was just more comfortable in general."

Now Lee is gearing up for the KPMG Women's PGA Championship at Aronimink Golf Club in Pennsylvania, the season's third major championship. She has twice finished in the top 10 at the tournament, most recently in 2019.

And having won the first major of her career, Lee has regained her passion for the game.

"I think I gained more confidence after winning. Also, I'm enjoying golf now. I think it [the win] turned everything opposite. I think I kind of know how to play golf now. Prior to this, I didn't know how and what to do, but now I have the feeling I know what to do."

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Mirim Lee admits she 'had no motivation to play golf' before winning her debut major - CNN International

[This is the sixth installment in a monthly series on management issues in the time of COVID-19.]

We recently asked 600 CEOs: What is keeping you awake at night during this global pandemic? A major and multifaceted concern that emerged is how to keep employees motivated when their world is crashing around them. The circumstances of work have become more difficult. Their responses included:

Meanwhile, cost-cutting, uncertainty, and the necessities of social distancing attenuate or alter the traditional organizational levers. Several CEOs observed:

On the positive side of the spectrum, CEOs report that their teams are eager to be motivated, to find meaning at work during this crisis.

Research by Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria and colleagues suggests that people are guided by four basic emotional needs, or drives, that are the product of our common evolutionary heritage. These four drivesthe ABCD of human motivationare:

The extent to which a job satisfies these four drives accounts for a large portion of how much an individual is motivated in their work. While improving the fulfillment of any one drive enhances employee motivation somewhat, the key to a major employee-motivation advantage relative to other companies comes from improving all four drives in concert.

To some extent this is because of the balance required between two pairs of drives.

The drives to acquire and to bond are in tension with each other because the first is competitive and the second cooperative. A major part of management is to keep these two drives in healthy balance, for example by giving rewards for both individual and team performance. Without direct oversight, Relationships can all too readily slide into cutthroat competition or totally collusive bonding. Either extreme will harm the firm's performance.

Less obviously, the drives to comprehend and to defend are also on opposite ends of the spectrum. Learning requires openness, the willingness to fail and lose, to move into unknown territory. This is the very opposite of the drive to defend territory and status. Both of these drives, likewise, can go to extremes. On the one hand, an individual or organization could become so intoxicated with experimentation and learning for its own sake that they have no strategy. On the other hand, one becomes so determined to hold on to territory and advantage that they resist change and even information.

Organizations can balance these drives by allocating rewards and resources for both traditional performance and for learning activities.

The four drives themselves, fundamental to human psychology, have not changed. The COVID-19 pandemic has not altered these dynamics as much as it has intensified or complicated them:

A big question remains. What can organizations and team leaders do to increase fulfillment of each of the four drives? The graphic below displays the four-drive ecosystem.

The four-drive ecosystem

On the organizational level this drive is usually met through the compensation and rewards system. Best practices include:

Pay as well as competitors. There can be exceptions; the need to acquire applies to intangibles as well. Organizations with good reputations may be able to attract talent at a discount; the reverse may be true for stigmatized organizations. Likewise, investments in employees long-term prospects via continuing education/development or ownership options may allow for a discount in pay.

Sharply differentiate good performance from average and poor performance. This should be based on metrics that are clearly tied to the companys mission. Note that we say performance, and not performers. Performance may be based on factors besides the talent and motivation of the individual in question, such as job or market conditions. A person may perform well in some aspects of the job but not in others. Avoid creating a system that plays favorites or denies people the opportunity to improve.

Tie rewards clearly to performance. Ideally, this should be done at both the individual and group (organization and/or team) level. This requires deciding what performance metrics are truly important and being consistent in their application. There is no point to encourage senior employees to mentor juniors, for example, but only reward them for time spent with clients.

These practices are possible regardless of the amount of resources available, with the possible exception of the first.

Managers work within this system and their team members understand that they are constrained by it. Managers who succeed at meeting their team members drive to acquire:

Be exceedingly clear on metrics and priorities. People are stretched to the limit: Dont demand busywork or needless perfectionism.

During this pandemic managers may be the only witnesses of extraordinary efforts employees are making to stay focused and productive. Sincere, informed acknowledgement of these efforts can go a long way. Recognize outstanding accomplishments during meetings or some other way.

For example, gifts and services are appreciated by people more than ever before. Gifts of consumable items are actually valued these days! A fruit basket looks pretty exciting. Especially good are rewards that will ease workers daily strainsdeliveries, dog-walking, online entertainment or classes for children. With so many companies in flux, it may be possible to get good discounts or in-kind exchanges of items that team members would appreciate. Gift certificates for takeout to local restaurants, personalized miniature embroideries, and online classes in yoga (for adults) and improv (for kids) are only some of the creative rewards managers have given their teams.

Celebrate not only splashy wins but the steadfast, regular business-as-usual activities that are now being accomplished under extraordinary circumstances. Everyone on your team can now add the line during a global pandemic to their list of job duties. Acknowledge that! At the same time, be authentic and dont condescend.

Dont be afraid to give course corrections when necessary. In the words of CEO coach Sabina Nawaz, Small and frequent performance guidance circumvents major corrections down the road and allows everyone to stay in sync despite distance and daily change.

On the organizational level, this drive is usually satisfied through company culture. Best practices include:

Foster mutual reliance and friendship among coworkers. Much has been written about how to manage remote teams and encourage collegiality. Teams that have only recently gone remote because of the pandemic have a few differences. On the upside, they have already built relationships and can leverage those. On the downside, the distance from colleagues and work friends is experienced as a possibly demotivating loss.

Value collaboration and teamwork. There is also the issue that over the next 18 to 24 months some people will return to the office while others continue working from home; this can lead to rival subcultures. Onboarding and integrating new employees is also especially difficult. The major issue with remote workers and motivation appears to be feeling isolated and second-class relative to the onsite workers.

Encourage sharing of best practices. Encourage employees to tell you what they are doing well and how they are lifehacking. Share best practices and praise them.

Managers who meet their teams bonding needs:

Start meetings with a check-in or opening ritual before diving into business.

Think about creative bonding experiencesan online talent show? Recipe contest? Game night? Show-and-tell of each team members favorite piece of art or travel souvenir? These might even be ways for team members to show new skills or facets of their personality.

Zoom fatigue is real. Not all bonding has to be in the moment. Take advantage of asynchronous communication with a page or Slack channel for sharing recipes, articles, and snapshots.

The leveling effect of remote work may make this a good time for cross-team collaboration, assignment rotations, or peer mentorship opportunities. The fact that sales was on the third floor and R&D on the second isnt quite as relevant as it once was.

On the organizational level, this drive is usually satisfied through job design. Best practices include designing jobs that comprise distinct and important roles, have meaning, and foster a sense of contribution to the organization.

This does not mean all jobs must be knowledge work, or that employees must work at the peak of their intellectual or creative capacity to be fulfilled in this drive. There are two main ways that the drive to comprehend is satisfied on the job. The first is through whatever opportunities for learning, problem-solving, and creativity exist in the job itself. The second is through understanding the role and value of the job within the organization. This understanding can transform even mundane jobs.

The many unknowns of the pandemic mean that peoples overall need for comprehension and control is severely stymied. Organizations that can satisfy this drive for their employees will find them highly motivated in return. People are desperate for a chance to feel in control, as if they are making a difference.

Managers meet the drive to comprehend by:

Do office hours on videoconferencing to replace the informal conversations you once had in the office. This will encourage people to come forth with questions, and with observations and suggestions that might not seem important enough for a full meeting.

Job design may have to take a back seat to immediate needs at this moment because some companies may not be able to perform all of their usual functions, and others may be in all-hands-on-deck mode. At the same time, the crisis brings the opportunity to interrogate business practices. Managers should continually connect their employees efforts to the organizations higher-level goals. If they are not able to do this they need to be having conversations with their own bosses. This may be a good time as well to [Challenge] employees to think more broadly about how they could contribute to making a difference for coworkers, customers, and investors.

Providing employees with opportunities for continuing education can be highly motivating. At the moment, experts, educators, and entertainers are releasing a great deal of content online due to public events being cancelled. Furloughed or underutilized employees, especially, should be empowered to do continuing educationin things they are interested in, regardless of its apparent relevance to their jobs. Organizations will need creativity in the coming months and years, and the most reliable recipe for it is to collide one way of thinking or body of knowledge up against another. Sign your best salesperson up for those violin-making classes!

Nawaz also recommends:

Stay ahead of the game by inviting problems, not just solutions. Our previous rules of engagement have gone by the wayside, so no one has definitive solutions. Invite your team to come to you with problems, even if they dont yet have solutions. Consider saying, In our current world, we all have questions, few people have answers. If you see signs of trouble, issues that arent visible to me, dont wait to come to me until you have an accompanying solution. Bring me your early indicators and together well devise experiments to tackle the challenge. Explicitly signaling you want to know about budding problems will enable greater periscopic vision and access to broader sets of solutions.

The drive to defend, though primitiveits rooted in the basic fight-or-flight responseis nonetheless complicated. Animals are concerned only with mine and might. For humans, the defense drive is combined with a sense of justice or fairness. The desire to have something valuablea well-paying job with a good title, sayis the drive to acquire. The drive to defend is the desire to be known to have deserved the job and gotten it fairly, and to believe that the job will not be capriciously taken away. When this drive is negatively affected, people become fearful, resentful, and disengaged.

On the organizational level, this drive is usually satisfied through performance management and resource allocation systems. Best practices: Processes must be transparent and fair, and their transparency and fairness must be communicated to employees.

Managers who meet the defend drive well:

Overcommunicate. Even without economic turmoil remote workers can develop negative attribution tendencies, such as assuming they were left off an email chain because they are being eased out when in fact a simple error might be to blame.

Creating a psychologically safe environment does not mean compromising on performance. Instead, it means acknowledging that mistakes are inevitable, especially in times of learning and transition, and that success consists of surfacing errors and learning from them. Make a clear distinction between mistakes and malfeasance. Allow time for team members to process losses with new technology and altered ways of doing things. Encourage them when necessary. Typing is faster than writing, but not when youre first learning.

Normalize asking for help. Offer help before it is asked for.

If resources need to be cut, be clear about why. Let employees know that it is acceptable to be frustrated or upset; those emotions are entirely valid. This does not mean condoning unprofessionalism or abuse by any stretchit means not putting the emotional burden on them to make you feel better about it. Explain the business case, give them time to process.

When employees report even a slight enhancement in the fulfillment of any of the four drives, their overall motivation shows a corresponding improvement; however, major advances relative to other companies come from the aggregate effect on all four drives. This effect occurs not just because more drives are being met but because actions taken on several fronts seem to reinforce one another. The holistic approach is worth more than the sum of its constituent parts, even though working on each part adds something.

When these actions come through one personthe manager or team leadersome integration automatically takes place. A course correction serves to hone the competitive edge (acquire), while improving understanding (comprehend), and, if it is delivered in a helpful and respectful way, strengthens the relationship between manager and employee (bond).

Please look to your managers: Do they have what they need to lead and manage? Are they leading, managing, and motivating their employees during these difficult times?

Boris Groysberg is the Richard P. Chapman Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Robin Abrahams is a research associate at HBS.

[Image: RyanJLane]

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Keep Your Weary Workers Engaged and Motivated - Harvard Business School Working Knowledge - Harvard Business School Working Knowledge

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John thinks he knows the formula for losing weight: increase his exercise and quit the peanut M&Ms. He has a strong incentive to get fitat 72 and about to retire, he wants not only to have more energy to play pickleball and travel, but also to reduce his blood pressure medication. But for some reason, John cant stay in the right headspace to actually make the change. On a recent episode of How To!, Katy Milkman, a behavioral economist at the University of Pennsylvania and host of the podcast Choiceology, shares the science behind why we hold ourselves back from making real change and, moreover, how we can engineer our way into healthier, happier lives. With the right set up, the most difficult thingslike losing weightmay be easier andmore enjoyable than we thought. This transcript has been condensed and edited for clarity.

Charles Duhigg: Katy, what was your path to studying how people change their behaviors? Katy Milkman: My passion was engineering, but I found myself outside of the classroom wondering about self-control problems that I had and that my friends had. I was always curiouswhy we can solve very sophisticated problems and build bridges effectively, but we cant solve our own very simple problems?

I had issues trying to get myself to the gym at the end of a long day. I was a very competitive tennis player in high school and college, but I quit the varsity tennis team halfway through college. I still really wanted to stay in shape, but I struggled to find ways to get myself to the gym at the end of a long day of classes because I was tired. All I really wanted to do was lie down on the couch and watch TV or curl up with a good book. I realized maybe I can solve both of these problems in the very same way. So I concocted a scheme where I allowed myself only to enjoy those kinds of indulgencesspecifically I got really into audio novelswhen I was exercising. I would come home from a long day and I would find myself looking forward to a workout because I was gonna get to find out what happens next in my latest novel. Time flew when I was at the gym. It was really fun to workout. I call that temptation bundling and Ive studied it and showed that its not just meit can be useful for other people as well.

Charles: John, what do you feel like youre struggling with the most when it comes to weight loss? Is there something you could apply this idea of temptation bundling to?

John: Right now I find that one of my challenges is my wife, my second marriage. With the pandemic, my wife has been cooking cakes, so Im not watching my meals and Im eating unhealthy snacks or too much or the wrong food. If theres sugary things in the house, then thats where I migrate. The other day, for instance, our daughter-in-law brought us food from the store and at the last minute my wife says, Oh, get a big jar of peanut M&Ms.

Charles: Oh no.

John: They sit there on the counter. Since last Saturday Ive done great because I visualized that my wife had sneezed in the container! I thought, Oh no way am I going to have a handful of those now. And then last night I just had to have a handful of peanut M&Ms. If they hadnt been there, I never wouldve thought of that.

Katy: Food is a tough one. When I use it in temptation bundling, its usually the temptation component. What you can do is find a way to ensure that for every meal you have options ready that you are going to enjoy even if they arent peanut M&Ms. Another big thing to think about is restricting your access to that unhealthy food. It sounds like your environment is filled with temptations if youve got these peanut M&Ms on the counter and your wife is baking cakes. I think you need to work with your wife on creating that environment in your home so that you purge the unhealthy snacks as much as possible or put them in a locked cabinet that shes got the combination for, so if she doesnt want to restrict herself, theres a way to restrict you at least.

Charles: If you went to your wife and you said, Honey, I love you. But I dont love the fact that there are cakes around me. Can we take all the sweets and put them in a locked cabinet? And you have the key. How do you think shed react to that?

John: In general, I think shed be supportive. We dated in high school, went our separate ways, then got back together 40 years later. In some ways, its a perpetual honeymoon, but in a couple of ways, there are some challenges in our relationship. Shes more in the camp of we are who we are and we cant change. And Im more in the camp of Oh, we can always change. Thats what life is all about. And we kind of butt heads over that sometimes. When it gets distilled down to talking about eating, if I want to pay a lot of attention to the food I eat, she sees it as obsessing. I know she feels hurt if I dont want to eat whatever she cooks, so I havent actually talked to her about some of these things. But I absolutely need to do that. I will actually. I will commit to doing that.

Get more expert tips from Charles Duhigg and his guests every week.

Charles: Katy, what John is saying makes sensethe things that we struggle with are so influenced by the people around us and in their attitudes to the change that were trying to create. What do we know about the science behind this?

Katy: Absolutely. Its so social. We have a lot of evidence supporting everything you just said the people around us are a huge contributor to our behavior. So if everybody around you starts eating more, youre much more likely to do the same and vice versa. John, if your wife decided she wanted to cut back, you would be likely to eat a little bit less and lose a little bit more. Trying to get on the same page is going to be really valuable for your success. With my dad, for example, Ive been very worried about his physical activity levels, so I convinced him to buy a Fitbit, which I also have. We have the ability to see each others stepsand he knows Im watching. In fact, he confessed to me that his steps werent uploading and he spent 2 hours on the phone with Fitbit support because he was so upset that I would think he hadnt walked enough that day.

Often a big opportunity is to figure out a third-party perspective on any kind of disagreement youre currently having with your partner. How would another person see this conflict and what would they think? This can help relieve some of the emotional tension. Maybe see if your wife would be open to thinking about your desire to lose weight from a third-party perspective. [Especially as you approach your retirement], this moment can feel like a breaking point from normal moments. Ive done research on the moments when people are more likely to try to make a change in their lives, and what weve found is the start of a new era, the start of your retirement years, the start of a new decade, even something as trivial as the start of a new week, help us step back and think big picture. What are our goals? That motivates us to start new projects and feel more separated from our past failings. For example, I had always wanted to write a book and just hadnt gotten up the nerve to do it. At the same time, my husband and I had been thinking about moving. We had a young son. We were ready to be out of an apartment and into a house. The day that we signed and became owners of a new house is the day that I sent out emails to agents and started the book-writing process. I just finished writing a book called How to Change. So the new house was the thing that pushed me over. It was a new era.

Charles: Okay, but what happens when the fresh start doesnt work so smoothly?

Katy: Yes, youre going to slip up. Nobodys perfect. One risk when you make plans to change like this is something called the what-the-hell effect. (I love that theres an academic term called the what-the-hell effect.) A challenge with this kind of rigid plan is youll never actually live up to all of your objectives. A big problem can be when you slip up saying, Oh, what the hell, I give up. If you have a plan for the day and you eat a cinnamon bun for breakfast because your wife just made a beautiful cinnamon bun, then you say, Oh, what the hell? Let me just have a steak and fries and pie for lunch. So when you have a plan you also have to think what will happen when you slip off track. What will you do? How will you get back on track? How will you forgive yourself? And how do you avoid slipping off track all the time and being too forgiving? Theres a sort of tightrope you have to walk. But if you can make progress for a month, even when you lose motivation little, you probably wont fall all the way off the wagon because you do build some habits. In my studies, about 30 percent of the behaviors we start doing for a month around, say, exercise, tend to stickeven if all of the tricks weve been using to put those good behaviors in place are pulled away. Habit can be really helpful.

Just one last thing to keep in mind is something called a commitment device. There are actually a couple of different websites you can use where you can put money down that youll forfeitor even send to a charity you hateif you fail to achieve some stated goal. Nike has made the Just Do It model such a part of our culture. But the research so consistently shows that its just not that easy. Our motivation does wax and wane. We need these systems. You have to recognize that it wont be easy to just do it. Willpower is hard. When you see that temptation, you reach for it. So the more you can do to structure the choices to help yourself, the better.

John: That might actually work. If I was going to commit $500 to Donald Trumps campaign, I think I would lose the weight in two days.

To hear Katy help John find the words to convince his wife to stop baking so many sweets, listen to the episode by clicking the player below or subscribing to How To! with Charles Duhigg wherever you get your podcasts.

Readers like you make our work possible. Help us continue to provide the reporting, commentary, and criticism you wont find anywhere else.

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This Clever Technique Will Help You Lose Weight and Stay Fit - Slate

"Black women are aware that we can be the deciding factor this election," said Glynda C. Carr, President and CEO of Higher Heights Leadership Fund (Higher Heights). "We understand that this is the most consequential election of our time, for our communities, and for our country, and we know that we must vote as though our lives depended on it because they do."

Top factors energizing Black women to vote include protecting democracy and racial justice, with the majority of respondents attributing racism as the one main issue keeping them up at night. Black women also prioritized addressing the coronavirus crisis, affordable healthcare, and the economy as important issues to their demographic and to the overall Black community as they prepare to cast their ballots.

Some key findings from the poll include:

These findings are based on a survey of 506 likely 2020 Black women voters nationwide conducted between September 30 and October 4, 2020.

Read the full report of the poll results here.

About Higher HeightsHigher Heights is the only national organization exclusively dedicated to harnessing, organizing and mobilizing Black women's political power to elect Black women, influence leadership and advance progressive policy.

Through two entities, Higher Heights Leadership Fund, a 501(c)(3) organization and its sister organization Higher Heights for America, a national 501(c)(4) organization,, Higher Heights is investing in a long-term strategy to analyze, expand and support a Black women's leadership pipeline at all levels and strengthen their civic participation beyond Election Day.

For additional information, please visit blackwomenvote.com. Follow the #BlackWomenVoteconversation at @HigherHeights.

Contact: [emailprotected]

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New Higher Heights National Poll: Black Women More Motivated to Vote than Ever Before, Fully Grasp Political Power to Shift Election Results -...

Darrion Eichelberger and Richard Gladden had stepped away from a career in law enforcement for two different reasons. However, both rejoined the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department shortly after George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police officers. The two men saw issues like a lack of minority officers, accountability and perspective that they intend to address with a return to the force.

Eichelberger left CMPD in 2019 after eight years, where he worked in both the transportation and central divisions. He wanted to try something new. Eichelberger got his commercial drivers license and spent five months as a truck driver for Oliver Paving Company Inc.

At the time, I felt like I did everything I wanted to do with the department, he said.

When Floyds murder sparked riots and protests across the country, Eichelberger returned to CMPD with the hope of shedding a positive light on a profession hes loved his entire life.

I saw one as a kid and was like, oh man, thats pretty cool, he recalled. When cops came into my neighborhood, my friends were told to run. I would run up to the car and ask for a sticker. At the time, I didnt realize they werent there to have fun.

Eichelberger isnt oblivious to law enforcements reputation in Black communities. Thats why he wants to educate officers new and old on how to communicate with citizens they dont usually interact with. He especially would like to mentor younger officers to see why they joined the police department.

Thats something I have to do, I have to get into a car with these guys and pick their brains, Eichelberger said. You might want to have your heart right before you get out on the road.

Now at 33, Eichelberger encourages youth to go into law enforcement, but only if they have an open mind. He didnt choose a career in law enforcement to change how Black officers were perceived by the public. Its a mindset that keeps him open-minded and willing to tackle a litany of issues.

Everybody has a different culture, and I think its good for people to still show that, he shared, but I tell guys to not get wrapped in their own thing because other people are looking at you.

As of June 25, 2019, CMPD employed 1,850 sworn officers. Of those, according to CMPD data, only 398 of them were Black. The majority of the police force was made up of White officers, accounting for 1,422 sworn officers.

We got to do better recruiting more minorities, said Richard Gladden, who exited CMPD in 2019. He had spent three years in the departments north division.

Gladden believes people are scared to join law enforcement because they are concerned about public opinion.

If we recruit better, I think we all could see possible change here in the future, he said.

Gladden was 26 when he left CMPD to take care of his newborn daughter and young son. He worked third shift, and his kids were usually asleep by the time he got home.

I took a step back to make sure my family was fine, he said.

The Charlotte native was working as an executive protection officer for Truist Financial when George Floyd was killed.

It completely disgusted me watching him lying on the ground and obviously saying he cant breathe and going limp. The whole time you see that White police officer staring at the camera with no emotion on his face, Gladden said.

He says he was torn as a Black man who loved his profession as a police officer.

This guy is painting the profession that I love in a negative light, and hes also killing somebody that looks like me that could be my brother, uncle or family member.

On June 5 two weeks after Floyd was killed Gladden reapplied to join CMPD. While he knew the Minneapolis officers were wrong for what they did, he wanted to prove that all cops werent like them.

Growing up in west Charlotte, he remembered how it felt when law enforcement didnt treat everyone fairly who they swore to serve and protect.

I know there are racist cops and people, but its not like that in all of law enforcement, the 27-year-old said.

He felt an obligation to go out in the community and show that there are officers of all colors, genders, races and ethnicities working together to build relationships within the community, lower crime rates and stop senseless murders of youth.

Gladden likes to have a why before he takes action. Right now, his why is to educate the community about ways to hold law enforcement accountable, while still serving residents of all races and ethnicities fairly.

My goal right now is to get back out here and influence as many people as I can, Gladden said. We are all human beings.

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