fortune--2020-06-12--America is at a tipping point. Here’s how we can recover

LeBron steps up as the President gets ready to step out…in Tulsa

America is at a tipping point, as we face the greatest crises since the Great Depression.
We are confronting four crises simultaneously that are inextricably intertwined: racial tensions revealed in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing, the ongoing spread of COVID-19, the ensuing economic turmoil, and political disintegration caused by extreme partisan division.
Floyd’s killing ripped off the bandage of America’s idealistic facade and revealed the ugly truth that African-Americans do not have equal opportunities. Nor are they afforded the unalienable rights of “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” promised to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence, which declares that “all men are created equal.”
Equality is the country’s True North—and America has lost sight of it. Income inequality is greater than it has ever been. Disparities between whites and people of color are widening, not shrinking. People of color regularly face racial injustice. The middle class is shrinking and struggling to stay above water. Ill health and diseases like COVID-19 fall most heavily on people of color. Those on the lower rungs of the social-economic ladder are burdened by underpaid jobs, lack of health care, part-time work, and being unemployed. For many, the American dream seems far out of reach.
It is easy to stand to cheer the American flag and sing the national anthem, but much harder to make the promises of July 4, 1776, become reality for all Americans. As we approach the nation’s 244th anniversary, we are more divided as a nation than we have been at any time since the Civil War. As Abraham Lincoln said amid the turmoil of that conflict, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Lincoln strove to unite Americans as he summoned Americans to have “malice toward none and charity toward all.” Today we have strayed far from his admonition. Far too often, we have malice for many and charity only for people in our tribe. After decades of progress in desegregating our society, we have resegregated our schools, communities, churches, and friendships.
It is time for Americans to set aside our differences and cast off anger, prejudices, and disdain for people who look or believe differently than we do. We are all Americans—white, black, brown, or yellow; native-born or recently immigrated citizens.
This is not a national problem that can be changed by the President. Genuine change must come from us as individuals—in our hearts and minds—and by working within our communities and cities. That is the only way genuine and lasting change takes place.
Ask yourself: What can I do? Then ask: What can we do together? Here’s my list of simple and immediate things I am doing right now:
1. Calling my African-American friends to see how they are feeling and to understand their point of view. Listening to their personal experiences with discrimination.
2. Touring riot-torn areas of Minneapolis and talking to local residents about their hopes for rebuilding. Exploring how and why the health and economic burdens of COVID-19 have impacted lower social-economic groups more severely.
3. Watching films like The 13th and Just Mercy, and reading books articulating the history and viewpoints of African-Americans, including The New Jim Crow and White Fragility.
4. Listening to cable television, checking out websites, and reading newspapers articulating perspectives different than your own. For me this includes Fox News, Breitbart, American Conservative, and Federalist. For others it might include CNN, the New York Times, or The Atlantic.
5. Engaging in dialogues on social media with thoughtful people with different viewpoints in order to understand their perspectives.
6. Listening to what our neighbors are saying and feeling. Exploring what we can do together, such as neighborhood block parties or joining National Night Out, an event that aims to foster better community-police relations.
If these ideas stimulate your thinking, join in and make your own list.
At this tipping point, most Americans are hungry for change, but change will only happen if we as individuals vow to change ourselves and broaden our perspectives. Only in this way can we realize America’s True North and reunite around America’s founding principles.
Rediscovering America’s True North requires unified leadership from all elements of society—our elected leaders as well as community, business, civic, and social service and health care leaders, representing all racial and ethnic groups. This is the only way to restore the soul of America.
Only then can we get America back on course toward the promise of the better life to which we all aspire.
Only then can we be the beacon to the world that provides equal opportunity for everyone to work hard, advance along the economic ladder, and realize their unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Only then can we renew the American dream.
Bill George is senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former chair and CEO of Medtronic. He is the author of Discover Your True North.


fortune--2020-06-12--LeBron steps up as the President gets ready to step out…in Tulsa

America is at a tipping point .
Here ’ s how we can recover

LeBron gets out the vote, Breonna finds some justice, Tucker loses Big Telecom, and Trump has decided to celebrate Juneteenth in Tulsa.
But first, your super meta Haiku-inspired week in review, in Haiku.
Coronavirus
has five syllables! What a
revelation for
the brand-new poets
who are, quite literally,
on the struggle bus.
Essential workers
have turned to lightweight verse to
help them with stress, grief.
Just like I did long
ago! Some truth and peace in
three beautiful lines:
“Stress riding the subway
Questions without answers
Not workers fault”
Wishing you a truthful and peaceful “weekend.”
Ellen McGirt
@ellmcgirt
Ellen.McGirt@fortune.com
On point
LeBron James heads up an all-star lineup to launch a voting rights advocacy group More Than a Vote aims to go beyond voter registration and get-out-the-vote calls. They plan to take on voter suppression efforts currently aimed at Black voters. “We’re going to give you the background of how to vote and what they’re trying to do, the other side, to stop you from voting,” James told the New York Times. James is joined by other current and former NBA stars— including Trae Young, Skylar Diggins-Smith and Jalen Rose. It’s a sign of the times, he said. “I’m inspired by the likes of Muhammad Ali, I’m inspired by the Bill Russells and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbars, the Oscar Robertsons — those guys who stood when the times were even way worse than they are today.”
New York Times
A law named for Breonna Taylor bans “no-knock” warrants in Louisville It was a unanimous vote from the Louisville, Ky., Metro Council, and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer promised to sign Breonna’s Law as soon as it hits his desk. The legislation also requires police to wear body cameras when serving all warrants, which will need to be turned on at least five minutes prior to service.
NPR
The President is planning his first rally since the pandemic in Tulsa on June 19 He picked a complicated place on a complicated date. Tulsa was once home to Black Wall Street, which was razed to the ground on June 1, 1921, in a massacre fueled by white mobs. They burned 35 square blocks, destroying homes, Black-owned businesses, and murdering some 300 people. June 19 is also known as Juneteenth, for the day that news of emancipation finally reached the enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, who had no knowledge of the Emancipation Proclamation signed two years before. Is it just a coincidence? Eric Thomas, writing in Elle has a soaring and devastating take. “Trump's callousness, his calling card, is intentional. More importantly, it is indicative of the larger framework in which he, poor dead Jefferson Davis, and thousands of others thrive. Trump descends on Tulsa, ensconced on the plinth of white supremacy, a tourist in the American amusement park to Black trauma.”
Elle
ABC casts its first Black bachelor in 24 seasons of performative dating Matt James is a 28-year-old real estate broker, entrepreneur, and community organization founder. He’s also the best friend of a popular former contestant, so evidently, Bachelor Nation is used to having him around. ABC sees this as a moment. “We know we have a responsibility to make sure the love stories we’re seeing onscreen are representative of the world we live in and we are proudly in service to our audience,” said ABC Entertainment president Karey Burke in a statement. Matt James seems like a lovely guy. RIP his mentions.
Hollywood Reporter
Tucker Carlson’s remarks on Black Lives Matter alienates some of his remaining sponsors While it appears that smaller advertisers like the MyPillow.com folks are in for the ride, larger firms who occasionally advertised on “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” believe the firebrand host has gone too far. Carlson called BLM supporters “soulless” and “craven” and issued a vague warning: "[The movement] may be a lot of things, this moment we’re living through, but it is definitely not about Black lives. Remember that when they come for you, and at this rate, they will.” T-Mobile withdrew its advertising support via a tweet from CEO Mike Sievert, who wrote “Bye-Bye Tucker.”
CBS News
The Mellon Foundation steps all the way up The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation had already committed some $300 million in grantmaking for the arts, education, and cultural organizations; yesterday it announced another $200 million to offer support for nonprofits buffeted by the pandemic, recession, and now, unrest. “We cannot allow the crises of today to sideline the unfinished work needed to move us toward a more robustly engaged, diverse, and culturally inclusive country tomorrow,” said Mellon Foundation president, Elizabeth Alexander. “Musicians and poets, archivists and scholars, social justice activists and advocates – these are the visionaries who will illuminate the way forward to a more just and fairer America.”
Mellon.org
Are you 'Working While Black?' We are now two weeks into this important project exploring the lived experiences of Black corporate talent, and the responses are everything: Candid, heartbreaking, unsparing. If you’re a Black employee in the corporate world, we want to hear from you — it's not too late. We’ve created a Google form to capture your thoughts and stories. If we choose to publish your comment, we only publish your first name and age and no other identifying info. We will start sharing some responses next week, but only from the Black people — please see the headline.
Fortune
Hey, real quick
An Ohio state senator has questions. State Sen. Steve Huffman (R), whose other day job is as an ER physician, wondered aloud during a legislative hearing on the pandemic: What's up with the virus' disproportionate impact on Black communities? “Could it just be that African Americans — the colored population — do not wash their hands as well as other groups?” he asked the executive director of the state’s Commission on Minority Health. You’re fired, answered his health contractor-employer.
State Sen. Steve Huffman (R), whose other day job is as an ER physician, wondered aloud during a legislative hearing on the pandemic: What's up with the virus' disproportionate impact on Black communities? “Could it just be that African Americans — the colored population — do not wash their hands as well as other groups?” he asked the executive director of the state’s Commission on Minority Health. You’re fired, answered his health contractor-employer. Thousands of residents in facilities for people with developmental and intellectual disabilities are feared sick with COVID-19. Some 275,000 people with conditions such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism are at risk.
are feared sick with COVID-19. Some 275,000 people with conditions such as Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, and autism are at risk. Speaking of Trump’s Juneteenth Tulsa rally, if you go, you can’t sue him if you contract coronavirus.
if you go, you can’t sue him if you contract coronavirus. Behind the scenes at Refinery 29. It’s a full-on revolt, now.
It’s a full-on revolt, now. This is what protesters say police brutality is really like. “[We] had to de-escalate the police.”
say police brutality is really like. “[We] had to de-escalate the police.” Do you know how many cops have been investigated and/or disciplined for misconduct? USA Today found 85,000.
On Background
How to have public conversations about race that keep Black community members safe Annemarie Dooling and Danielle Maveal are compiling resources and best practices from online community managers who have expertise holding difficult conversations about race. In a perfect world, these conversations “require training, resources, and a support system to make sure that when these conversations happen, they are productive and above all else, safe for Black community members,” they write. The experts they tapped are fantastic. But so are you! Got something to add or share? Click through and let them know. “This is a living document.”
Community Knowledge Share
Ten ways to show up for the Black people you know This is a really helpful list that gets to the heart of what people who don’t know what to say should say. It grabs your heart right out of the gate. "Don’t ask me how I’m doing and say you’re praying for me out of your sense of grief or confusion," says Sunshine Muse. “I cannot take that on at any level. And, if you’re my friend, you’re always praying for me and my family, and I thank you.”
Colorlines
Get to know Elizabeth Alexander The poet and former professor says Ford Foundation president Darren Walker “plucked me out of the chorus line,” to join the Mellon Foundation, saying, “What we need is not necessarily someone who has been in philanthropy. What we need is someone who comes with discernment and ideas and exposure.” In this rich conversation on The Design of Business podcast, Alexander talks with Jessica Helfand and me about power, money, culture, poetry, grief — and her extraordinary credentials hiding in plain sight. “To my eternal gratitude, [Walker] said, ‘Wow, chairing African American studies — which I was doing at Yale at the time — because of the way that you interface with the law school, the divinity school, the school of forestry, many, many, many different departments… you're actually running a very complex organization.’”
Design Observer
Today's raceAhead was edited by Aric Jenkins.
Today's mood board


fortune--2020-06-12--What to know about a potential ‘second wave’ of COVID-19

Subscribe to Outbreak, a daily roundup of stories on the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on global business, delivered free to your inbox.
As authorities the world over lift economy-crippling movement restrictions aimed at curbing coronavirus infections, the fear on everyone’s minds can be expressed in two words: second wave. The concern is that, once quelled, the pandemic will resurface with renewed strength, causing a repeat of rising infections, swamped health systems and orders for lockdowns. Rashes of new cases in pockets of Asia and the U.S. have added to the fears.
What is a ‘second wave’?
It’s not a scientific term with well-defined parameters. Rather, it’s used to refer to a subsequent, serious increase in cases that occurs after the original surge has been quashed in a given area. Pandemics are caused by new pathogens that the vast majority of humans have no immune protection against. That’s what allows them to become global outbreaks. Pandemics are uncommon, but influenza is one of the more frequent causes. What often happens is that a novel variant of flu virus spreads around the world and then recedes, kind of like a tsunami. A few months later, it comes back and spreads around the world, or large parts of it, again.
Is there going to be a second wave of COVID-19?
Most countries responded to the pandemic by restricting movement, which slows the virus’s spread but leaves many people vulnerable to infection once they begin to venture out again.
Parts of the U.S. including Texas, California and Florida have seen localized outbreaks weeks into their re-openings. Experts are at a loss to explain why; it’s not clear they’re linked to resumed economic activity. There also have been scares in Asia. Travel restrictions were imposed on more than 100 million people in China’s Jilin province, on the border with Russia, after dozens of cases were detected there in May—a month after China’s first lockdown ended in far-away Wuhan. By early June that outbreak was under control and normal life was resuming. South Korea, which began easing its social distancing measures in April, suspended plans for further relaxation in June as new infections emerged. Testing, isolating and contact-tracing remain the main tools to stop a cluster from growing into a wave.
What makes a first wave recede?
Influenza pandemics can be temporarily beaten back by the change of seasons, moving to the southern hemisphere when the northern half of the globe heats up during its summer, and vice versa. The virus may also have infected a huge portion of people in most areas, giving them immunity from re-infection and possibly creating so-called herd immunity, which protects those who haven’t been infected by curtailing the virus’s circulation. In the case of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, countries around the world adopted movement restrictions on an unprecedented scale and social-distancing measures that combined kept people far enough apart that the virus couldn’t easily spread.
How does a virus come back?
Lifting containment measures too quickly may allow cases to start rising anew. Other factors could lead to a more dramatic increase that might be clearly recognizable as a second wave. In the case of influenza, there’s the onset of cool weather, a factor that may affect the coronavirus, too. Or the pathogen can mutate. This is another feature of flu, which evolves more or less constantly. In the latter part of 1918, a second wave of the historic influenza outbreak occurred and caused most of the deaths in that pandemic. Some researchers believe it was brought about by a mutation that made the virus again unrecognizable to most people’s immune systems. Another important variable is the movement of the virus to populations that haven’t been exposed before and don’t have immunity.
What could prevent it?
The WHO has recommended lifting movement restrictions in stages to test the effect of each before moving to greater openness. In any case, experts say, the key to keeping infections low without locking down everyone is to scale up testing and contact tracing. Health authorities need to find infected people, isolate them and identify their recent contacts, so they can be tested as well and isolated if necessary. Eventually, it’s possible that enough people will become exposed to the coronavirus that herd immunity will develop and it will stop spreading, or that a vaccine against it will be licensed.
Why wasn’t there a second wave of SARS?
The 2002-2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in Asia never reached the scope of a pandemic. Though caused by a coronavirus, it wasn’t as contagious as the one responsible for Covid-19. Its spread was mainly restricted to hospitals and other settings where people came in close contact with the body fluids of infected patients. Ebola is another pathogen relatively new to humans. There have been periodic outbreaks in Africa, but while the virus is highly contagious in some settings, it hasn’t been sufficiently infectious to spread around the world like the coronavirus.


fortune--2020-06-12--Adobe’s CEO on how the company is posting record results amid economic chaos

Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen’s virtual meeting just prior to speaking with Fortune got interrupted. The culprit? An employee’s dog. What pre-lockdown might have been an awkward moment was instead met with oohs and aahs from fellow remote attendees after Narayen asked the employee to introduce the cute canine.
When the San Jose–based software company moved its 22,000-person global workforce to working remotely in March, Narayen says the priority was employee well-being during these unprecedented global lockdowns. But Adobe has found that some employees are thriving and more productive as they revel in losing their grueling commutes. While it’s too early to commit to specific policies, Narayen says, once the crisis ends Adobe will incorporate more remote working for staff who prefer it.
“I can literally have meetings with customers and employees across four continents in the same day,” Narayen says. Prior to the pandemic, Narayen would give his Japanese clients a three-day window that he’d be in Tokyo for meetings. Now he can do those meetings virtually at any time from his California home.
Fellow tech companies like Facebook and Twitter have announced some employees can work from home permanently. But those policy changes are just a small piece in how the pandemic is changing business norms: Many existing digital transformation trends are now rapidly picking up speed, and gaining more attention from the C-suite, Narayen says.
From its cloud computing business to creativity software products such as Adobe Photoshop, Narayen sees the tech company as well positioned for this move to “all things digital.” As U.S. employers lay workers off in masses, Adobe actually reported a record quarterly revenue of $3.13 billion in its fiscal-year second quarter which ended May 29. That was a 14% year-over-year increase in revenues during a time when the U.S. is at Great Depression–era level unemployment. Adobe has nearly a $196 billion market capitalization—greater than that of IBM, Oracle, and Salesforce—and hasn’t laid off or furloughed any of its global workforce during the crisis.
The accelerating digital transformation is happening for both big and small technologies. For instance, in an environment where a deadly virus is spreading, Narayen expects to see more shifts to cloud-based e-signature services, like Adobe Sign. Adobe sees $128 billion total addressable market (a.k.a. market opportunity) in 2022 for its three core businesses of Creative Cloud ($31 billion), Document Cloud ($13 billion), and Experience Cloud ($84 billion).
Just one new way institutions are using Adobe’s products: The U.S. Census Bureau came to Adobe Experience Cloud to help modernize its digital strategy for its 2020 Census application site. And that revamp is likely to pay off: For every 1% increase in digital responses, the Census Bureau saves $55 million. And given the lockdowns, the Census Bureau could see a huge surge in online responses.
And the stay-at-home orders are speeding up the move from bricks and mortar to e-commerce. In fact, online spending topped $82.5 billion in May, up 77.8% year over year, according to Adobe Analytics. That online spending was $52 billion higher than expected for the month.
“The urgency has only increased,” Narayen says. “We won’t go back to the old norms.”


fortune--2020-06-12--Voto Latino has seen a 2,750% jump in voter registration since the killing of George Floyd

In the days following the killing of George Floyd by a white police officer and the nationwide protests that ensued, Voto Latino, an organization that encourages young Latinx voters to become more politically involved, saw a more than 2,750% jump in its voter registration numbers.
Between June 1 and 10, the organization signed up 63,158 new voters. During the first 10 days in May, the group had registered just 2,294 people.
“Our job at Voto Latino is talking to the individuals that have been protesting on the streets for the past weeks because those are the young people that are going to be the largest generation of our life,” Voto Latino CEO Maria Teresa Kumar told Fortune. “We’ve never seen a generation so large. It’s 12 million potential more voters than baby boomers, and we have to recognize that the system hasn’t been feeding them and addressing their core issues.”
The organization has always been online, which has aided in its success during times when in-person voter registration drives are largely impossible. “We started as digital natives, and we are in the most intimate spaces that these young people are in. We’re on their phones through their Instagrams and social platforms. We’ve been experimenting on TikTok and Tinder and getting the word out, and they’re reciprocating by signing up,” Kumar said.
She pointed to a project done in conjunction with Google where Voto Latino showed 200,000 YouTube viewers a 13-second pre-roll advertisement telling them to register to vote followed by another six-second video at the end of the clip. The people who saw the treatment were nine times as likely to search for words that involved voter registration, and about 10,000 of them actually registered to vote.
“What that tells us is that nobody is targeting the Latino community, but when we break it down, it’s easy to, and they’re receptive,” she said. “They want to participate, but most people don’t reach out to young voters, because there’s still this idea that they don’t vote. In the Latino community we’re carrying the water for our families. We’re not only receptive, we’re responsible for the information that we give to our elders, so you want to make sure that we’re doing something impactful.”
Voto Latino currently reaches about 8.5 million people each month using social media and uses the platform to educate its community about voting issues. The organization has also cultivated a community of activists who have started to run for office. Gregorio Casar, the youngest city councilman in Austin’s history, was trained by Voto Latino, as was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “They did these trainings and realized they could be active voters and be in office,” said Kumar.
The organization’s digital footprint has been felt most in Texas. As voter registration in the state flatlined owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, Voto Latino has managed to add 53,093 new names to the rolls this month alone. Harris County, which encompasses Houston and is the most populated county in the state of Texas, recorded just 1,451 new voters between March 15th and May 15th of this year. Voto Latino says they they’ve signed up 9,106 new voters in the county in June alone.
“There’s 2.5 million unregistered Latino youth in Texas who are out on the street with grievances that stretch far and wide,” said Kumar. “It’s Pollyannaish to assume that this isn’t going to be one of the most challenging elections to convince people that we have to change, but COVID has also touched every corner of American life and exposed our social inequities where I do believe that people are ready for change.”
Texas, which in recent years has gone from ruby red to purple in its voting, will be a hotly contested state in the November elections. President Donald Trump visited this week to hold a campaign dinner, and Joe Biden was there earlier in the week to meet with the family of George Floyd.
“It’s crucial to register young Latinos and get them to turn out,” said 2020 presidential candidate and Voto Latino senior adviser Julián Castro. “I think first and foremost this is crucial to improving the economic outcomes and life of people in the state…And the impact, I believe, is that when those registered young Latinos make their choices at the ballot box, that the state is going to turn blue. It’s going to transition over the years.”
Trump is currently polling ahead of Biden in Texas by just 1.5 points. He won the state by nine points in 2016.
“The majority of Democrats, if they’re registered to vote, they’re going to go out, and they’re going to vote,” said Kumar. Voto Latino officially backed Biden for President this year—the first time they’ve endorsed a political candidate.
“When we endorsed Joe Biden it wasn’t easy, because we had a lot of come-to-Jesus moments even internally at our office because so many people were concerned,” she said. “But…our job is to bring the community along because the stakes couldn’t be higher for the Latino community.”
Kumar pointed to a new office created by Trump’s Department of Justice to denaturalize immigrants in the U.S. “That’s obscene,” she said. “One out of 10 voters that are going to be able to cast a ballot in November are naturalized citizens. I’m a naturalized citizen. Our job is to say, ‘We know how the system works. We need your participation. Ask us any question as raw as it is, and we will try to provide you guidance, because what we need right now is for you to show up in November for yourself and for your family.’”
Voto Latino, meanwhile, is fighting a narrative that younger voters, who tend to vote blue, aren’t excited about Joe Biden’s candidacy and may not come out to the polls this November.
“Oftentimes they say that the system is rigged. I’d say, ‘No—the system works just as it should for the people who occupy it.’ Our job is to make sure that the young people occupy the voting booth,” said Kumar.


fortune--2020-06-12--Eliminating social media’s legal protection would end Facebook and Twitter ‘as we know it,’ legal ex

Eliminating social media’s legal protection would end Facebook and Twitter ‘as we know it,’ legal experts say

President Trump’s executive order aimed at revoking a law that protects Facebook and Twitter from being sued for what their users post recently gained the support of four Republican senators. But some legal experts say if the law is changed, social media would become unrecognizable.
The executive order, which Trump signed two weeks ago, calls for federal regulators to review whether part of the Communications Decency Act known as Section 230 should be revised or completely abolished. On Tuesday, Republican Sens. Marco Rubio, Kelly Loeffler, Kevin Cramer, and Josh Hawley backed the order and pushed federal regulators to act.
The law allows social media companies to provide a forum for users without being held liable for what they post. Experts and businesses often credit the protection, passed in 1996, as one of the major reasons behind the rise of the Internet economy.
But three legal experts say that removing those protections, and putting web services in legal jeopardy, would radically change how they operate. The companies would either have to vet user content before it’s posted or allow only non-controversial topics to be discussed—possibly obliterating their business models in the process.
“I can’t imagine how Facebook and Twitter can operate without Section 230,” said Ken Paulson, director of Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU). “You eliminate Section 230, and you eliminate social media as we know it.”
In recent years, both political parties have put social media companies under increased scrutiny. Republicans accuse the companies of unfairly censoring their posts while Democrats complain that the companies fail to do enough to block misinformation, violent content, and hate speech.
President Trump signed his executive order related to Section 230 shortly after Twitter flagged one of his tweets about mail-in ballots, saying it included misinformation. This marked a huge escalation in a long-simmering feud between Twitter and Trump.
Twitter declined to comment about the executive order. But a day after the order was signed, the company expanded its crackdown on Trump by obscuring another of his tweets for violating a policy that prohibits “glorifying violence.”
Facebook, which has taken a hands-off approach to political speech, chose to leave Trump’s comments untouched, upsetting many of the company’s employees. Nevertheless, in response to the executive order, the company said repealing Section 230 would harm people’s freedom of expression on its service.
“It will restrict more speech online, not less,” a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement. “By exposing companies to potential liability for everything that billions of people around the world say, this would penalize companies that choose to allow controversial speech and encourage platforms to censor anything that might offend anyone.”
Many experts think the executive order, in the end, is unlikely to prevail, because it will face major First Amendment challenges in court. Trump, they point out, issued the order explicitly in response to the policing of his own tweets.
But some experts worry that, if nothing else, it could prompt members of Congress to introduce separate bills that undermine Section 230’s protections.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr, for example, last year took aim at Section 230 and said that the Department of Justice was looking into whether companies had abused the protection. Then in March, he said that his department was considering proposing changes to the law that could result in an amendment.
But changing Section 230 would not only affect companies like Facebook and Twitter. It would also apply to any Internet company that publishes user content, including comments on news articles and reviews of products, restaurants, and hotels.
“You would have much less ability to post views, or controversial views on any entity,” said Floyd Abrams, a First Amendment lawyer who defended the New York Times in a landmark case in 1964 for publishing an ad that allegedly defamed an Alabama public safety commissioner. “It would be a major step, which would likely lead to less speech rather than more.”
Ashkhen Kazaryan, director of civil liberties at technology think tank TechFreedom, said social media has enabled activists to create movements like #MeToo, which fought against sexual harassment and abuse, and #BlackLivesMatter, which targets racial justice.
If social media companies were liable for what their users posted, they may not allow discussion of controversial topics or provide any opportunity for users to comment.
“If these platforms were not there to provide that reach, who knows if [the movements] ever would’ve had the same magnitude as they do,” Kazaryan said.
Abrams said that social media has given everyday people the ability to share ideas in ways that they never would be able to otherwise. That ability has been an important tool for improving society. “Social media is one of the most extraordinary democratic developments in history,” he said. “Even if social media entities could reinvent themselves, significant sections of the public would be denied the opportunity that exists now to speak out in a robust and uninhibited manner and be heard.”
While social media companies often rely on a mix of artificial intelligence and human reviewers to moderate what their users publish, they still struggle with policing their services because of the volume of posts. Paulson of MTSU said that without Section 230, it’s “inconceivable” that these companies would be able to review each post to avoid potential lawsuits. Additionally, careful reviews would require Facebook and Twitter to make even more decisions about what content is appropriate, causing more people to claim the companies were biased against certain views.
And even if the companies somehow manage to successfully police their posts, and remain profitable in the process, Paulson said users would likely think twice about using the services.
“Who in the world do you know who would prefer to lose their right to post freely on Facebook so that Facebook would be held more financially accountable?” he said. “It’s not a trade most consumers would make.”


fortune--2020-06-12--In surprise ‘8:46’ Netflix special, Dave Chappelle blasts police involved in George Floyd death

Dave Chappelle has returned to the stage with his signature blend of comedy and racial commentary. A new special performance appeared late Thursday night on Netflix‘s comedy YouTube channel, filmed last Saturday as nationwide protests continued over the police killing of George Floyd.
The special, 8:46, is named after the length of time former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on Floyd’s neck, resulting in his death. Chappelle in the special said he couldn’t get that number out of his head because it also happens to be the time of day he was born, per his birth certificate.
Over the course of nearly 30 minutes, the popular comedian rips into the four Minneapolis police officers involved in Floyd’s death and laments Floyd with a mournful monologue: “He knew he was going to die. He called for his dead mother.”
Chappelle, 46, was full of praise for the protesters peacefully demonstrating across the country against police brutality and systemic racism—though he pushed back against CNN anchor Don Lemon’s critique that Hollywood celebrities are “sitting in [their] mansions and doing nothing.”
“This is the streets talking for themselves. They don’t need me right now. I kept my mouth shut. And I’ll keep my mouth shut. Don’t think my silence is complicit,” Chappelle said. “Why would anyone care what their favorite comedian thinks after they saw a police officer kneel on a man’s neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds?”
Chappelle also had harsh words for right-wing pundits Candace Owens and Laura Ingraham, describing the former as an “articulate idiot,” as well as mentioning the latter’s hypocrisy with the “Shut up and dribble” controversy with LeBron James.
8:46 was filmed in Beavercreek, Ohio, on June 6 in front of a socially distanced audience wearing Chappelle-branded masks. The comedian noted that “like it or not, it’s going to be history” because the show is among the first entertainment specials to occur as restrictions ease on coronavirus lockdowns.
The special, which is about 27 minutes long, includes a disclaimer in the description: “From Dave: Normally I wouldn’t show you something so unrefined, I hope you understand.” This was followed by a link to the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending mass incarceration and racial inequality.


fortune--2020-06-12--What to watch this weekend on Netflix, Disney+, and more

Between traditional television, video-on-demand releases, and a growing number of streaming services, it can be hard to keep up with what one should watch week to week. Fortune is here to help you keep track of new releases as well as the occasional older title worth checking out. Take a look at this weekend’s notable arrivals, a couple you may have missed earlier in the week, and what else is coming soon:
Netflix
From left: Isiah Whitlock Jr. (Melvin), Norm Lewis (Eddie), Clarke Peters (Otis), Delroy Lindo (Paul), and Jonathan Majors (David) in “Da 5 Bloods.” DAVID LEE—NETFLIX
Da 5 Bloods: The latest Spike Lee joint officially drops on Netflix June 12. The film centers on four African-American veterans who go back to Vietnam to look for the remains of their fallen leader (Chadwick Boseman), as well as some buried treasure. The cast also includes Delroy Lindo, Jonathan Majors, Clarke Peters, Norm Lewis, and Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Pokémon Journeys: The Series: If you’re seeking something family friendly or simply need a new dose of Pikachu and friends in your life, the first 12 episodes of the animated series’ 23rd season will arrive on Netflix June 12. More episodes will drop in later months.
How to Get Away With Murder (Season 6): The final season of the ABC series will be available for streaming June 13.
Marcella: The third season of the British crime series, starring Anna Friel, comes to Netflix June 14.
Earlier this week, Lenox Hill—a new reality series about doctors at Lenox Hill Hospital in Manhattan—arrived on the streamer. If there’s a Grey’s Anatomy–shaped hole in your life, this might be for you.
Disney+
Artemis Fowl: Originally intended for theaters, the Kenneth Branagh–directed adaptation of the young adult fantasy series will arrive on Disney+ June 12. The reviews… have not been particularly kind.
Hulu
Crossing Swords: The new stop-motion series from the executive producers of Robot Chicken features Patrick (Nicholas Hoult) as a peasant who gets to be a squire at the royal castle. He winds up encountering “a corrupt hornet’s nest of horny monarchs, crooks, and charlatans” (If you haven’t picked up on it: This is not for kids.) All 10 episodes of the season arrive on Hulu June 12.
Amazon Prime Video
A still from “Knives Out,” starring (from left) Jamie Lee Curtis, Christopher Plummer, and Don Johnson. Claire Folger—Lionsgate
Knives Out: If you missed it in theaters last year, or just feel like watching this star-studded murder mystery once again, it will be available to stream on Amazon Prime June 12. Read Fortune’s November 2019 interview with director Rian Johnson and his cousin, composer Nathan Johnson, here.
On VOD
The King of Staten Island: Pete Davidson teams up with writer-director Judd Apatow to star in this semiautobiographical dramedy that will be available on demand June 12.
On TV
The midseason finale of Billions will air on Showtime at 9 p.m. ET on June 14. Read Fortune’s interview with the show’s creators here.
The fifth season of Grantchester will arrive on PBS at 9 p.m. ET on June 14. Meanwhile, new series Beecham House will air on the channel at 10 p.m. ET.
The season finale of Insecure airs on HBO at 10 p.m. ET on June 14—and hopefully, questions about Issa and Molly’s friendship, as well as Issa and Lawrence, will actually get answered.
The finale of British miniseries Quiz will air on AMC at 9 p.m. ET on June 14. If you missed Fortune’s interview with stars Matthew Macfadyen and Sian Clifford, you can check it out here.
Coming Soon
In observance of Juneteenth, Hulu is moving the premieres of new shows from June 19 to earlier dates in the coming week. Love, Victor will now hit the platform June 17, while Taste the Nation will be released June 18.
ABC is extending its Wonderful World of Disney programming on June 17 by airing Toy Story 3 at 8 p.m. ET.


fortune--2020-06-12--ABC finally casts the first black Bachelor, but it took too long to get here

At long last, after 40 seasons and 18 years on the air with multiple active shows in the franchise, ABC has finally cast its first black lead on The Bachelor.
The network made the surprise announcement on Friday morning on Good Morning America that 28-year-old real estate broker Matt James will be the next Bachelor on the 25th season of the reality show.
The announcement caught many fans by surprise. There was no fanfare leading up to Friday’s reveal. Typically, the next lead of The Bachelor or The Bachelorette is announced at the end of the preceding show’s season. Obviously, given the COVID-19 pandemic and with entertainment production shut down for months, nothing is quite on schedule this summer. (A new season of The Bachelorette should have been airing by now, and was set to start filming in mid-March, but it has been postponed indefinitely.)
ABC had the opportunity to make the announcement in primetime earlier this week as the network is airing greatest hits–like montages, scraping together previously seen (and relatively no new) footage from previous seasons on Monday nights for the next several weeks. And even if the first mashup episode—a flashback to Sean Lowe’s season in 2013—was filmed weeks ago, it’s not as if producers couldn’t have filmed a last-minute update with host Chris Harrison from his makeshift home studio.
Matt James will be the next lead on ABC’s “The Bachelor” in 2021. Courtesy of ABC
James is also a surprise choice because he has never appeared on any of the programs within The Bachelor franchise. He was set to be a contestant on the upcoming season of The Bachelorette, and he was known to “Bachelor Nation” (a term referring to the collective fanbase as well as former participants on the various programs) through social media and The Bachelor subreddit community as the friend of Bachelorette runner-up and fan favorite Tyler Cameron.
Producers have toyed with the show’s formula for picking the next lead over the years, but the conventional standard that had evolved was the next lead would come from the top three or four finalists on the last season of the preceding show. So if producers were casting for the female lead on The Bachelorette, they would be looking at the top three or four finalists on The Bachelor. Sometimes that pool included even the “winner” in cases where the relationship fell apart right after cameras stopped rolling.
That formula was easy enough to understand, but it almost always ended up precluding people of color from being the lead on The Bachelor or The Bachelorette. It took years for Warner Bros., which produces the show in association with ABC, to start casting more contestants of color, and even then, those contestants were often sent home by the white leads within a few episodes at the beginning of each season. It wasn’t until attorney Rachel Lindsay was cast as the lead in 2017 on the 13th season of The Bachelorette (after she was in the top three of Nick Viall’s season of The Bachelor) that the producers finally cast a black lead.
And it’s not as if producers didn’t have multiple opportunities to cast more contestants of color—let alone a lead. They could have gone back to casting leads who hadn’t appeared on the franchise, as they did with James, which is also what they did in the first several years of the show.
Ahead of the most recent season of The Bachelor, there was a fervent online campaign among fans to cast United States Air Force veteran and portfolio manager Mike Johnson as the lead after charming turns on both The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise, a co-ed version of the show that operates like musical chairs and is reminiscent of MTV’s Spring Break in the 1990s. Instead, producers went with Delta pilot Peter Weber, which suffice to say, ended with very mixed results.
It would be easy to dismiss the announcement of James as the next lead as nothing more than trivial matters from a reality dating show. But The Bachelor, including all of its spinoffs, is one of the most-watched and most lucrative franchises on primetime television. It’s become part of the pop culture lexicon. To deny its influence and what the lead represents is dismissive of the messages this show does send to its viewers.
For many fans, not getting Johnson as the first black Bachelor last summer was the final straw, suggesting producers were more concerned about pleasing certain demographics within the fanbase than actually making any improvements in diversity. As demonstrations broke out nationwide and globally in late May and early June to protest police brutality and to support the Black Lives Matter movement, a group of fans within Bachelor Nation launched a Change.org petition arguing that ABC and Warner Bros. have a responsibility to cast more BIPOC leads and contestants.
Now, given the surprise nature of ABC’s announcement coupled with the news cycle focused on the Black Lives Matter movement and a push in the news and via social media to amplify black voices, it would be easy for critics to argue that producers rushed this out to undercut anyone suggesting the franchise is at best, tone-deaf, or at worst, racist. Producer Robert Mills, who oversees The Bachelor for ABC, told Variety that the decision to cast James had been “talked about for quite some time,” suggesting he was already in the running as the lead for his own season even before being cast on the currently on-hold season of The Bachelorette with Clare Crawley.
Mills also denied that James’s casting had anything to do with comments made by Lindsay on the official Bachelor podcast, Bachelor Happy Hour, which she cohosts with another former Bachelorette, Becca Kufrin. During the most recent episode of the show, Lindsay discussed in depth her experience as the only black lead in the franchise, and her dismay with producers over the lack of interest in promoting diversity within the cast. Lindsay said that if changes weren’t made soon, she would cut ties with the franchise altogether.
“It wasn’t a response to that. We could have made this announcement earlier or later,” Mills told Variety.
While the announcement that James would be the first black Bachelor was met with praise and even joy by some fervent fans online, it’s hard not to feel irritated that it took nearly two decades for one of the most prominent and long-lasting reality television shows to finally get the message.
And in the midst of the pandemic, it’s unclear when James’s season will air—or when or where it will even film. There have been rumors that producers plan to quarantine the cast and crew for two weeks at a resort location and then film for several weeks from there, but nothing has been confirmed yet. The only detail ABC has announced is that the next season will air in 2021.
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fortune--2020-06-12--The Oscars will set 10 best picture nominations and implement new inclusion standards

The Oscars are implementing some big changes, including a set number of best picture nominees and to-be-determined representation and inclusion standards for eligibility.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced Friday that there will be 10 best picture nominees beginning with the 94th Academy Awards in 2022. The organization is also planning to implement new eligibility requirements with an eye toward diversity in collaboration with the Producers Guild of America that will be finalized by the end of July.
Neither change will affect the 93rd Academy Awards, which are still set to be held in Los Angeles on Feb. 28, 2021.
The film academy has shifted the number of best picture nominees several times in its history. In 2009, it was expanded from five to 10, which many thought at the time was in response to the lack of a nomination for Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” In 2011, the field could fluctuate from five to 10, which led to some years having more than others. Last year there were nine. In the Academy’s early years, anywhere from eight to 12 films could be nominated for best picture.
The organization that puts on the Oscars is also committing to a new phase of diversity and inclusion initiatives, which they are calling Academy Aperture 2025. The first phase, which ended this year, was in response to the #OscarsSoWhite criticisms. Academy President David Rubin said that the organization had surpassed those goals.
“While the Academy has made strides, we know there is much more work to be done in order to ensure equitable opportunities across the board,” Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in a written statement. “The need to address this issue is urgent. To that end, we will amend — and continue to examine — our rules and procedures to ensure that all voices are heard and celebrated.”
Rubin added that the leadership and board are committed to weaving, “Equity and inclusion into the fabric of every Academy initiative, committee, program and event.”
A newly established Office of Representation, Inclusion and Equity will oversee the Aperture 2025 initiative, and be headed by Academy COO Christine Simmons.
The academy also said that it is continuing its efforts to increase diversity in its membership ranks. The new class will be announced in July.


fortune--2020-06-12--Starbucks will let employees wear own Black Lives Matter gear after all in wake of backlash

Starbucks is backtracking on its policy barring store employees from wearing their own Black Lives Matter clothing and accessories after a backlash this week that included calls for a boycott of the coffee company.
Earlier this week, BuzzFeed reported that Starbucks would not let employees sport Black Lives Matter–themed clothing or accessories, positing that such items could create friction with customers. The stance struck many as hypocritical given Starbucks’ public positions on racial justice, including a corporate tweet on June 4 saying unequivocally “Black Lives Matter.”
In a letter to staff on Friday, Starbucks operations chief Roz Brewer, herself black, and two other senior executives, gave employees the green light to wear Black Lives Matter pins or T-shirts until Starbucks provides them with those items. “We trust you to do what’s right while never forgetting Starbucks is a welcoming third place where all are treated with dignity and respect,” Brewer and her colleagues wrote.
In response to this historic time, our store partners can also show support for the Black Lives Matter movement with their own t-shirts, pins and name tags. To learn more, visit: https://t.co/LQ6fKsIP10 — Starbucks Coffee (@Starbucks) June 12, 2020
What irked many employees was the fact that Starbucks provides pins and clothing in support of other potentially controversial topics, including LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage. Now, Starbucks will be providing employees 250,000 shirts with designs by staff that say “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace” in the coming days. Until then, they can wear their own. Last week, Starbucks pledged $1 million to organizations that promote “racial equity and more inclusive and just communities.”
The controversy comes at a time when Starbucks can ill afford to lose any business: Comparable sales in the U.S. in the last week in May were down 32%, with most business coming from drive-thru and curbside pickup given that in-store seating is not available even as lockdowns ease.
Starbucks, despite its outspokenness about racial equality, has sometimes found itself embroiled in racial strife. Two years ago, after two black men who sat down at a Philadelphia store without ordering anything were arrested by police called in by Starbucks employees, the company shut all U.S. locations for an afternoon of companywide anti-racial-bias training.


fortune--2020-06-12--Facebook contest shows just how hard it is to detect deepfakes

Facebook has revealed the winners of a competition for software that can detect deepfakes, doctored videos created using artificial intelligence. And the results show that researchers are still mostly groping in the dark when it comes to figuring out how to automatically identify them before they influence the outcome of an election or spark ethnic violence.
The best algorithm in Facebook’s contest could accurately determine if a video was real or a deepfake just 65% of the time.
Facebook chief technology officer Mike Schroepfer said even an imperfect system could help Facebook by deterring less technically skilled people from trying to post malicious deepfakes on the social network and ease the burden on the company’s human content reviewers.
The winning algorithm was created by Selim Seferbekov, a machine learning engineer at a company called Mapbox, in Belarus, according to his LinkedIn profile. He beat out more than 2,100 other contestants who submitted more than 3,500 detection systems, to win the $500,000 top prize. As part of the competition, Seferbekov must make his algorithm publicly available.
Schroepfer said that Facebook’s own engineers would likely borrow ideas and techniques from Seferbekov’s detection algorithm but would not put the same software into production, partly to prevent people from being able to figure out how to trick the system.
The second-place team, which called itself WM, consisted of three graduate machine learning researchers affiliated with the University of Science and Technology of China, in Hefei. Third place went to Azat Davletshin, a senior deep learning engineer at the Russian company NtechLab, which is known for its work on facial recognition.
Deepfakes first came to public attention in 2017 when Reddit users, including one who went by the handle “deepfake,” began using cutting-edge A.I. techniques to put the heads of various celebrities on the bodies of actresses in pornographic films. Since then, they have mostly been used to create short, humorous videos, public service ad campaigns, and, more darkly, revenge porn.
But many people fear it is only matter of time before the manipulated videos, which can be created using simple and cheap off-the-shelf software that requires no technical skills to use, are deployed as part of political disinformation campaigns.
That’s why Schroepfer said he wanted to encourage the development of tools for automatically detecting the fake videos. “It is not currently a big issue,” he said of the use of deepfakes on Facebook’s social media platforms. “But the lesson I learned the hard way over the past few years is that I want to be prepared in advance and not get caught flat-footed.”
He also said he was frustrated that A.I. researchers were spending a lot of time and energy developing techniques for creating ever-more realistic fake videos while spending almost no time at all on systems to detect them.
In September, Facebook teamed with Microsoft, Amazon Web Services, an industry ethics body, and several universities, to announce the competition, backed by $1 million in total prize money.
It hired more than 3,000 actors to create a data set of 115,000 10-second videos, and applied a variety of deepfake techniques to about 85% of them. It then released this data for competitors to train and test their algorithms.
The algorithms were evaluated on two separate tests: a public test set, which consisted of 4,000 video clips that Facebook produced, half of which were deepfakes, and which were not part of the training data set. But the winning algorithm was ultimately chosen by how well it performed on a second data set that contestants could not access, and which included 10,000 videos, half of which were deepfakes. Except in this case, half of the videos—both deepfakes and benign videos—were culled from the Internet, as opposed to ones created specifically for the competition.
While several algorithms achieved scores above 82% accuracy on the public test set, their accuracy dropped significantly on the private test set, an indication that there were probably subtle differences between the videos Facebook created for the competition and genuine deepfakes that the algorithms couldn’t handle.
But the algorithms that scored well on the public test set also tended to score best on the private test set, which Facebook’s researchers said was an indication that the same detection techniques would work in the real world, including on deepfakes created using new methods that the detection systems had not seen examples of during training.
As for the less-than-mind-blowing performance of the A.I. detection systems at the moment, “that just reinforces that building systems that generalize to unseen deepfake generation techniques is still a hard and open research problem,” the company said.
Facebook said that most of the top algorithms worked by analyzing the content of the images, trying to detect subtle aberrations in the faces or parts of the faces in the videos.
The company also said in a blog post about the competition that it was notable that none of the winners attempted to use what are called “digital forensic” techniques, such as looking for so-called “digital fingerprints” that images created using cameras, as opposed to those created entirely by software, leave behind on images. These telltale signs can include elements in the metadata of a file or subtle markers in the pixels themselves. Human experts who analyze videos for manipulation frequently use these markers.
The fact that the top entrants didn’t use these methods, Facebook said, was either an indication that such methods are not useful for finding deepfakes or that top machine learning experts are not familiar enough with these digital forensic signatures to use them in their detection systems.
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fortune--2020-06-12--How Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is helping black-owned businesses survive the coronavirus pandemic

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The U.S. Treasury rushed out aid to businesses hit by the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, but it wasn’t distributed equally. According to Tarik Brooks, the COO of Combs Enterprises—the conglomerate owned by music legend Sean “Diddy” Combs—a large number of black-owned businesses were effectively excluded from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and other relief programs.
A big reason, said Brooks, who spoke at a Fortune seminar for small-business owners, is that the majority of black-owned businesses lacked the operational infrastructure to seek aid, such as the accounting and HR support necessary to quickly furnish documents. Meanwhile, many of these companies lacked relationships with lenders—a critical factor in who got aid since much of the emergency money was distributed through lenders on a first-come, first-served basis.
“Most African-American businesses don’t have a single employee. The biggest struggle is arranging their info in a way that’s easy to organize and submit. A lot of people are great at their crafts but don’t have accountants,” Brooks said, speaking of sole-employee businesses like consultants or hairstylists.
This is the same community that was hit especially hard by the coronavirus outbreak.
“The COVID crisis has created two pandemics—a health one and a wealth one because of the economic disruption,” said Brooks.
In response, Combs Enterprises launched Our Fair Share, a platform to help black-owned businesses access relief funds. Brooks explained the platform has first worked to raise awareness about the availability of relief funds and is helping black entrepreneurs complete complicated PPP forms. Our Fair Share has also been working to connect them with lenders.
These efforts have already paid dividends as black businesses had more success obtaining funds in the second round of PPP relief, in part through working with local banks and fintech companies like Kabbage and Square.
The Fortune seminar also featured Michael Cole, a senior lawyer at the HR and payroll company Gusto. According to Gusto, one of the biggest challenges for business owners in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis is managing employees. He stated it is critical for owners to express empathy while also being straightforward with workers about the financial realities facing their companies.


fortune--2020-06-12--Instacart is now a decacorn

Instacart is now a decacorn

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Just a few months ago, grocery delivery was an interesting but not quite explosive business, with an estimated 6.3% of grocery sales done online in 2019 by one measure.
Apparently all it took to put the industry in overdrive was a pandemic.
Instacart said on Thursday that it raised $225 million from investors, bumping the company’s valuation significantly up to $13.7 billion from $8 billion in 2018 when it raised its previous round. DST Global and General Catalyst led the round, and existing investor D1 Capital Partners participated.
At $13.7 billion, Instacart’s valuation edges slightly above the price Amazon paid for Whole Foods in 2017: $13.4 billion. At the time, investors hailed the deal as not only a way for Amazon to establish a more solid brick-and-mortar presence, but also as a way for the company to deepen its grocery-delivery offering. It cued panic among traditional grocery investors.
Fears of Amazon’s dominance in grocery delivery fizzled out. Instead, it appeared, at least in 2019, that Walmart Grocery was pulling ahead of the pack. And now amid the coronavirus, Instacart has pulled an upset—becoming the dominant player, at least based on credit-card data, in the space.
What the heck, Hertz: Perhaps you’ve already heard—shares of bankrupt car-rental company Hertz have spiked in recent days in a bizarre move largely attributed to speculative retail traders. Professional investors have been scratching their heads from the sidelines.
Adding to the strange dynamics: In the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, Hertz is trying to capitalize on the rally by selling up to $1 billion in new shares even while its restructuring threatens to wipe out the value of its equity altogether. In a court filing asking for permission to go through with the sale, Hertz said the recent upswing in its shares presented “a unique opportunity…to raise capital on terms that are far superior to any debtor-in-possession financing.”
Certainly a stock offering would be beneficial to Hertz, cutting out the pesky terms that come with loans—but it’s a far riskier move for shareholders. Unless Hertz can fully repay its debts with some extra, those shares are effectively worthless. Read more.
Lucinda Shen
Twitter: @shenlucinda
Email: lucinda.shen@fortune.com
Anne Sraders and Lucinda Shen curated today’s Term Sheet.
VENTURE DEALS
- DoorDash, a San Francisco-based food delivery company, is close to securing new funding that would value it at over $15 billion pre-money. Existing investors T. Rowe Price Group as well as Fidelity Investments are reportedly among the investors, per the Wall Street Journal. Read more.
- Tongcheng Life, a community grocery buying platform, raised $200 million in Series C funding. Joyy led the round, and was joined by investors including Engage Capital, Legend Capital, BAI, GSR Ventures, Oriza Holdings, Welight Capital, and Tongcheng Capital. Read more.
- Headspace, a Santa Monica, Calif.-based meditation app, raised $47.7 million in extended Series C funding. Read more.
- MycoTechnology, a Denver-based food tech startup focused on mushrooms , raised $39 million in Series D funding. Greenleaf Foods, SPC, S2G Ventures, and Evolution Partners co-led the round and were joined by investors including Rich Products Ventures, Tyson Ventures, Continental Grain, Middleland Capital, Bunge Ventures, Seventure Partners, Cibus Investments, and Kellogg's eighteen94 Capital.
- Kahoot!, an Oslo, Norway-based learning platform company, raised $28 million in funding. Northzone Ventures led the round. Read more.
- HeadLight (previously Pavia Systems), a Seattle, Wash.-based photo-based inspection technology company, raised $25.6 million in Series B funding led by Viking Global Investors.
- IBanFirst, a Paris-based currency transaction platform, raised €21 million ($23.8 million) in funding. Investors included Bpifrance, Elaia Partners, Serena Capital and Breega Capital.
- JIFFY.ai, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based enterprise automation company, raised $18 million in Series A funding. Nexus Venture Partners led the round and was joined by investors including Rebright Partners and W250 Venture Fund.
- Haus Services, a San Francisco-based real estate co-investor, raised $15.8 million in a Series A funding round. BlueRun Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Assurant Growth Investing, Leap Global Partners, Correlation Ventures, H.Barton Asset Management, Expa, Montage Ventures, and RIT Capital.
- Sentropy, a Palo Alto-based platform using Ai to track hate speech, raised $13 million in funding. Investors include Initialized Capital, King River Capital, Horizons Ventures, and Playground Global. Read more.
- Origin, a financial planning platform for employees, raised $12.1 million in Series A funding. Felicis Ventures’ Niki Pezeshki led the round and was joined by investors including General Catalyst, Founders Fund and early Stripe employee Lachy Groom.
- Spike, an Israel-based email-based organization tool, raised $8 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners.
- Tackle.io, a Boise, Idaho-based software marketplace, raised $7.3 million in Series A funding led by Bessemer Venture Partners.
- WiBotic, a Seattle, Wash.-based company that specializes in wireless charging and aerial, mobile and marine robots, raised $5.7 million in Series A funding. Investors included Junson Capital, SV Tech Ventures, Rolling Bay Ventures, Aves Capital, The W Fund and WRF Capital.
- TeleVet, an Austin, Texas-based veterinary telemedicine company, raised $5 million in Series A funding. Mercury Fund led the round and was joined by investors including Dundee Venture Capital, Atento Capital, GAN and Urban Capital Network.
- Veros Systems, an Austin, Texas-based artificial intelligence company for the industrial industry, raised $2.2 million in Series C funding. Shell Ventures led the round and was joined by investors including Austin Ventures, Chevron Technology Ventures, and LiveOak Venture Partners.
- Pinwheel, a New York-based API layer for payroll data, raised $7 million in a seed round. First Round Capital led the round, and was joined by investors including Upfront Ventures. Read more.
PRIVATE EQUITY
- Bain Capital offered to acquire a 25% stake in Serie A, an Italian soccer league, for €3 billion ($3.4 billion), per Bloomberg. CVC Partners was previously reported to have submitted a bid. Read more.
- A group of investors recapitalized Starstone U.S. Holdings, a U.S. insurance company. SkyKnight Capital, Dragoneer Investment Group, and Aquiline Capital Partners led the deal with $610 million. Enstar Group will rollover its existing ownership.
- A consortium of investors led by Goldman Sachs and TPG Growth invested in Infinidat, a Waltham, Mass.-based data storage solutions company. The financial terms weren’t disclosed.
- Stonepeak Infrastructure Partners acquired a controlling stake in Xplornet Communications, a Canada-based broadband service provider. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
- Summit Partners invested in CoderPad, a San Francisco-based platform for technical skills assessment. Financial terms weren't disclosed.
OTHERS
- Captrust Financial Advisors acquired Lakeside Wealth Management, a Chesterton, Ind.-based wealth management firm. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
- Nestle is exploring a sale of part of the company’s North American water business, including its Pure Life brand. Read more.
- Yandex (Nasdaq: YNDX) is considering buying out Uber’s stake in Yandex.Taxi, their joint ride-hailing business in Russia, per Bloomberg. Read more.
BREAKUPS, HANGUPS, AND BANKRUPTCIES
- Vista Proppants and Logistics, a Fort Worth, Texas-based frac-sand supplier, filed for bankruptcy protection. The company is backed by First Reserve and Ares Capital.
IPOS
- Palantir, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based big data analyzation company, is weighing an IPO or a direct listing as soon as September, per Reuters. Read more.
- The AZEK Company, a Chicago-based maker of outdoor living products also known as CPG Newco, raised $765 million in an offering of 33.3 million shares priced at $23. The company posted revenue of $794.2 million and loss of $19.3 million in the year ending in September. Ares Management and Ontario Teachers Pension Plan back the firm. It plans to list on the NYSE as “AZEK.” Read more.
- Avidity Biosciences, a La Jolla, Calif.-based biotech developing antibody therapies for muscle disorders, plans to raise $210 million by offering 12 million shares at a price range of $17 to $18. RTW Investments (14.5% pre-offering), Cormorant Asset Management, and Eli Lilly and Company (10.4%) back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “RNA.” Read more.
- Capstar Special Purpose Acquisition, an Austin, Texas-based blank check company, plans to raise $200 million in an offering of 20 million units priced at $10. Capstar Partners and Pimco are sponsors of the company. It plans to list on the NYSE as “CPSR.U”. Read more.
– Generation Bio, a Cambridge, Mass.-based biotech developing gene therapies for rare diseases, plans to raise $185 million in an offering of 10 million shares priced between $18 to $19. Atlas Venture Fund (37% pre-offering), Fidelity Investment (15%) and T. Rowe Price (8.9%) back the firm. It plans to list on the Nasdaq as “GBIO.” Read more.
- Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square Capital Management confidentiality filed for an IPO for a blank check company, per Reuters.
- Quicken Loans, the largest mortgage lender in the U.S., confidentially filed for an IPO, per CNBC.
EXITS
- Novo Nordisk agreed to acquire Corvidia Therapeutics, a Waltham, Mass.-based biotech spun out of AstraZeneca, from Sofinnova Partners for as much as $2.1 billion.
- Cognizant acquired Collaborative Solutions, a Reston, Va.-based finance and HR consultancy company. WestView Capital Partners backed Collaborative Solutions. Financial terms weren’t disclosed.
F+FS
- Matrix Partners China, a venture capital firm, raised $750 million for its sixth fund. Read more.
- 468 Capital, a German venture capital firm focused on machine learning and automation, raised €170 million. Former Rocket Internet executives Alexander Kudlich and Ludwig Ensthaler are among those that founded the firm. Read more.
- Prime Impact Fund, an early-stage venture capital fund focused on climate technologies, raised $50 million.
PEOPLE
- Index Ventures added Stephane Kurgan as a venture partner. Kurgan was previously chief operating officer of King.


fortune--2020-06-12--Facebook returns a key product leader while Intel loses one

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We usually relegate the comings and goings of tech executives, even at the highest levels, to a little weekly section in Tuesday’s Data Sheet. Not today. The one big arrival and one big departure in the industry on Thursday have big implications. In the newspaper business, we’d say they belonged on page one, above the fold.
The arrival: Longtime Facebook engineer Chris Cox is returning to the social network after about a year away.
Cox quit last March when his title was chief product officer. After 13 years at Facebook, he was reportedly unenthused about CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to emphasize strong encryption across all of the company’s messaging products. “This will be a big project, and we will need leaders who are excited to see the new direction through,” Cox wrote at the time in a statement that didn’t exactly take a PhD in psychology to unpack.
Later reporting uncovered numerous projects Cox had championed to make Facebook’s platform less politically divisive and polluted with bad information–projects that Zuckerberg watered down or shelved. When Cox left, Facebook tried to fill the void with a handful of promotions, but no one can say the company has done a good job on cleaning up the divisive and misinformative content.
Thus the return, back with the title of chief product officer. And just in time, too, as Zuckerberg seems nearly overwhelmed by the current circumstances and unable to steer the company through the flood of crap floating on top of the 2020 election, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the protests against racism and police brutality. Just on Thursday, the problems hit the headlines again when Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden blasted the company. As former Facebook board member Donald Graham told the Wall Street Journal on Cox’s return: “Chris’s return is the best news I could imagine for the company.”
The sudden departure: Chip giant Intel‘s Jim Keller, senior vice president and head of the silicon engineering group, is leaving for undisclosed “personal reasons.”
In a kind of mirror image of Cox’s career longevity at one shop, Keller left Intel after two years, which followed similarly short stints at Tesla and Advanced Micro Devices. He’s a Baby Boomer, but his resume is all Gen X, with eight stops in the past 20 or so years (Coincidentally, I, a true Gen Xer, also have eight stops over the same period). As one friend of the itinerant chip designer put it to me yesterday, it was always a question of “not if but when Jim is going to leave Intel.”
As you may know if you read my profile of Keller in Fortune a few weeks ago, the guy is a microprocessor design star on the level of Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid in building design. In just one year at AMD in the late 1990s, he helped produce some of the most innovative CPUs ever seen, co-wrote a standard still in use for data transport, and set up the company to beat Intel in the transition to 64-bit processors. At Apple in the mid 2000s, he helped build the company’s first in-house chips for the iPhone and iPad, then went back to AMD in 2012 to craft the basis of the now killing-it Zen processor.
Intel really really needed some of Keller’s star power. Waylaid by years of delays, missteps, and missed opportunities, Intel is in danger of being surpassed by a hoard of hungry competitors, including former Keller employers AMD and Apple. Apple’s imminent move off of Intel chips for its laptop and desktop computers is not just the latest sign of Intel’s problems, but could make them worse if the decision influences other PC makers to follow.
Intel’s chief engineering officer and group president Murthy Renduchintala, who helped bring Keller aboard, told employees in an email that the company was losing “a champion of our technologists” who had been “fearless in his pursuit of innovation.” Renduchintala added: “I am very sad to see him go and wish him well.”
Intel’s engineers, customers, and shareholders would no doubt agree.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com
NEWSWORTHY
Point of no return. On Thursday, Microsoft joined Amazon and IBM in barring police from using its facial-recognition technology. The company “will not sell facial-recognition technology to police departments in the United States until we have a national law in place, grounded in human rights, that will govern this technology,” president Brad Smith said Thursday during a Washington Post online event.
Return to serenity. Artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI, backed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman among others, debuted its first commercial product on Thursday. The lab's app, an A.I. text generator which doesn't seem to have generated a name for itself, is already in use by Reddit, legal tech startup Casetext, Middlebury College, and video-game maker Latitude.
Return of the grievous angel. Corporate pledges to spend money to address the racism exposed by the recent protests and the death of George Floyd have grown exponentially from $1 million to $10 million to now $100 million. Both Apple and Google's YouTube on Thursday said they would contribute $100 million to help the causes of racial equity and justice. Apple's initiative will range from backing historically black institutions to partnering with outside groups and spending more with black-owned businesses. YouTube will create a fund to promote and develop videos from black creators.
The hero's return. After a slight delay due to what's happening in the real world, Sony unveiled its next-generation gaming console for taking your mind off of what's happening in the real world. The PlayStation 5 is a black and white box that will support up to 8K graphics and run custom AMD chips (one with the Zen architecture that Jim Keller helped design). Of course, the price is TBD.
Return to sender. The Internet Archive ended its digital book lending program a few weeks early. Major publishers had sued to stop the program, which was also not beloved by Adam.
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
As we try to make the country more inclusive and less racist, there is plenty to improve in the world of tech. Venture capitalist Reggie James examines some of the assumptions and burdens placed on black people in the industry in an essay titled "The Myth Of Blackness In Venture."
Carve-out vehicles and charity funds, remove us from direct relationship to the performance of fund managers. This is intentional and says—again—that they do not hold our potential as equals, within the overall construction of their portfolio. We cannot continue to celebrate these initiatives, that divorce us from the performance of the primary fund. Where they place a Black person in charge, to deal with the Black half of the investments.
It is for this same reason, that I struggle to support funds who’s primary thesis is that of diversity. Too often it serves as a vehicle for high net-worth LP’s — typically fund managers elsewhere — to point to their contribution as their action towards equality, with little structural change to their own fund.
FOR YOUR WEEKEND READING PLEASURE
A few long reads I came across this week:
The Gospel According to Peter Thiel (City Journal)
Wherever there’s a major shift in the American landscape, one can usually find Silicon Valley’s iconoclastic investor.
A Biblical Mystery at Oxford (The Atlantic)
A renowned scholar claimed that he discovered a first-century gospel fragment. Now he’s facing allegations of antiquities theft, cover-up, and fraud.
What Stage IV cancer taught me about navigating Covid-19, systemic racism, and all other pain to come (Medium)
Letting go of the idea of “normal” and other lies I’ve loved*
John Lewis, congressman and civil-rights legend, will never lose hope. (New York Magazine)
John Lewis has seen a lot in his 80 years, from a modest youth as the third of ten children in an Alabama sharecropping family, to a brutal and exhilarating early adulthood in the civil-rights movement, to his storied tenure in Congress, where he’s represented Georgia’s Fifth Congressional District since 1987.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
The Wing staffers are doing a ‘digital walkout’ until their demands are met By Emma Hinchliffe
Bendable, with the help of Pete Buttigieg, wants to create an educational marketplace By Nicole Goodkind
Snap wants machine learning experts to make more animated messages By Jonathan Vanian
Zoom’s censorship stumble is a familiar narrative for tech stuck between U.S. and Beijing By Naomi Xu Elegant
How the pandemic has transformed the telehealth industry forever By Sy Mukherjee
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is an adept dealmaker. But Grubhub has eluded him By Lucinda Shen
Could a Western Union–MoneyGram deal help two giants fend off fintech disrupters? By Rey Mashayekhi
(Some of these stories require a subscription to access. There is a 50% discount for our loyal readers if you use this link to sign up. Thank you for supporting our journalism.)
BEFORE YOU GO
Comedian Dave Chappelle is often pushing boundaries. This week, he's out with a video of one of the first live shows filmed in this socially distanced era. It's not easy to watch, but it's not meant to be.
Aaron Pressman
@ampressman
aaron.pressman@fortune.com


fortune--2020-06-12--Effective strategies for finding—and retaining—talented nonwhite and female lawyers: A black partner

Effective strategies for finding—and retaining—talented nonwhite and female lawyers: A black partner’s perspective

In a commentary for Fortune yesterday, I wrote about the challenges that have kept law firms from achieving and retaining a diverse talent pool. But the challenge is anything but insurmountable.
My experience here at Butler Snow and the success stories of women and nonwhite lawyers around the country make clear that there are effective approaches that can and should be employed to combat bias and retain diverse lawyers. What follows are some potential steps that law firms should take.
First, firm leadership must be fully committed. The unequivocal message to the firm must be in terms of a demand. One aspect of the evaluation of firm leadership should be their commitment to and progress regarding diversity and inclusion. What gets measured gets done.
Second, achieving greater diversity and inclusion has to be intentional and focused. Perhaps the best way to do so is by having a dedicated committee or person who will stay abreast of the latest developments regarding diversity and inclusion and the specific issues in the firm. This committee or person should report directly to firm management.
Third, diverse lawyers need active mentors and sponsors. Navigating the law firm environment can be difficult for any lawyer, especially new associates. The journey may be complicated by cultural differences that inhibit the kind of easy interaction that leads to good working relationships. Lawyers of color may not attend the same churches as other lawyers. They may not be members of the same fraternal organizations or social clubs.
To remedy this, firms should assign mentors whose mission is to help young diverse lawyers traverse the system. Mentors help groom the diverse lawyer professionally and integrate them into the firm culture. Firms can also assign a sponsor, a person of influence within the firm who speaks on another lawyer’s behalf. There is a need for onboarding regimens that include sponsors serving as advocates for diverse lawyers.
Fourth, diverse lawyers should be given important administrative and other responsibilities. At many firms, involvement in crucial duties is one of the metrics for advancement. Careful attention must be paid to the appointment of diverse lawyers to administrative duties and other positions within the firm to provide an opportunity to meet this important metric.
For those roles that are elected, consideration should be given to an alternative appointment process, if necessary, that is designed to make sure diverse lawyers have an opportunity to participate in firm governance. It is important that younger diverse lawyers have someone like them in key leadership roles to inspire and encourage them.
Fifth, clients should request hard data related to law firms’ inclusion. Clients should ensure that diverse lawyers are billing meaningful hours on client files and are getting an opportunity for client contact as soon as is practical. Clients should also make crystal clear that the woeful representation of diverse attorneys in the partnership ranks—if that’s the case—is unacceptable. Clients should inquire about a law firm’s efforts to make sure that the path to equity ownership for women or people of color is not made more difficult as a result of bias.
Sixth, firms must have a fair system of compensation that is clearly understood and allows all to progress on equal footing.
A white law partner, whom I also consider a friend, once attributed my success to being able to “move easily between both worlds.” While I suppose he meant it as a compliment, the notion that there are characteristics and behaviors that are specific to white people and absent in black people (or present in men and absent in women), and that lend themselves to success, is just wrong.
Like all other lawyers, women and nonwhite lawyers should be evaluated by their skill and potential. Now it’s the job of law firms to remove the impediments to their success. This is an issue that goes far beyond the business case for diversity. It is the right thing to do.
Orlando R. Richmond Sr. is a partner at Butler Snow LLP.


fortune--2020-06-12--Sony reveals two PlayStation 5 editions coming this holiday season

Sony Corp. unveiled two versions of its upcoming PlayStation 5 game console and an array of new games from the virtual stage Thursday, showcasing its next-generation lineup for the first time ahead of a holiday season showdown against Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox.
A new Spider-Man game will be ready for the holidays, alongside the release of the black-and-white home console. Sony will also have a new Gran Turismo racing game, as well as an enhanced version of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc.’s bestselling Grand Theft Auto V for the PlayStation 5 next year.
The second variant of the PS5, dubbed the Digital Edition, will eschew the Blu-ray disc drive and offer downloads as the only way to acquire new games. This move could hasten the transition to digital downloads and cut out retailers like Amazon.com Inc., GameStop Corp. and Walmart Inc. The PS5 Digital Edition has a sleeker design and is expected to be cheaper than the standard model, though Sony did not disclose pricing information.
Sony offers two options: a PlayStation®5 console with an Ultra HD Blu-ray disc drive and a PlayStation®5 Digital Edition without a disc drive. Courtesy of Sony
Shares of the Japanese entertainment giant fell as much as 3.9% in early Tokyo trading Friday, its biggest intraday fall in more than two months.
“It looks like Sony is saying the PS5’s theme color is white,” said Hideki Yasuda, an analyst with Ace Research Institute. “I can’t think of many white, round-edged game consoles that have done well in the past, so I think Sony is taking on a challenge with that design direction.”
Sony showed an array of new games from various high-profile franchises, including Resident Evil 8, a remake of the action game Demon’s Souls and a sequel to the popular PlayStation 4 game Horizon Zero Dawn.
Expectations are high for the PlayStation 5. Sony’s current system has dominated the video game market for the last seven years, selling more than 110 million units and overshadowing Microsoft’s efforts with the Xbox. Both companies began talking publicly about their next generation of consoles last year. Sony has promised technical improvements that would enable sharper graphics, larger game worlds and reduced load times.
The coronavirus pandemic has complicated what is normally a carefully choreographed process for introducing a new game system. Sony had planned to deliver a lecture on the PlayStation 5’s technical capabilities during the Game Developers Conference in March. When that event was called off, the Japanese hardware maker instead streamed an hourlong video presentation hosted by the PlayStation’s lead architect, Mark Cerny.
The Electronic Entertainment Expo is typically the premier launch event for the biggest game releases. The conference, known as E3, had been set to take place this week in Los Angeles but was canceled due to the virus. Sony had not planned to participate at E3 but arranged a live streaming event on June 4. That was postponed by a week in the wake of global protests against racial injustice that started in the U.S.
On Thursday, Sony introduced several games from independent or smaller developers, in addition to big-budget titles. Highlights included Bugsnax, a cartoon game set on an island full of talking fruits and animals, and an adventure game called Kena: Bridge of Spirits. The new version of Grand Theft Auto Online will be free exclusively to PlayStation 5 owners for three months, said Take-Two, the game’s publisher. It debuts in the second half of 2021.
The wide variety of games on display could help broaden the PlayStation 5’s appeal and attract younger audiences like those typically captured by Nintendo Co. “Sony showed us a lot of cartoony games, a shift from the PS4 launch when the reveal was dominated by photorealistic games,” said Ace Research Institute’s Yasuda.
Sony will face off against Microsoft this holiday season when they each plan to release new consoles. Sony has been struggling to keep costs down for the PlayStation 5, but it hasn’t yet said what the new product will sell for. Partly due to a high initial price tag, Sony is limiting production of the console for the launch, people familiar with the matter have said.
Piers Harding-Rolls, an analyst at Ampere Analysis, anticipates the new consoles will sell for $450 to $499. “Higher pricing is actually predicted to have a minimal impact on adoption at launch,” he said. “Within a certain range — less than $500 — price is not a major factor.” Sony will likely be able to reduce the price of the model without the Blu-ray disc capability, said Serkan Toto, a games consultant who runs a company called Kantan Games Inc.


fortune--2020-06-12--Trump rally on Juneteenth in Tulsa called ‘slap in the face’

Black community and political leaders are calling on President Donald Trump to at least change the date of an Oklahoma rally kick-starting his return to public campaigning, saying that holding the event on Juneteenth, the day that marks the end of slavery in America, is a “slap in the face.”
Trump campaign officials discussed in advance the possible reaction to the Juneteenth date, but there are no plans to change it despite fierce blowback.
California Sen. Kamala Harris and Tulsa civic officials were among the black leaders who said it was offensive for Trump to pick that day — June 19 — and that place — Tulsa, an Oklahoma city that in 1921 was the site of a fiery and orchestrated white-on-black attack.
“This isn’t just a wink to white supremacists — he’s throwing them a welcome home party,” Harris, a leading contender to be Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s running mate, tweeted of Trump’s rally plans.
“To choose the date, to come to Tulsa, is totally disrespectful and a slap in the face to even happen,” said Sherry Gamble Smith, president of Tulsa’s Black Wall Street Chamber of Commerce, an organization named after the prosperous black community that white Oklahomans burned down in the 1921 attack.
At a minimum, Gamble Smith said, the campaign should “change it to Saturday the 20th, if they’re going to have it.”
Trump announced the rally plan Wednesday afternoon. It comes as his harsh law-and-order stance appears to fall increasingly out of sync with a growing concern over police abuse of African Americans after the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Trump campaign officials defended the rally.
“As the party of Lincoln, Republicans are proud of the history of Juneteenth,” said Katrina Pierson, senior adviser to the Trump campaign. “President Trump has built a record of success for Black Americans, including unprecedented low unemployment prior to the global pandemic, all-time high funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and criminal justice reform.”
The Trump campaign was aware in advance that the date for the president’s return to rallies was Juneteenth, according to two campaign officials, who were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions and spoke on condition of anonymity.
When the date was discussed, it was noted that Biden had held a fundraiser a year ago on Juneteenth. Although choosing June 19 was not meant to be incendiary, some blowback was expected, the officials said. But the campaign was caught off guard by the intensity, particularly when some linked the selection to the 1921 massacre.
Scheduling the highly anticipated comeback rally in Oklahoma, a state Trump won easily in 2016, raised eyebrows.
The campaign picked Tulsa’s BOK Center, with a listed seat capacity of 19,199. The arena’s Facebook page shows organizers calling off shows there by country singer Alan Jackson and other performers into mid-July, citing the coronavirus pandemic.
Arena marketing director Meghan Blood said Thursday that she didn’t know yet about any plans for social distancing or other coronavirus precautions for Trump’s rally, which would be one of the larger public gatherings in the U.S. at this stage of the outbreak.
Campaign officials said safety decisions would be made in coordination with local authorities. A disclaimer on the ticket registration website said attendees voluntarily assume all risks related to exposure to COVID-19 and agree not to hold the campaign liable for any illness.
The campaign officials said the Trump campaign picked Oklahoma because arrangements could be made quickly, for a variety of reasons: Oklahoma has a Republican, Trump-friendly governor; the state is not seeing huge numbers of coronavirus cases; and the arena was “turn-key” and could easily be opened for the rally. Moreover, the rally will be held up the turnpike from a district held by Rep. Kendra Horn, one of the Democrats the GOP feels is vulnerable this fall.
Campaign officials also wanted to hold the rally where they could all but guarantee a big crowd despite coronavirus concerns, according to the officials. Oklahoma is one of the most Republican states in the nation and Trump has not held a rally there as president, so it will likely deliver an enthusiastic audience eager to see him, the officials believed.
Tulsa, an oil center along the Arkansas River, has had its own marches, viral videos and troublesome police actions during this month’s unrest.
On Tuesday, Tulsa police released video and said they were investigating officers who handcuffed and arrested two black teenagers for jaywalking. Video of the June 4 incident showed officers pinned one of the two unidentified teens stomach-down on the ground.
“Get off me! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe! I can’t breathe!” one teen shouts in the police video.
“You can breathe just fine,” the officer replies.
On Monday, a Tulsa police major played down police shootings of African Americans nationally by telling a radio show that statistically, “we’re shooting African Americans about 24% less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed.”
And on Wednesday, the same day Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum welcomed news of Trump’s rally pick as evidence of the city’s progress against COVID-19, Bynum apologized for remarks about a 2016 police killing of a black man. Bynum had said the killing was “more about the really insidious nature of drug utilization than it is about race.”
Nationally, as research brings to light more about the 1921 massacre, Tulsa increasingly is associated with the rampage in which white Tulsans razed a thriving black business community, killing as many as 300 people. Long dismissed by generations of white Tulsans as a race “riot,” the May 31-June 1 events were marked this year by community memorials.
Oklahoma’s black Democratic Party chairwoman also condemned Trump’s rally plan. “A day set aside to commemorate the freedom of enslaved people must not be marred by the words or actions of a racist president,” Alicia Andrews said.
Community groups had earlier canceled a main Tulsa Juneteenth celebration because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Some black Tulsans said they planned to turn out for public protests of Trump on that day. “There’s definitely going to be demonstrating,” Gamble Smith said.