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Hurricane Ida recently landed in Louisiana and other parts of the Gulf Coast, bringing with it destructive winds and painful memories for those who endured Hurricane Katrina 16 years ago. I connected this post from Twitter to the perseverance of the American spirit. The people of New Orleans have faced enormous strife for many generations, including hurricanes that have left its citizens without power and sometimes even without a place to stay. This video shows a citizen of the city celebrating one of the most prominent parts of NOLA culture: music. The lone trumpet playing in the midst of a cleared-out French Quarter in the midst of Ida's landing is symbolic of the spirit of the people in New Orleans. In the face of something catastrophic, they find ways to uplift one another in the spirit of the city.

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December 8th, 1941, New York Times published this newspaper.

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When I went to Hawaii, I learned a lot about Pearl Harbor and how it affected society. Pearl Harbor was a devastating bombing that resulted in shock and devastation throughout the nation. I connected this occurrence to the perseverance of the American spirit because of the way it brought determination to U.S. citizens to make a change. After the devastating attack, Eleanor Roosevelt would give a speech on national radio declaring "We must go about our daily business more determined than ever to do the ordinary things as well as we can and when we find a way to do anything more in our communities to help others, to build morale, to give a feeling of security, we must do it." At the time, Hawaii was still a territory, but that did not restrain Americans from fighting as if it was their home soil. They took their pride as American citizens and fought for justice, even when Hawaii was not officially a state. This evidence shows how the American spirit and influential people helped many citizens persevere and stay hopeful through such a hard time in American history. - Tyseer Nabi

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I say this artwork that was created about 9/11, and I know 9/11 wasn’t within the last year. That doesn’t change the fact that I still think it is a great example of how American persevered through hard times. I like how the painting portrays 2 airplanes and the face of someone crying, and just from that you are able to grasp at the sense that this painting is about 9/11. I think the artist did a great job at taking the key details from this event and portraying them is such a way that you can tell what the painting is about.
By:Gloria

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Effects of materialism and advertisement

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Effects of materialism and advertisement

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I think when it comes to materialism and consumerism we as a people tend to always want more and more. And I think a very large part of this is advertisement. While looking at a news article for another topic the entire rest of the page was just ads. These large companies are so money hungry that they make it look like you need their product which is directly connected to consumerism. And because of the way our society is we feel that “yes we do need this product”. So because of the constant push of advertisement we constantly feel as if we need more “things” in our life. Doesn’t matter where you look, there will be advertisement everywhere. On the side of the road, in a bus or on every single website you visit. like in New York square where the entire thing is just a massive advertisement for anything you could possibly want.

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The era of Covid has been a hardship for all Americans. It has taken the lives of over six hundred thousand people in the U.S. Even if you’ve never actually caught it, the lockdowns and mandates has lead to high rates of depression and anxiety among Americans over the summer. Americans have tried their best to find the balance between normal life and Covid protection, more so over the summer and now than ever, though it is a very divisive topic in politics. Over the summer, the rates of the original virus have gone down. However, the rates of variants of Covid, most notably the delta variant. This topic best reflects how Americans have shown resilience in times of hardship. Even though it was a new and unexpected event at the time, and still is, many could say it has United Americans, though some would say it divided us based on how we believe we should control it. Either way, how we have reacted to the new variants over the summer is a good example of how we have persevered the American spirit and how Americans have shown resilience in times of hardship.

Photo: https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/coronavirus-variants-beyond-delta-new-covid-19-variants-lambda-covid-variant-mu-covid-variant-are-causing-alarm-2534735

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Throughout this summer and past few weeks COVID cases have risen tremendously, the government is still urging the youth and others to get vaccinated. Hospitals have filled up once again and things are going back to restrictions. Yet still people are keeping brave faces keeping precautions but still hoping things will get back to normal soon. Throughout these hard times we keep going and have shown resilience.

-Manal

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Connecting to the subject of how war has shaped American domestic culture, I have found recent details over the withdrawal from Afghanistan worth mentioning. In this time of war, the American spirit persevered, but many families also faced challenges as husbands went away to war, some never to return, while others did return, but were severely injured for life. An article I read this summer by the Washington Post related details about why America wanted to leave and why we wanted to focus on domestic issues more than foreign squabbles. It is worth noting how quickly the Taliban seized control after we left, to suggest that the Afghan people did not benefit from this war and wanted us gone. All of what has been said supports an essential theme about how America changes in a time of war. --Aren Burgoyne

by the way, I'm sorry that the article locks out because "you need to register", and hides away its picture, but it cannot be helped.

Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/biden-us-troop-withdrawal-afghanistan/2021/04/13/918c3cae-9beb-11eb-8a83-3bc1fa69c2e8_story.html)

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A U.S. soldier runs near a special forces unit of the Afghan National Army during a morning training session last year on a base near Kabul. (Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)

President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that drew the United States into its longest war.

The decision, which Biden is expected to announce Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country beyond the May 1 exit deadline that the Trump administration negotiated last year with the Taliban, according to a senior administration official who briefed reporters Tuesday under rules of anonymity set by the White House.

While the Taliban has promised to renew attacks on U.S. and NATO personnel if foreign troops are not out by the deadline - and said in a statement it would not continue to participate in "any conference" about Afghanistan's future until all "foreign forces" have departed - it is not clear whether the militants will follow through with the earlier threats given Biden's plan for a phased withdrawal between now and September. The Taliban has conducted sputtering talks with the Afghan government, begun under the Trump deal, since last fall. It was also invited to
an additional high-level inter-Afghan discussion in Turkey later this month.

How 20 years of war have reshaped Afghanistan's capital

Officially, there are 2,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, although the number fluctuates and is currently about 1,000 more than that. There are also up to an additional 7,000 foreign forces in the coalition there, the majority of them NATO troops.

Biden's decision comes after an administration review of U.S. options in Afghanistan, where U.S.-midwifed peace talks have failed to advance as hoped and the Taliban remains a potent force despite two decades of effort by the United States to defeat the militants and establish stable, democratic governance. The war has cost trillions of dollars in addition to the lives of more than 2,000 U.S. service members. At least 100,000 Afghan civilians have been injured or killed.

"This is the immediate, practical reality that our policy review discovered," said one person familiar with the closed-door deliberations who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy planning. "If we break the May 1st deadline negotiated by the previous administration with no clear plan to exit, we will be back at war with the Taliban, and that was not something President Biden believed was in the national interest."

The goal is to move to "zero" troops by September, the senior administration official said. "This is not conditions-based. The president has judged that a conditions-based approach . . . is a recipe for staying in Afghanistan forever. He has reached the conclusion that the United States will complete its drawdown and will remove its forces from Afghanistan before September 11th."

The decision highlights the trade-offs the Biden administration is willing to make to shift the U.S. global focus from the counterinsurgency campaigns that dominated the post-9/11 world to current priorities, including increasing military competition with China.

In addition to major domestic challenges, "the reality is that the United States has big strategic interests in the world," the person familiar with the deliberations said, "like nonproliferation; like an increasingly aggressive and assertive Russia; like North Korea and Iran, whose nuclear programs pose a threat to the United States;" like China. "The main threats to the American homeland are actually from other places: from Africa, from parts of the Middle East - Syria and Yemen."

"Afghanistan just does not rise to the level of those other threats at this point," the person said. "That does not mean we're turning away from Afghanistan. We are going to remain committed to the government, remain committed diplomatically. But in terms of where we will be investing force posture, our blood and treasure, we believe that other priorities merit that investment."

Reaction in Washington was divided. In a statement on the Senate floor, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called the plan "reckless" and "a grave mistake. It is retreat in the face of an enemy that has not yet been vanquished and abdication of American leadership."

McConnell pointed to a 2019 amendment - passed by a supermajority of senators when President Donald Trump called for full withdrawal from Syria - that requires the administration to "certify that conditions have been met for the enduring defeat of al-Qaeda and [the Islamic State] before initiating any significant withdrawal of United States forces from Syria or Afghanistan."

"Can President Biden certify that right now?" McConnell asked.

But while McConnell cited "broad political support" for an ongoing military presence in Afghanistan, other lawmakers called it the right decision.

"There are no good, easy decisions here," said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. "Given the options, I think this is the best choice."

"We cannot impose a solution on Afghanistan," Smith said in an interview. "I don't doubt for a second there is going to continue to be violence and turbulence," but the main transnational terrorist threat is now elsewhere. "We can only be in so many places. We have to make choices, and those choices are not easy. It's not as if we didn't put in the time in Afghanistan."

Some officials have warned that a U.S. exit will lead to the collapse of the Kabul government while jeopardizing gains made over the past two decades in health, education and women's rights.

Biden administration officials say the United States intends to remain closely involved in the peace process and will continue to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to the Afghan government and security forces, which remain almost totally dependent on foreign support.

"What we will not do is use our troops as bargaining chips," the senior official said.

"We went to Afghanistan to deliver justice to those who attacked us on September 11th. . . . We believe we achieved that objective some years ago," the senior official said, and now judge the threat to the United States "to be at a level that we can address it without a persistent military footprint."

The Afghanistan papers: A secret history of the war

Biden, who argued unsuccessfully during the Obama administration for a small, counterterrorism-focused presence, had already hinted that the United States would remain for only a limited time beyond the May 1 deadline.

Late last month, he said he did not expect U.S. troops to be deployed there next year. "We will leave," he said at a White House news conference. "But the question is when we leave."

Administration officials were in the process of notifying officials in NATO nations as well as Afghan officials and the Taliban on Tuesday. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, in a statement from his office, said he would have no comment until an upcoming phone call with Biden "to officially share details of the new withdrawal plan."

The senior official also said the Taliban was reminded of its commitments under the Trump deal and warned against attacking departing U.S. forces. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said the militants would officially respond "when the U.S. formally announces" its plans, presumably by Biden on Wednesday.

The official said the U.S. withdrawal would be fully coordinated with NATO and other coalition partners. Citing NATO's "in together, out together" mantra, the senior official said, "We will take the time we need to execute that, and no more time than that." The official said withdrawal would begin before May 1 and might well be completed before September.

Many NATO governments have said they have no desire or ability to remain without the logistical, security and other support the U.S. forces provide.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, in Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday, are informing their NATO counterparts. Germany has the second-largest force in Afghanistan, numbering over 1,000. Officials there have cautioned that they would need months to organize an orderly departure.

In early March, Blinken launched a last-ditch diplomatic effort to bring the Taliban and the Afghan government together to end the war with an interim power-sharing deal. He warned Ghani in a sharply worded letter that time was growing short.

The hope was to accelerate a negotiating process begun under Trump in 2019, when White House envoy Zalmay Khalilzad started talks with militant leaders in Doha, the capital of Qatar. That led to a February 2020 agreement signed by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo under which the United States pledged to withdraw its forces by May 1, 2021, in exchange for Taliban severance of all ties with al-Qaeda and agreement to begin negotiations with the Afghan government toward a cease-fire and peace accord.

While the inter-Afghan talks began in September, they have made little progress. At the same time, the Taliban has increased its attacks on Afghan troops and expanded its territorial control. As the new administration launched its review, the Pentagon and the United Nations reported that the militants had not complied with their commitments under the Trump agreement.

Many Afghan experts have concluded that the Taliban is moving closer to a military victory, but that it may be reluctant to take over as a pariah government, which could result in a loss of international support and financial aid for the country.

The war in Afghanistan shattered Biden's faith in American military power

Biden's choice was a stark one. With U.S. public opinion and Congress divided, staying could lead to political difficulties at home and renewed Taliban attacks on U.S. forces. But an abrupt American departure could undermine any achievements made in the past two decades, reduce the possibility of a peace deal and lead to a Taliban takeover.

John Sopko, the independent special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, warned Congress last month that U.S. withdrawal without a peace deal in place would be "a disaster" and mean government collapse. Others have warned of civil war, as regional warlords have amassed and armed their own forces.

Blinken's warning to Ghani, along with the interim government proposal, seemed to have little effect. He called for a conference of Taliban and Afghan leaders to take place in Turkey this month and a U.N.-convened meeting of regional governments, including Iran, along with the United States, to push diplomacy.

Although Turkey announced Tuesday that the Afghan meeting would go ahead on April 24, Mohammad Naeem, spokesman for the Taliban political office, said in a tweet Tuesday that "until all foreign forces completely withdraw from our homeland," the group would "not participate in any conference that shall make decisions about Afghanistan."

No U.N. meeting has been confirmed. Khalilzad's shuttle diplomacy among the Afghans and with regional leaders has yet to bring the two sides together in agreement.

The person familiar with the administration's deliberations rejected the suggestion that these apparent failures precipitated Biden's decision. The United States, the person said, would continue its diplomatic efforts to bring peace. But time had proved that the presence of U.S. troops, even at much higher levels, was not effective leverage at moving the parties beyond where they have been willing to go, he said.

Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.), a former CIA analyst and senior security official in administrations of both parties, said Congress would need a full accounting of plans to secure U.S. diplomats in Afghanistan and ensure that global extremists from al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are unable to gain renewed strength.

The senior official said any potential for a resurgence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, where U.S. intelligence assesses its presence as relatively small, "will be met with vigilance."

Drawing on the "lesson from Iraq," where the Islamic State turned into a major fighting force after the bulk of U.S. troops left, "we have to have the intelligence and military capabilities positioned in the region and the attention of our national security apparatus sufficiently focused to ensure" that if al-Qaeda "begins to emerge," the United States "will deal with it," the senior official said.

While officials said Biden would end the military mission entirely, they acknowledged that an undetermined number of troops would remain to secure the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, where diplomats would be vulnerable if security deteriorates in the Afghan capital.

During his campaign, Biden said his preference was to leave a counterterrorism force of about 1,500 troops in Afghanistan even as other forces withdrew. That now appears to be off the table.

But it's unclear how the administration may use civilian contractors and intelligence officials now working with military personnel to retain a capacity to discern and respond to extremist threats. The U.S. government has routinely assigned military personnel under CIA or other intelligence agency authority in overseas missions, allowing them to conduct certain activities without technically counting as part of a military footprint. The senior official declined to comment on the issue.

Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, a former secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the decision to leave was overdue. "I wouldn't say enough is enough," said Powell, who led George W. Bush's State Department during the 9/11 attacks and the beginning of the U.S. war in Afghanistan. "I'd say we've done all we can do. . . . What are those troops being told they're there for? It's time to bring it to an end."

The Soviet Union, which occupied Afghanistan for a decade until it abruptly withdrew in 1989, "did it the same way," Powell said. "They got tired, and they marched out and back home. How long did anybody remember that?"

Susannah George in Kabul contributed to this report.

Updated September 3, 2021

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Biden will withdraw all U.S. forces from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021

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President Biden will withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, U.S. officials said, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that drew the United States into its longest war. The decision, which Biden is expected to announce Wednesday, will keep thousands of U.S.

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Link: https://www.economist.com/by-invitation/2021/08/24/anne-marie-slaughter-on-why-americas-diversity-is-its-strength

This summer I got to visit my great-great uncle, and he shared an article with me from the Economist on the topic of the changing American identity. The main idea of the article was that America is becoming increasingly diverse. Based on said article we then had a conversation about how race, religion, gender, ethnicity, and social class continually shape our identities as Americans. We agreed that because America is a wonderful cornucopia of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, a singular American identity is impossible. Thus, we came to realize that the “American identity” is completely dependent on a citizen’s personal experience. My uncle observed that society’s influence on citizens’ experiences plays a crucial role in sculpting identities as well. When he married my aunt in the 1950s, for example, they received very negative responses from their respective families who belonged to different social classes, religions, and ethnicities. However, over the years relationships and marriages between segments of society have become more widely accepted. Moreover, such societal changes have made it possible for people to consider their identities more broadly. Therefore, the Economist article and subsequent conversation created a foundation for understanding that identities, especially in America, are always changing and dependent on a myriad of individual factors.

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One way wars, conflicts, and speculations with other groups and nations have affected the people of America beliefs’ is by making an American think  heavily against the Middle East area due to the amount of criticism it gets for having and being in many wars. When many children hear about war, battles, or groups such as the Taliban they start to relate those groups to being bad since they know that war is not good they connect that topic to the Taliban or the area of which it is happening. I saw this when the news about the United States pulling out their troops and soldiers from Afghanistan.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwj_y-71nPLyAhVIJt8KHX_nDysQFnoECBYQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F2021%2F08%2F24%2Fpolitics%2Ffirst-us-troops-leaving-afghanistan%2Findex.html&usg=AOvVaw1WJqng5Urr2LBE3D7wG5zW

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An example that is very relevant and recent is the COVID-19 pandemic. After being socially and physically distanced from one another during this time of hardship, many of us need more social connection. We began to find resilience in each other using the one thing we had, which was being online. So many people worked together to make empowering music, bring communities together, and start amazing movements to help empower one another. There was a sense of community because we knew that we were all going through the same thing.     -Ava W

Link: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/05/activism-in-times-of-covid-19/

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An example that is very relevant and recent is the COVID-19 pandemic. After being socially and physically distanced from one another during this time of hardship, many of us need more social connection. We began to find resilience in each other using the one thing we had, which was being online. So many people worked together to make empowering music, bring communities together, and start amazing movements to help empower one another. There was a sense of community because we knew that we were all going through the same thing.     -Ava W

Link: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2020/05/activism-in-times-of-covid-19/

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For the perseverance of the American spirit, over the summer I observed how many things were going back to normal after COVID. One of the more specific things I saw that made me think of this theme was America winning the summer Olympics. I hung out with some friends to watch the track and field portion of the olympics, and it reminded me of this theme.
- walker

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After 20+ years of having American soldiers in Afghanistan and then pretty suddenly taking them out a lot of Americans had different opinions on wether that was the correct decision to do. Blaming Joe  Biden and getting mad at what they did. On the other hand instead of placing blame I saw that Airbnb took matters into their own hands. The company is giving free housing to 20,000 refugees, I think this connects to the essential theme because even though it wasn’t directly happening to us (we aren’t in grave danger here) they still decided to help. Looking out for one another even if the people they helped weren’t Americans, they went out of their way to help. I think that’s what the American spirit is about.
-Claire Kohler

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Sophia Aschoff - “At Trader Joe’s in South Pasadena” from “Glory to all Fleeting Things” by S. Erin Bastiste

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Sophia Aschoff - “At Trader Joe’s in South Pasadena” from “Glory to all Fleeting Things” by S. Erin Bastiste

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At Trader Joe’s in South Pasadena is a poem that centers around the idea of how our past affects our present, specifically with the idea of racism. The focal point of this poem is a black woman who, as she lives her life normally in the present day, sees all the ways racism has shaped her identity through memories of her grandmother. I think this poem has to do with the theme of the changing identity of Americans because it describes how, while the way black Americans are seen in our society has changed drastically over the last 50 or so years, so much is still the same.

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Americans have shown resilience through the pandemic. They have shown empathy and compassion towards others by wearing their masks, being respectful of the distance between others, and staying inside and away from others during quarantine. The stores, schools, gyms, and restaurants had stayed open while covid continued to hit this nation for the sake of their workers and others who needed it. Also, the government has changed and put into effect different regulations to help keep the nation safe and help bring some money back to communities and families who are in desperate need. On social media, like Instagram, people share ways to keep safe and protected, new rules set into place, and vaccination and booster shot information. They continue to hope and push through these hard times, which further shows the resilience that Americans have.

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The preservation of the American spirit - Caden Anderson

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The preservation of the American spirit - Caden Anderson

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I saw how the American spirit was preserved in society this summer when I went to lake Harriet. We were walking around the lake and saw that there was a group playing at the band shell. Once we got closer we saw there were tons of people dancing in the front. This theme comes into play because there were all different kinds of people dancing together, kids, old people, millennials, all different races, genders, and ethnicities. This past year there has been a lot of disagreements and different opinions in society but this showed that even though we have differences, we can still come together as Americans and celebrate each other. This scene definitely showed me how Americans show resilience in times of hardship because everyone there had different opinions on things but were still able to accept each other. It was obvious that everyone was just enjoying being together especially after a long year of being isolated.

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Over the summer I read a book that was about an outbreak that wiped a most of the population and in the book the people that were left came together to form a village and made a life for them selves by helping each other. They stuck together through hard times and it turn formed a community. It reminded me a lot about COVID because a lot of Americans helped each other and aided in the success of lowering the cases. In the beginning we didn’t even have a vaccine and everyone was unsure of how the months would be to come. There was a lot of doubt and fear but a lot of people kept high spirits and persevered. As the pandemic continued a lot of Americans aided in the process going much better than it could have. We had healthcare workers risking their health to travel to other states and other cities to help people that were sick. We also had people were at home supporting small businesses and supporting others in need and when they were going through hard times. There were a lot of big issues that happened to the entire country but little by little, people from throughout the states were helping each other and building each other up. I believe this just demonstrated how much resilience  people showed and will continue to as well. Although COVID was and is a hard time in our history we have helped each other over come many challenges.
-Bertha

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Hurricane Ida was a devastating blow to Louisiana and caused serious amounts of damage. I was inspired by the resilience of the people of Louisiana for their acts of bravery and heroism before and after hurricane ida. From helping friends and family evacuate safely to random acts of kindness they showed to people that didn’t get off as easy in the presence of the hurricane. My family knows some people in Louisiana that endured the damage of hurricane ida and it inspired me how, after their school got severely damaged, they got back on their feet and wasn’t negative or angry but took it as a pause in life.These U.S. citizens showed great signs of American spirit and is why I put it in this theme. In the future or in times of hardship, I will try to show acts of American spirit just like the Louisiana citizens that lost their homes and property due to Hurricane Ida.

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One of the impacts of war was extremely visible during World War II through Rosie the Riveter. This summer, I went to Oshkosh Wisconsin for an air show. Oshkosh is the biggest gathering of aviation enthusiasts in the US, and it was super fun. In one of the souvenir shops, there was a whole wall of Rosie the Riveter action figures, magnets, and more. Seeing this reminded me how important Rose the Riveter and WWII were in changing the world of aviation for women. Rosie the Riveter was used as a way to get women to help support the war. Women helped build airplanes, pack ammunition, etc. and we’re for the first time in history, encouraged to do “men’s jobs”. This certainly changed the culture of America.
-Valerie Nelson

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This past summer on the Fourth of July the mask mandate ended in many states as well as the White House. This was a great representation of a milestone of the American people overcoming hardships due to COVID. Even though this did not mark the end of the fight it gave many Americans hope for the end. The use of the Fourth of July was great because it showed freedom and from the disease and began a new journey to try to completely rid it from the states . Thee way I saw this this summer was by living it because I was able to go out to eat and do activities without a mask for the first time in a long time.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/04/fourth-of-july-us-celebrates-white-house-event
-Cameron Borgendale

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This summer while I was visiting Minneapolis I saw some graffiti and art on the boards of a building. The first piece reads “I hope you hear inside my voice of someone sorrow and that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow.” This short but powerful quote reminded of the last year and how many  people with similar beliefs banded together and protested against the tragic death of George Floyd. I feel that this quote really relates towards the.need for change when it comes to how Black people in our community and across America are treated by police forces and other members  of government. The people who took to the streets and peacefully protested to me are true American hero’s because they helped change and shape our future for the better.. Because  of how people collaborated together we were able to get change and also made sure that Derek chauvin was able to have a trial and was arrested. I think that in this case the people used there freedom of speech to  demand positive change.   Libby regan

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In the picture above, Gable Steveson (Minnesota wrestler) just barely got team U.S.A the gold during the last few seconds of his match. Over these past chaotic years, it appeared that safety precautions and social conflicts within our country had dimmed the “American spirit”,  leaving many feeling disconnected from the core beliefs of what America claimed to be founded off of. The 2021 Olympics seemed to be a small light shining, that guided many Americans back to a place of unity. This lead me to believe that this was a great example of one of our essential themes, the perseverance of the American spirit. Millions of Americans watched as our country collected gold after gold. As the events unfolded from our devices, it gave way for more uplifting conversations to be had. In the end, America came out on top with 39 gold medals and an overall 113 medals, giving us all a reason to reflect. Though many are not currently proud of the state of our country, the 2021 Olympics reminded us that we can acknowledge the faults in our country while also supporting some of the advances this country has made.

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My theme is impact of war on domestic culture. There has been a large output of news on the recent issue of the Taliban in Afghanistan. I have observed many various opinions on the matter some positive some negative. These sources were mainly news broadcasts on networks such as nbc. The way this war impacts Americans is it is creating a divide in people. Some people believe we are doing the right thing and others believe the opposite, which, creates division.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RByA_9IxdR93T_QDvhL9noyxNhn58AE017gsl4OvCMg/edit
I’ve watched and read many people say to others who don’t have a job or education to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and live the “American dream”. This saying fueled by the economic idea that America will support you and anything is attainable.The “American dream” is a big part of American values  saying you can do anything but saying to pull yourself up by your bootstraps is an impossible thing to do. The phrase was made as a way to say that thing was impossible or absurd. The meaning was changed to mean that it was attainable the origin however contradicts the “American dream” and that it can be attainable. It contradicts American values whenever you connect it to that.
Annika S

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10 Honors American Studies Summer Requirements 2022

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Recently, I learned about the new abortion ban coming into effect in Texas.

https://www.npr.org/2021/09/01/1033202132/texas-abortion-ban-what-happens-next

I connected this to our main theme of the limitations and subsequent establishment of civil rights and liberties in American society because this is a very clear and recent example of a limitation of reproductive rights. The ban makes abortions after a heartbeat can be detected (about six weeks) effectively illegal; by that time, a person may not even know yet that they’re pregnant.

This is another way that our country has, and continues to, fall short of its founding ideals of liberty. Anti-abortion laws such as this one restrict, and in some cases completely take away, a person’s right to decide what’s best for their own life and their own body.

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What the Texas abortion ban does — and what it means for other states

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The law bans abortions as early as six weeks after conception and allows Texans to sue anyone who aids, abets or performs an abortion past that mark.

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Israel’s occupation of Palestine has been going on for decades, but the issue hasn’t been getting the media coverage it deserves until fairly recently. Model Bella Hadid has been very vocal about the topic. Hadid herself is Palestinian, and she voices her opinion very strongly and passionately. She has raised so much awareness, attended rallies and protests, informed and educated a countless number of times, and she has posted sources and donation sites for people to help out.

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7 charts that show the glaring gap between men's and women's salaries in the US 

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I came across this article while on the internet. It explains that all while doing the same exact job with the same exact quality of job, women still aren’t getting paid enough. Women haven’t earned the same as men since 1979, the first year with data available to the world. Our jobs are apart of our identities, as we go to them everyday and work, come back home, and do it all over again the next day. Race is also a huge component to the amount you are being paid, which shows that more progress needs to be made in America.

- Amelia C

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March 15, 2022 is Equal Pay Day, which reflects how many extra days women had to work to make as much as men did in 2021.

The gender wage gap persists, and women make 83 cents for every dollar a man makes.

These charts show the gap in pay varies widely based on location, race, and several other factors.

Equal Pay Day reflects how many extra days women have to work to earn what men did in the previous year. This year's Equal Pay Day falls on March 15.

Over half a century after the US passed the Equal Pay Act, American women still face a substantial gender wage gap across the spectrum.

Overall, women who were full-time, year-round employees made 83 cents for every dollar men made in 2020, based on median earning data from the Census Current Population Survey. That means women are paid about 17% less than men.

But as the National Women's Law Center pointed out in a new fact sheet about the pay gap, the pandemic's impact on employment especially affected people earning low pay. For instance, the leisure and hospitality sector, a low-paying industry made up of restaurants and hotels, faced a wave of pandemic-related business closures and drop in demand for these services.

"Because the women who remained in the labor force and worked full time for all of 2020 often had higher earnings than their counterparts who lost their jobs, 2020's data gives the appearance of closing wage gaps for some groups of women compared to 2019," the National Women's Law Center's Jasmine Tucker wrote in the fact sheet.

Rose Khattar, associate director of rapid response and analysis at the Center for American Progress, previously told Insider in an email that unpaid hours in caregiving and occupational segregation are reasons behind the pay gap between men and women.

There are other potential explanations.

"There are a multitude of factors that may contribute to earnings differences between women and men: age, number of hours worked, presence of children, and education," Megan Wisniewski of the Census Bureau wrote in a post. "The types of jobs women and men hold, and the earnings difference among these occupations also contribute to gaps in overall earnings."

The following charts highlight the pay gap between men and women in the US.

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These 8 charts show the glaring gap between men's and women's salaries in the US

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March 15 is Equal Pay Day, representing the extra days into a new year that a typical woman needs to work to make what a man made the previous year.

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COVID19 has affected and changed the lives of many people. People lost their jobs and homes, and maybe even lost some family members or friends to the virus. Throughout isolation, our means of communication were greatly reduced, the only way to talk to friends and family was over the internet. Many schools started teaching online, where students go to class on a google meet or zoom call.  Though things were looking down, Americans were still hopeful a vaccine would come out and COVID would end. We stayed indoors, wore masks, and stayed 6 feet apart from each other, doing our best to protect the lives of ourselves and the people around us. Luckily, scientists found a cure. This summer, I had time to reflect of how crazy the past year was. After getting the vaccine after school ended, I realized, we could stop wearing masks in certain places and we could go outside again. Things started getting better, and life is starting to go back to normal again.
-Lauren Lamb

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Cincinnati is located on the Ohio river. The river is a big reason why Cincinnati exists. It allows easy transportation of bulk goods. This drew a lot of business and people to the city, and created a booming economy. Multiple bridges have been constructed to allow people to commute to work from suburbs in both Kentucky and Ohio as Cincinnati grew. These bridges have increased prosperity in the city and surrounding areas.

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How does race continue to shape our identities as Americans? Molly Kingston

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How does race continue to shape our identities as Americans? Molly Kingston

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Over the summer I read a book that included fascinating theories on how we shape ourselves as Americans towards race. One quote that came to my attention by Audre Lord in 1980: “We have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy if we think it is dominant or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals”. This quotes brings attention to the subconscious racism that shape most Americans. While the racism shapes the identities of Americans who create separation.

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a "groundbreaking" (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society-and in ourselves.
"The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind."-The New York Times
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review * Time * NPR * The Washington Post * Shelf Awareness * Library Journal * Publishers Weekly * Kirkus Reviews
Antiracism is a transformative concept that reorients and reenergizes the conversation about racism-and, even more fundamentally, points us toward liberating new ways of thinking about ourselves and each other. At its core, racism is a powerful system that creates false hierarchies of human value; its warped logic extends beyond race, from the way we regard people of different ethnicities or skin colors to the way we treat people of different sexes, gender identities, and body types. Racism intersects with class and culture and geography and even changes the way we see and value ourselves. In How to Be an Antiracist, Kendi takes readers through a widening circle of antiracist ideas-from the most basic concepts to visionary possibilities-that will help readers see all forms of racism clearly, understand their poisonous consequences, and work to oppose them in our systems and in ourselves.

Kendi weaves an electrifying combination of ethics, history, law, and science with his own personal story of awakening to antiracism. This is an essential work for anyone who wants to go beyond the awareness of racism to the next step: contributing to the formation of a just and equitable society.
Praise for How to Be an Antiracist
"Ibram X. Kendi's new book, How to Be an Antiracist, couldn't come at a better time. . . . Kendi has gifted us with a book that is not only an essential instruction manual but also a memoir of the author's own path from anti-black racism to anti-white racism and, finally, to antiracism. . . . How to Be an Antiracist gives us a clear and compelling way to approach, as Kendi puts it in his introduction, 'the basic struggle we're all in, the struggle to be fully human and to see that others are fully human.' ""Kendi dissects why in a society where so few people consider themselves to be racist the divisions and inequalities of racism remain so prevalent. How to Be an Antiracist punctures the myths of a post-racial America, examining what racism really is-and what we should do about it." -Time

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1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the National Book Award-winning author of Stamped from the Beginning comes a "groundbreaking" (Time) approach to understanding and uprooting racism and inequality in our society-and in ourselves."The most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind."-The New York

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A link about America’s materialistic society in the clothing industry and example.

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A link about America’s materialistic society in the clothing industry and example.

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American Values: The Role Of Materialism In American Society

I read this article that talked about how America is becoming increasingly more materialistic in the clothing industry, and that it was affecting people’s expectations for clothes. This connects to theme number four because of how it talks about popular brands in America that sell basic things such as jeans, shirts, or belts at such a high price to make people feel “expensive” or “privileged” for buying those things. One example is this Gucci belt for $530. It’s just a belt, but it sells at a high price to make people feel like they need to meet the expectation of getting these expensive clothes for personal status. People then want more and more items that look expensive even though the functionality of the item nowhere near measures up to the price. However, people purchase these clothes because they are a symbol of economic status.

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https://civilrights.org/2021/06/29/civil-rights-leaders-demand-results-in-george-floyd-justice-in-policing-act-negotiations/
How and why have civil rights both been denied and protected. 11 months ago many Americans watched the murder of George Floyd all over social media. In March-April of 2021 the police officers involved were convicted on all counts. Many will view this as indictment of the policing system as a whole, but this conviction was just one of many. This was just one conviction, but what we really want and need is accountability for the system as a whole. The “bad apple” narrative gets magnified, individualizing the court system and letting institutions that are just as guilty off the hook. Police brutality has been common for years now, with rarely ever any consequences for those a part of the system. The George Floyd justice in policing act was created to combat police misconduct, excessive force, and racial bias in policing and though it has passed the house, it has not yet been voted on by the senate. I feel like passing a bill like this shouldn’t even be a question. Many people are choosing to ignore the systemic racism that is and has always been prevalent in America, in some way denying poc of the civil rights they deserve as American citizens.

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The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Don Owens, Lawyers' Committee,[email protected] , (202) 934-1880
Juan Martinez, NAACP Legal Defense Fund,[email protected] , (212) 956-2200
Stephen Peters, The Leadership Conference,[email protected] , (202) 466-1887
Teresa Candori, National Urban League,[email protected] , (212) 558-5362
Angelo Greco, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation/Black Women's Roundtable,[email protected] , (917) 499-2688
Rachel Noerdlinger, National Action Network,[email protected] , (347) 821-9678
Jonah Bryson, NAACP, jbryson@naacpnet.org, (647) 530-6641
Tkeban Jahannes, NCNW, Inc.,[email protected] , 404-944-1615

We appreciate the efforts of lawmakers leading the negotiations around the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. We were heartened to see the U.S. House of Representatives pass a strong version of the bill last year and again this year. Yet, more than a year after George Floyd was murdered and weeks after a draft bill was circulated, the U.S. Senate still has not agreed on key provisions of the bill. Congress must deliver justice. We collectively demand that Congress honor its commitment to produce a final bill that can pass the House and Senate before the end of June and ensure a strong George Floyd Justice in Policing Act is passed before the August recess.

The nation desperately needs a transformation of policing policies and practices - from inner cities to suburban neighborhoods to rural counties. The only way to begin this process is with federal legislation that sets meaningful standards and removes legal impediments to holding officers accountable for unconstitutional policing practices. The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act was conceived and created with a focus on accountability and contains provisions overwhelmingly supported by the American people. This vital civil rights legislation is long overdue.

There are many in law enforcement who agree that meaningful change is necessary. However, there are a few factions within the law enforcement community who do not want meaningful change or accountability. They are committed to standing in the way of a bill moving forward, and their allies in Congress are allowing this obstruction to happen.

Law enforcement should not dictate the terms of, or have the power to stall, comprehensive police accountability legislation. The murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Elijah McClain, the violent assaults of Jacob Blake, Rodney King, Abner Louima and of too many others in communities of color were caused by a culture that allows police officers to act with impunity by failing to hold them accountable for their actions. The logical and necessary response is strong civil rights legislation that breaks through this culture to create meaningful change.

Congress must pass a strong police accountability measure that will address misconduct head-on, not a bill that tinkers around the edges of justice and responsibility. Meaningful legislation must hold police officers accountable for acts of excessive force, sexual misconduct, and obstruction of justice. It must put in place a path for those impacted by police misconduct to seek justice in our court system and external oversight measures that hold both officers and municipalities accountable. It must deter misconduct by allowing liability and damages that take into account the seriousness of these crimes. It must require data collection on police misconduct and set national standards for policing. It must ensure that the Department of Justice has the tools it needs to enforce the nation's civil rights laws when they are violated by law enforcement officers.

After so many took to the streets to peacefully march for justice for George Floyd and too many others, Congress must make good on its promise to the nation to meaningfully reform policing. The nation is tired of waiting. Congress must move forward on negotiations by the end of this month and pass a strong George Floyd Justice in Policing Act before leaving for August recess.

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Please ensure Javascript is enabled for purposes of website accessibility

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Civil Rights Leaders Demand Results in George Floyd Justice in Policing Act Negotiations - The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts: Don Owens, Lawyers' Committee,[email protected] , (202) 934-1880 Juan Martinez, NAACP Legal Defense Fund,[email protected] , (212) 956-2200 Stephen Peters, The Leadership Conference,[email protected] , (202) 466-1887 Teresa Candori, National Urban League,[email protected] , (212) 558-5362 Angelo Greco, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation/Black Women's Roundtable,[email protected] , (917) 499-2688 Rachel Noerdlinger, National Action Network,[email protected] , (347) 821-9678 Jonah Bryson, NAACP, jbryson@naacpnet.org, (647) 530-6641 Tkeban Jahannes, NCNW, Inc.,[email protected] , 404-944-1615 We appreciate the efforts of lawmakers leading the negotiations around the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

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A couple of weeks back I watched the 1983 film “wargames”, where a kid buys a computer and begins to play a strategy game, called wargames. Unknowingly, however, the “game” is actually a top secret US military program ran by a supercomputer he gained access to that is used to predict Soviet missile launches and impact points. It’s a pretty good movie, eif a little cheesy. The movie, however, is also a perfect example of how the Cold War had affected the US’s culture. The high tension between the US and the soviets had become so ingrained in the minds of the citizens of the US that it had become a part of everything; books, movies, and even beliefs. During the Cold War, a common thing to do was to blame anything that the general public was contested on to be the work of communism. This period was called the “red scare,” and was really similar to how people would blame things on witchcraft around the 1600-1800’s. Even today, while obviously not as prominent, we still get movies and other forms of media where the soviets are the bad guys. It really shows how much the Cold War had and has affected the culture in the states.

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Simone Biles is a gold medal winning Olympian who recently talked about being one of the dozens of women who were sexually abused by the former USA gymnastics doctor, Larry Nassar. She says in a Facebook series that she faced depression after the abuse but she knew she had to return to the 2021 Olympics because she didn’t want the news to be forgotten, she wanted a person who faced the abuse to be at the Olympics so she did just that. She showed perseverance despite what she had been through, even though she ended up putting her mental health first and withdrawing I believe that she showed great American spirit.

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How the negative impact of COVID on the economy is keeping people from getting back financial security 

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How the negative impact of COVID on the economy is keeping people from getting back financial security 

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Name: Lily Kowal

Theme: The impact of the economy on America in times of poverty and prosperity

The beginning of COVID led many people to lose their jobs, and now, for many people it is still difficult to build up financial security again. This summer I read this article online after having a discussion with my friend about the impacts of COVID. The article said that the lack of ability to build financial security again is due to two reasons: many people are not able to get jobs back, and property values/asset values are going up. Many people are still not able to get their jobs back after losing them at the start of COVID, especially people in minority groups. Many workers in the service industry are also having trouble getting their jobs back. Housing values and stock market values have risen greatly since the start of covid, also affecting the problem. People who owned property and stocks at the beginning of COVID are now prospering, as the value has gone up, however people who did not own property at the beginning of COVID are being very negatively affected, as it is now more difficult to find affordable housing, and rent is only going up. This, combined with the difficulty to get lost jobs back, has deepened the divide between social classes and people experiencing poverty and prosperity. This relates back to the topic because the negative impact that covid had on the economy caused many people to lose jobs, which they are now having trouble getting back, and it made it so that people who don’t own property are now facing rising rent and property prices.

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Welcome to the Covid Economy, CNBC Make It's deep dive into how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting all areas of our lives, from to housing, health care to small business. We're focusing on North Carolina, a swing state that has seen rapid economic growth - and growing inequality - since the last recession to learn how residents are weathering the economic consequences of this once-in-a-lifetime health crisis.
Experts, who have been trying to sound the alarm on the growing economic inequality in the United States for the past few decades, are seeing their worst fears realized during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since mid-March, tens of millions of Americans across the country have lost their jobs as a result of the economic fallout from the pandemic. No group has been spared: men and women, young and old, Black and White.

But as the economy starts to recover, some groups are faring significantly worse than others, including Blacks, Hispanics, millennials, mothers and low-wage workers in the service industry. They are not returning to work at the same rate as White professional workers.

The same groups, ironically, are also overrepresented in frontline industries that were deemed essential during the peak of the crisis, including health care, child care, cleaning services and grocery stores. In North Carolina, these frontline workers are 65% women and around 30% Black, according to the North Carolina Budget and Tax Center, disproportionate to the percentage of the total workforce those two groups account for.

Economic recessions never impact every group the same. But the degree to which Black and White workers are seeing their fortunes diverge post-Covid is one of the reasons many economists have deemed the ongoing recovery "K-shaped."

While White Americans have recovered more than half of the jobs they lost between February and April, Black Americans have recovered only around one-third. As recovery drags on, the coronavirus recession has turned into the most unequal in modern U.S. history.

"The recession is almost over for white collar jobs with good benefits," says Patrick McHugh, research manager at the nonpartisan North Carolina Budget and Tax Center. "But we're still a long way away from recovering for people in the middle, and particularly low wage jobs."

Even before the Covid-19 crisis, many North Carolinians, like many Americans generally, still hadn't fully recovered from the Great Recession.

While the number of white collar jobs in the financial and tech sectors have grown in the state over the past decade, job growth in mid-income industries like manufacturing has been stagnant.

"A lot of the other job growth was in extremely low paying positions that don't have real opportunities for career advancement and would come with entirely meager benefits, if any," says McHugh.

With those middle-income jobs disappearing, many individuals, especially Black workers, settled for lower paying work and have not been able to build up the assets they would need to cushion another financial blow: Before coronavirus, 42% of North Carolina households would have been unable to cover all of their expenses for three months without assistance, including 33% of White households and 63% of Black households.

Covid-19 has decimated those low-wage industries. Temporary furloughs in these fields are turning into permanent job loss. Long-term unemployment is on the rise.

We have to get a handle on income disparity. This will not be a society that anybody wants to live in if we don't get a handle on providing a better deal for working people in the bottom half of the income spectrum.

Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy

"We have to get a handle on income disparity," says Ken Schorr, executive director of the Charlotte Center for Legal Advocacy, based in Charlotte, NC. "This will not be a society that anybody wants to live in if we don't get a handle on providing a better deal for working people in the bottom half of the income spectrum."

Centuries of systemic racism have made the financial outcomes disproportionately worse for Black and Hispanic Americans, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis reported earlier this month.

Black Americans, especially, have been kept from higher-paying white collar jobs, and are over-represented in the service and hospitality sectors, which have borne the brunt of the coronavirus layoffs. That is further bifurcating the U.S. economy.

Across the country, just 20% of Black workers are able to work from home, compared to 30% of White workers and 37% of Asian workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute. While white collar professionals work remotely, service industry workers must go to work and risk being exposed to Covid-19 or go without income at all.

Racism forms the foundation of inequality in our society, and it threatens our economy and limits economic opportunity for people of color.

Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis

"Racism forms the foundation of inequality in our society, and it threatens our economy and limits economic opportunity for people of color," the Fed wrote.

And not only are Black workers more likely to lose their jobs, they are also more likely to have their unemployment insurance claims denied by their employers and more likely to receive less aid when they do get approved, according to research from Nyanya Browne and William Spriggs of Howard University.

That's no accident. It's "the legacy of white supremacy" in North Carolina, says McHugh. States with higher populations of Black residents, especially in the South, have slashed unemployment insurance budgets and intentionally designed the systems so that they are more difficult to access, he says.

Even more stark are the health disparities. Black Americans are disproportionately dying of Covid-19. In fact, APM Research Lab estimates that the virus is responsible for the death of 1 in 920 Black Americans, compared to 1 in 1,840 White Americans. The age-adjusted Covid-19 mortality rate is 3.2 times as high for Black Americans as it is for Whites.

"Inequality has been building for decades, and the pandemic ripped it open," says Schorr.

Another Covid-19 recovery package from the federal government is necessary to help the 23 million Americans still without work and keep inequality from growing even worse.

The CARES Act, passed in March, included $2 trillion in enhanced unemployment, stimulus checks for individuals, food assistance and much more. Aid was disbursed quickly and was well-targeted to those who needed it, say the experts interviewed for this article. Fewer people fell into poverty than would have been expected, according to recent research from Columbia University.

But now many of the most helpful provisions have expired. Yet the crisis is ongoing, and though some jobs have come back, the recovery has flat lined. Meanwhile, Congress has been negotiating another deal for months but has so far been unable to agree on what to include in the next aid package.

Without more relief, everyone loses, says Eliza Forsythe, a labor economist and assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Some economists believe if we had been more proactive, we could have gotten back to recovery faster," says Forsythe. "The CARES Act was really successful in terms of mitigating the effects. But we're not giving [workers] more support. That prolongs the recovery."

Enhanced unemployment benefits, a sticking point of the negotiations between Democrats and Republicans in Congress, are important. They helped prop up the economy in the early months of the crisis, says Forsythe, ensuring families could pay all of their bills. Without them, households are falling behind.

Just as important as the benefits themselves is the continuity of providing them, says Megan Curran, a researcher at the Columbia Center on Poverty and Social Policy. Households need the short- and long-term assurance that they will have income.

"We know that when families are experiencing huge fluctuations in income, it can have a [domino]effect. It can lead to them losing their homes, or to debt that can end up costing them way more than the original bill," says Curran. "Without action even more folks are going to be losing out."

Federal assistance for state and local governments is also crucial, says North Carolina Budget and Tax Center's McHugh. With tax revenues down across the country, this would allow local governments to offer more aid to their citizens.

Now is the time to think big, says William Darity, a professor of public policy at Duke University. The virus has demonstrated the need for an expanded national health-care program and a federal jobs guarantee.
CNBC Make It will be publishing more stories in this series each week in October. If you live in North Carolina and are interested in sharing your experiences related to the pandemic, please email reporter Alicia Adamczyk at Don't miss: Chase Sapphire Preferred is offering a massive 80,000-point bonus for a limited time alicia.adamczyk@nbcuni.com.
The latter would essentially be a national payroll to ensure people could have income whenever there was a need, not on the "sporadic basis" Congress is providing now, says Darity. Nationalized health care would mean that if people lost their jobs, they wouldn't automatically lose their health insurance.

Without more relief, inequality in the U.S. will continue to grow. That hurts individuals and families, and the economy as a whole.

"The data is clear that the need is high," says Curran. "As a poverty researcher, we're trying to sound the alarm here. We know action that was taken earlier this year worked, but we know that it wasn't enough and we know that families need more. Congress can do something, but they need to take action."

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Inequality has been building for decades in the U.S., but experts say the pandemic 'ripped it open'

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Welcome to the Covid Economy, CNBC Make It's deep dive into how the coronavirus pandemic is impacting all areas of our lives, from to housing, health care to small business . We're focusing on North Carolina, a swing state that has seen rapid economic growth - and growing inequality - since the last recession to learn how residents are weathering the economic consequences of this once-in-a-lifetime health crisis.

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Plymouth Covenant Church (the words on the board don’t have to do with war)

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This summer, I documented an example of the impact of war on domestic culture, specifically the effect of the Afghan war on my life. Only a few weeks ago, with the evacuation of American troops from Afghanistan, did I become aware of the war; I learned even more about it when I arrived at my youth group and my pastor’s sermon focused on it. He informed us about what was occurring in the country and why the Taliban and Afghans conflicted so traumatically. He also explained how we teenagers can be aware of, care about, and pray for the war and the Afghan people. This connects to the theme of war because it demonstrates that the war has become a household word as of late; it is the subject of discussion among families and was directly incorporated by my pastor into the lives (or at least minds) of all the teenagers who were listening. It has indeed affected my beliefs and behaviors; I pray and think about the issue daily now and sometimes read news about it; I have begun to gain a deeper understanding of what the bad parts of the world are really like.

Since I was unable to take a picture of a scene from the sermon, the photo is a picture of my church to represent the effect it has had on my everyday life.

By Sophie H.

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I learned through various articles, Instagram posts, and news stories that Texas has recently created a law banning abortions after the fetus has a detectable heartbeat, which is only around 6 weeks after it has been conceived. Women are enraged across the country as laws are being created for their bodies by those who should not have a say. People have begun protesting as they do not find it fair or equal that men are getting to decide what is right for people who have a uterus. They feel violated and are doubting their rights and places as US citizens. People are banding together through times of adversity to fight for their civil rights and freedom to choose for their own bodies. This also involves America’s social and religious ideals placed on women which limit and reduce women to men’s expectations.

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https://twitter.com/i/events/1402637550460674048

On June 9th on Twitter I read a post stating that President Biden’s Department of Justice said it could strongly defend religious exceptions from the federal civil rights law. That of which allows federally funded religious discrimination against LGBTQ students. This connects to Civil Rights and Liberties because it provides further protection of discrimination against the LGBTQIA+ community. Considering religion isn’t one unified group and there’s various types, it isn’t right that the community should be blocked out of religion because of who they are and what they’re personal lives may be with. It’s not effecting anyone else except them, so really, why is it so profoundly wrong in the first place? Because of who a person is no less, something they can only discover, not choose. Following which, the Supreme Court also has a case about same sex couples adopting. Which again, if anyone fit is able to support a kid, why wouldn’t same sex couples be fit too?This is very fixed into the theme of denied Civil Rights which brings in the standard of if any minority is considered equal in the country’s eyes as a whole It puts our country and its views back a few decades or centuries, and disrupts the progress the community has made thus far.

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There were protests at the Minnesota capital to stop pipeline 3 from being built. Many people are trying to stop the pipeline from being built because it would go through territory’s and the people of those territories have been told that they have the right to own government therefore they should be able to refuse to let them build it in their land however the US has still not stopped it. During the protest the police showed up and some were arrested however some were able to stay for the were in ceremony/ pray circle.
-Liliana

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Over the summer, I watched the movie “In the Heights”, which is based off of a Broadway musical with the same name.  It’s about the community living in Washington Heights, New York, and the hardships that they face.  “In the Heights” is one of my favorite musicals because it shows how even though they are faced with challenges, the Latin community still celebrates and enjoys life through dancing, music, and spending time together.  They lift each other up and are able to persevere.

-Adilynn Cardenas

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/08/17/afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-war-on-terror/

This summer, we received news that all US forces had pulled out of Afghanistan, with the Afghan government having collapsed. In light of this news, many Americans began to think about the 20 year long war in a new light. Just within my own family, several family members expressed their disdain for the war and how they believed that this conflict was drawn-out and unnecessary, a sentiment shared by many on social media. Overall, the rushed evacuation of American troops has caused many Americans to develop a more cynical, negative view on both this war and the US’s involvement in global conflicts as a whole.

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I think the pandemic is a great example of the American spirit, because the pandemic was hard being quarantined. But a lot of Americans found ways to still be strong, people picked new hobbies, people mastered google meets, people still found ways around it and stayed connected and somewhat cheerful. And thats why I think the pandemic brought out the American spirit- Emilie Mortensen

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/nyregion/nypd-9-11-police-surveillance.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/us/politics/scotus-abortion-decision.html I connected these articles to the limitations and subsequent establishment of civil rights in American society because these are examples of rights being taken away currently. Throughout 2020 and 2021 we have seen so much struggle and hardships faced against many different groups of people. This essential theme connects well with the following articles because with everything that has happened and is continuing to happen, basic rights and liberties are being taken away because of others actions and judgments. These links include different groups of people who are making choices and decisions for others that are limiting rights and therefore making their lives harder and more of a struggle. The government, police officers, influencers, and more high status people are creating a more difficult time for POC, women, LGBTQ+, and other citizens by taking their rights and life decisions away because of what they think is best for themselves and other highly ranked people. These groups may be benefiting themselves, but they aren’t taking what others may have to endure as time goes on and more rights continue to be taken away. -CeCe Nesseth

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Police officials say they are obligated to use every tool at their disposal to fight crime. But critics say the expansive surveillance dragnet is ensnaring everyday New Yorkers. Credit... Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Two decades after the attack on New York City, the Police Department is using counterterrorism tools and tactics to combat routine street crime.

Police officials say they are obligated to use every tool at their disposal to fight crime. But critics say the expansive surveillance dragnet is ensnaring everyday New Yorkers. Credit... Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

It was an unusual forearm tattoo that the police said led them to Luis Reyes, a 35-year-old man who was accused of stealing packages from a Manhattan building's mailroom in 2019.

But the truth was more complicated: Mr. Reyes had first been identified by the New York Police Department's powerful facial recognition software as it analyzed surveillance video of the crime.

His guilty plea this year was not solely the result of keen-eyed detectives practicing old school police work. Instead, it was part of the sprawling legacy of one of the city's darkest days.

Since the fall of the World Trade Center, the security apparatus born from the Sept. 11 attack on the city has fundamentally changed the way the country's largest police department operates, altering its approach to finding and foiling terrorist threats, but also to cracking minor cases like Mr. Reyes's.

New Yorkers simply going about their daily lives routinely encounter post-9/11 digital surveillance tools like facial recognition software, license plate readers or mobile X-ray vans that can see through car doors. Surveillance drones hover above mass demonstrations and protesters say they have been questioned by antiterrorism officers after marches. The department's Intelligence Division, redesigned in 2002 to confront Al Qaeda operatives, now uses antiterror tactics to fight gang violence and street crime.

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The department's Technical Assistance Response Unit operates a drone fleet that was announced in 2018. Credit... Uli Seit for The New York Times

Policing technology has always advanced along with the world at large. And the police have long used surveillance cameras to find suspects caught on video, publicizing images of people and asking the public for help identifying them. But both supporters and critics of the shift say it is almost impossible to overstate how profoundly the attacks changed American policing - perhaps most acutely in New York, which lost 23 of its own officers that day, and hundreds more from 9/11-related illnesses in the years since.

The Police Department has poured resources into expanding its surveillance capabilities. The department's budget for intelligence and counterterrorism has more than quadrupled, spending more than $3 billion since 2006, and more through funding streams that are difficult to quantify, including federal grants and the secretive Police Foundation, a nonprofit that funnels money and equipment to the department from benefactors and donors.

Current and former police officials say the tools have been effective in thwarting dozens of would-be attacks. And the department has an obligation, they say, to repurpose its counterterrorism tools for everyday crime fighting.

"It's what everybody would want us to be doing," said John Miller, the deputy commissioner for the Police Department's Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureaus, "instead of just saying, 'Well, these were just for counterterrorism. So if it's not a bombing we're not going to use them. I'm sorry you got mugged.'"

But others say the prevalence of the department's technological arsenal subjects ordinary New Yorkers to near-constant surveillance - a burden that falls more heavily on people of color. According to one estimate from a recent analysis by Amnesty International that was shared with The New York Times, a person attending a protest between Washington Square Park and Sixth Avenue - a common route through the park and into the city for protests after the death of George Floyd last summer - would be captured on the Police Department's array of Argus video cameras for about 80 percent of that march.

Eric Adams, the Brooklyn borough president and the heavy favorite to become the city's next mayor, said in an interview that he intends to audit and re-evaluate how counterterrorism and surveillance resources are deployed and used in the city.

"I'm a believer in using technology to keep us safe," said Mr. Adams, a former New York City police captain. "I don't believe in using technology to dismantle our rights that exist in our country."

Derrick Ingram was accused of speaking into a bullhorn near an officer at a protest. The police descended on his home with a response he said would have been appropriate for a terror attack. Credit... Laila Stevens for The New York Times

Derrick Ingram remembers the laser - that red dot, hovering in his bedroom, trained there by an armed police officer posted across the courtyard from his apartment last summer.

"It was one of the most intense experiences," he said.

The police had identified Mr. Ingram using facial recognition tools they applied to his Instagram profile, intercepted his phone calls and used drones to peer inside his apartment. Dozens of officers descended. The response seemed suited to a terrorist threat, Mr. Ingram said.

But Mr. Ingram, an organizer and activist, was not a terrorism suspect. Officers were seeking him in connection with his participation in a protest, where they said he spoke through a bullhorn near the ear of a patrolwoman, causing her temporary hearing loss. He would later be charged with assault of a police officer - a case that was subsequently dropped.

The intensity of the police operation was shocking, Mr. Ingram said.

"It kind of felt stupid. I felt like it was a waste of taxpayer money and funds," Mr. Ingram said. "We've created a monster that's kind of always existed within America, but we've given that monster - because of 9/11, because of other terrorist attacks and things that have happened - unquestionable, unchecked power."

Safeguards meant to limit the police's ability to monitor political activity were suspended. Thousands of additional cameras and license plate readers were installed around Manhattan, part of the Lower and Midtown Manhattan Security Initiatives.

Only recently - because of a law passed by the City Council last summer, to police officials' dismay - did the breadth of the Police Department's surveillance dragnet begin to become clear. The law, known as the POST Act, requires the department to provide a public accounting of its post-9/11 technological arsenal.

Police officials have proved reluctant to fully comply with the transparency requirements, and have historically kept such expenditures secret even from the city's own comptroller. But according to figures maintained by the city's Independent Budget Office, the Police Department's spending on intelligence and counterterrorism nearly quadrupled between 2006 and 2021, up to $349 million from $83 million in 2006, the earliest year for which the office keeps data.

For a department that was running entire precinct houses on single computers at the time of the attacks, the expansion has been stunning, said Raymond W. Kelly, whose second stint as New York Police Department commissioner began just months after the attacks. Mr. Kelly led a frantic, rapid effort to bring the department up to speed.

"We brought in thousands of computers and lots of other technology to try to get the department into the 21st century," Mr. Kelly said in an interview.

Raymond W. Kelly took over as police commissioner not long after Sept. 11 and oversaw the transformation of the department. Credit... Katie Orlinsky for the New York Times

He challenged the notion that the surveillance apparatus in New York troubled many residents; most Americans are used to having their pictures taken even while shopping in a department store, he said.

"Your picture was probably taken 30 times while you were in that store," said Mr. Kelly. "I don't think the average person has the concern about privacy that many of these activist groups have."

In documents released this year, the police acknowledged their use of a vast network of license plate readers, thousands of surveillance cameras, mobile X-ray vans and digital tools that are used to scrub social media profiles and retain deleted information. Much of the resulting data can be collected and stored without a warrant.

The tactics have become ubiquitous in criminal cases, including investigations of low-level crime. Asked to identify recent cases in which the police used such surveillance measures, public defenders from across the city said it was difficult to think of one that had not.

"My office defends tens of thousands of cases each year, and I would be shocked if we have a single case of any level of severity that did not include some form of surveillance technology," said Elizabeth Daniel Vasquez, the director of the science and surveillance project at Brooklyn Defender Services.

Most often used, lawyers say, is the Police Department's Domain Awareness System, which fuses data from several different surveillance tools - license plate readers, closed-circuit television streams, images that can be analyzed with facial recognition software, or phone call histories - and associates the data with a person or address.

The department has acknowledged that the platform was not developed as a crime-fighting tool, but rather, has been repurposed into one: "Originally designed as a counterterrorism platform, D.A.S. is now a program that aggregates a substantial quantity of the information N.Y.P.D. personnel use to make strategic and tactical decisions," read a draft policy paper posted on the department's website.

The police say safeguards exist around the information that the department collects - warrants, for example, are sometimes required to query stored data, and facial recognition software cannot be the sole reason for an arrest. But civil liberties advocates say the kaleidoscopic data network collected by the police has effectively turned the city into a surveillance state, even for law-abiding New Yorkers.

Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said her organization was already concerned with creeping police surveillance in the 1990s; not long before the attacks, the group had mapped out every camera it could find in the city. In hindsight, she said, the exercise would prove naïve.

"We made a map, and we had dots - we had pins at that time - where there were cameras. And when we did that, there were a couple of thousand," Ms. Lieberman said. "We repeated the survey at some point after 9/11, and there were too many cameras to count."

Inside the Real Time Crime Center at One Police Plaza, analysts search databases for information. Credit... Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times

In the months and years after Sept. 11, the Police Department under Mr. Kelly set about building a system that would protect the city from another attack.

The department established a counterterrorism bureau and remade its intelligence division, including the so-called Demographics Unit - a secretive police unit that kept tabs on Muslim New Yorkers, even without evidence of a crime.

"The theory was, in the course of regular policing, police officers around the country would run across little bits of information that, when added to other kinds of information, would potentially reveal terrorist plots in the making," said Faiza Patel, the director for the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, which researches the intersection of civil liberties and surveillance. "In order to do that, they really lowered the threshold for information collection."

The department still defends its practices, but later settled a lawsuit alleging it had illegally spied on Muslim New Yorkers, and officials say it no longer employs the kinds of demographic surveillance it used following the Sept. 11 attacks. Today, many of the division's resources have returned to tracking gang conflicts and gun crime (it also maintains a division to track extremist groups).

Still, the scars from the surveillance of Muslim New Yorkers remain, and the policing methods behind it - data collection and intelligence-gathering - have stuck.

Mr. Ingram, the activist who was arrested after a Black Lives Matter protest against racism in policing, was one of several people involved in last summer's demonstrations who said they were eventually interviewed by city and federal counterterrorism officers.

"When the definition of 'terrorism' becomes anyone you don't agree with, that's utterly terrifying," said Hannah Shaw, who was arrested during a protest last summer and turned over to federal antiterrorism agents for questioning.

Police departments were already beginning to develop surveillance technology before the Sept. 11 attacks, said Fritz Umbach, a history professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

"There's certainly more police presence," Mr. Umbach said. "That is an ongoing trend that predates 9/11. It continues for reasons that have nothing to do with terrorism."

What has changed, he said, is the tools that police have at their disposal.

"Government funding developed these tools for war and then they get repurposed for policing," he said. "And that's a real issue."

For those in law enforcement who lived through the pressure of a post-9/11 world in New York, the nexus between counterterror work and policing street crime seemed a natural progression.

"It's hard to explain sometimes how difficult the work was early on, with all the threats that we were facing, and the expectation that we were going to stop every single thing," said Carlos Fernandez, a former F.B.I. agent in charge of counterterrorism in New York City who worked closely with the Police Department after Sept. 11. "That was a very challenging environment to work in."

The tools developed in the aftermath of the attacks proved to be useful in fighting street crime too, Mr. Fernandez said.

"I think to a large degree it's been very beneficial," Mr. Fernandez said. "But without the proper checks and balances, anything that's good can also be used for bad reasons."

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How the N.Y.P.D. Is Using Post-9/11 Tools on Everyday New Yorkers

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Two decades after the attack on New York City, the Police Department is using counterterrorism tools and tactics to combat routine street crime. Police officials say they are obligated to use every tool at their disposal to fight crime. But critics say the expansive surveillance dragnet is ensnaring everyday New Yorkers.

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Here is a brief analysis of how much good could be done if the US stopped spending so incredibly much on war. The military budget of the US is 703 billion dollars. The approximate cost of ending homelessness in the US is 30 billion; fixing this problem lowers the budget to 673 billion.  The approximate cost of forgiving student debt here is 373 billion, which lowers the budget to 300 billion. To end world hunger for a year, one would have to pay 265 billion. That lowers the budget to 35 billion USD. Yet more problems could be solved with some reshuffling. This would lower suicide rates by reducing hopelessness and giving people improved means to survive and support themselves and their families.

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I was seeing a lot of videos on social media talking about what happened in Afghanistan, U.S soldiers were killed in the Kabul airport. Thirteen U.S troops and dozens of Afghan civilians were killed in twin explosions in the airport. It was sad to learn that soldiers that were trying to help in Afghanistan were killed. I think this connects to the theme because even though the explosion in Kabul was frightening, the remaining U.S soldiers are still in Afghanistan helping.Albane

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American identity has always been something that me and a lot of the people around me struggle with because I come from an immigrant family and community. I went to a family reunion cookout over the summer, and the backyard was decorated with brightly colored decorations and flags. We had a Cuban, Mexican, and American flag because those are the countries we’re from. I saw a lot of people celebrating their native countries and heritage, while also celebrating America and the life they’ve made here and I started to think: what does being American mean to them? And what does it mean to me? To a lot of my family being American just means that they live here now, to some it means having freedom, and to others it means having opportunities. There isn’t one single American identity it’s all about personal experience, but the people around you help shape it. My idea of being American probably differs from my grandparents or parents even.

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Lily W
World War One helped strengthen women’s rights, people started to notice how women could fill the role of men. Many more people believed that women should have the right to vote. This is impact on domestic culture because soon after more people thought that women should have the right to vote the 19th amendment was signed by Bainbridge Colby stating "the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex." Which impacted women’s rights because World War I  it impacted women rights and how many viewed women had changed and women activities and support during the war and helped convince women’s right to vote.

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People of Arkansas Support Hurricane Ida Evacuees - Grace Pralle

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People of Arkansas Support Hurricane Ida Evacuees - Grace Pralle

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This article relates to the perseverance of the American spirit theme. It is a short article about how people in Arkansas stepped up to help a family that was displaced because of Hurricane Ida. Hurricane Ida has devastated many communities and caused insurmountable damage. The family mentioned in the article had two young children and was in need of food and shelter. When a local news station shared their story, they received an outpouring of donations as well as a hotel room to stay in. This relates to the theme because it demonstrates that people are still willing to help and support others in difficult times.

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shanghai jin jiang international hotels co.

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Arkansans step up to help Hurricane Ida evacuees; help still needed

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The spirit of Arkansas is alive and well. Monday, KATV shared the story of the Penn Family, Hurricane Ida evacuees seeking help in Arkansas. The family sought assistance from the Red Cross, but unfortunately they did not have a shelter set up in Arkansas and had to direct them back to Louisiana or Mississippi shelters.

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Gun rules in the state fair (Sally Krantz)

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Gun rules in the state fair (Sally Krantz)

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Every summer I go to the Minnesota state fair with my family. I loved seeing the new crazy foods, rides, and stands. This year I learned that guns aren’t allowed within the state fair, wether or not they are open or concealed carry. This can be seen as a limitation to the civil rights in America because the second amendment gives us the right to bear arms. Though some people may be angered by this rule in the state fair, I personally think that this protects the safety of people attending the state fair. I agree with this rule because if guns were to be brought in then there could easily be an act of gun violence, including a mass shooting.

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This wasn’t from my trip I couldn’t send any of my pictures to my iPad.If you ever go to Alaska to fish in the ocean I recommend Alaska ocean pros.

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This summer I went to Alaska and I realized that the restaurants in the area I was in where very low quality throughout the trip. I think this is because of the low amount of tourists in the area and the lack of other competition. When we went out on a charter I noticed how every boat was in extremely good shape because there is a lot of competition in the charter business for who had the better crew, boat, and gear. Throughout the entire trip I noticed that fishing/hunting charters where a large percent of jobs in that area. I think that is due to the lack of big corporations in the area.