Apple CEO Tim Cook has written an option for the Wall Street Journal, calling for more action to be taken against systemic racism and the need to speak in light of the disproportionate impact the pandemic has had on communities.
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Cook’s piece highlights how the pandemic has impacted different communities differently and builds on his personal experience of growing up during the civil rights movement.
In simple theory, a disease should affect us all equally. But in fact, the opposite is true. We have all seen, in real time, how structural discrimination and barriers to opportunity do their job in a crisis. In our communities, all the burdens, from infection rates and welfare outcomes, to economic adversity, to e-learning challenges when schools are closed, fall more on those for whom true equity has always been further out of reach. As someone who grew up during the civil rights movement, it has been frustrating to see how much work still needs to be done, but encouraging to see the extent to which good people will have set aside comfort with the status quo to leave. demand something better.
As the end of the pandemic approaches, Cook says it is a collective responsibility to ensure that, in the future, all individuals, communities, businesses and governments do everything they can to ensure a hopeful and “lasting” future for everyone.
When the pandemic recedes, we cannot simply assume that healing will continue. It is up to all of us — individuals and communities, businesses and governments — to make sure that what lies ahead is not just the end of an illness, but a lasting and hopeful future for all who sacrificed and endured. during this unprecedented time.
The global health crisis has forced millions of students to learn remotely from home, and Cook says Apple is committed to building “powerful learning tools and [sharing] freely with tens of thousands of teachers, educators and parents. Cook continues to describe Apple’s multiple investments for black and underrepresented communities.
And it has led us to make significant new investments through our initiative on equity and racial justice. These projects include the Propel Center in Atlanta, which we are helping to build in partnership with historically black universities and colleges in the country, to support the next generation of color leaders in fields ranging from machine learning to the development of applications, entrepreneurship and design; and our first Apple Developer Academy in the United States, in downtown Detroit, home to more than 50,000 black-owned businesses and no shortage of good ideas for the app economy.
Cook ends with a hopeful message, saying that, in any case, he hopes that this pandemic has taught us that we need to talk and that a long history of injustice should not be used as an excuse to do nothing.
The old saying goes that the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the second best time is today. If this pandemic has taught us anything, I hope none of us can use the long history of injustice as an excuse not to act. Our lives on this planet are beautiful and fleeting, and fate has a way of reminding us that society is only as strong as those that, for too long, have been overlooked and undervalued.
The full Cook option can be read with a subscription to The Wall Street Journal.
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