Apple CEO Tim Cook has written an essay for the Wall Street Journaland calls for more steps to be taken against systemic racism and that it is necessary to speak in the light of the excessive impact the pandemic has had on communities.
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Cook’s piece highlights how the pandemic affected different communities in different ways and draws on his personal experience of growing up during the civil rights movement.
In a simple theory, a disease should affect us all equally. But in reality 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, every burden, from infection and care outcomes to economic adversity, to the challenges of virtual learning when schools close, falls most heavily on those for whom true equity has always been the furthest. As someone who grew up during the civil rights movement, it was frustrating to see how much work still needs to be done, but to see to what extent people of goodness will be comforted by the status quo of marching and demanding something better.
As the end of the pandemic draws to a close, Cook says it is a shared responsibility to ensure that all individuals, communities, businesses and governments do everything in their power to ensure a hopeful and ‘sustainable’ future for all.
If the pandemic subsides, we can not just assume that healing follows. It is up to all of us – individuals and communities, companies and governments – to ensure that what lies ahead is not just the end of a disease, but a lasting and hopeful future for all who have sacrificed and endured during this unprecedented time. .
The global health crisis has forced millions of students to learn remotely at home, and Cook says Apple is committed to building ‘powerful learning tools and [sharing] them freely with tens of thousands of teachers, educators and parents. ‘Cook describes Apple’s multiple investments for black and underrepresented communities.
And this led to us having to make big new investments through our racial equity initiative. These projects include the Propel Center in Atlanta, which helps us build partnerships with the nation’s historic black colleges and universities to support the next generation of color leaders in areas ranging from machine learning to app development, entrepreneurship to design; and our first Apple Developer Academy in the US, downtown Detroit, with more than 50,000 black-owned businesses, and there are no good ideas for the app economy.
Cook ends with a hopeful message and says that if anything, he hopes this pandemic has taught us that we should speak up 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 precious and fleeting, and fate can remind us that society is just as strong as those who have been overlooked and undervalued for too long.
Cook’s full version can be read by subscribing to The Wall Street Journal.
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