Tim Cook tackles COVID-19 and racial justice in pandemic essay

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“The Big Night In” was raising funds for charity, and Tim Cook dropped by the help.
Tim Cook has penned a new editorial for the Wall Street Journal.
Photo: BBC TV

Apple CEO Tim Cook reflects on COVID-19 and how it heightened racial injustice in the United States in an op-ed he wrote for The Wall Street Journal.

Cook’s opinion piece, published Thursday, is titled “The Urgency of Racial Justice.” It’s just one of several — written by big names like actor Tom Hanks and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson — published in the Journal’s “What I’ve Learned From the Pandemic Year” package.

COVID-19 doesn’t affect everyone equally

In the opinion piece, Cook writes about how the pandemic hit people in very different ways:

“In simple theory, a disease should affect all of us equally. But in plain fact, the opposite is true. We have all seen, in real time, how structural discrimination and obstacles to opportunity do their work in a crisis. In our communities, every burden—from rates of infection and care outcomes, to economic adversity, to the challenges of virtual learning when schools are closed—falls heaviest on those for whom true equity has always been farthest from reach. As someone who grew up during the civil-rights movement, it has been frustrating to see how much work is still to be done but heartening to see the degree to which people of good will have set aside comfort with the status quo to march and to demand something better.”

How Apple is helping

Cook then addresses how Apple sought to help out with this major societal challenge. This includes building “powerful learning tools” and sharing them freely with “tens of thousands of teachers, educators and parents.”

He also notes Apple’s investments in the company’s Racial Equity and Justice Initiative:

“These projects include the Propel Center in Atlanta, which we’re helping to build in partnership with the country’s historically Black colleges and universities, to support the next generation of leaders of color in fields ranging from machine learning to app development, entrepreneurship to design; and our first Apple Developer Academy in the U.S., in downtown Detroit, home to more than 50,000 Black-owned businesses and no shortage of great ideas for the app economy.”

Apple’s Racial Equity initiatives

During his 10 years running Apple as its CEO, Cook has been outspoken about his desire to make Apple a “force for good” in the world. This often involves speaking out against racism and other forms of discrimination. While Cook rarely writes op-eds, he pens them periodically to address important issues. For example, in 2013, Cook stood up for employee rights in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal. The following year, in a historic 2014 essay in Businessweek, Cook came out as gay.

Earlier this year, Apple announced a new series of projects in its Racial Equity and Justice Initiative, designed to fight systemic racism and advance racial equity across the United States. This is part of a $100 million fund to support Black and other minority entrepreneurs.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

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