Apple Invests Millions To Back Entrepreneurs of Color, Part of Racial Justice Effort (reuters.com) 193
Apple on Wednesday said it was putting $60 million into a fresh round of projects aimed at challenging systemic racism, including its first foray into venture capital funding to back entrepreneurs of color. From a report: Apple said it would invest $10 million in a fund with Harlem Capital, a New York-based early-stage venture firm, with the goal of helping fund 1,000 companies over 20 years. Apple will invest $25 million in Siebert Williams Shank's Clear Vision Impact Fund, which provides financing to small- and mid-sized businesses, with an emphasis on minority-owned firms. Apple will become a limited partner in funds at both.
What about affordable housing? (Score:2)
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The deck is stacked against affordable housing systemically: local taxes are based on assessed value, middle-class homeowners are invested in it, Bank income is based on interest payments, building code regimes are designed to make housing expensive because contractors like it that way, and NIMBY for affordable housing projects.
The best we can hope for with housing is to raise incomes to the point where housing costs fall as a proportion of income; and somehow slowly change these structural factors that
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The only ones who favor affordable housing are people who don't already live in an area (or they are renting). Everyone else wants property values to go up, and so housing prices go up.
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Doing so, just kills and area and everyone that can afford it, will (wisely) move to greener pastures.
Its just common sense and I dunno why people and politicians can't seem to understand this basic human behavior.
People want to live and raise families in safe neighborhoods.
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Well, no one wants to have high density, low income housing (basically new "projects") built in their neighbor hoods, driving down property values and brining in crime that usually follows with that type housing.
Just go to a city that's populated primarily by Democrats. They care.
Problem solved.
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The problem with Charity is that there is always a better use for it than what you decided to use it for.
However many impoverished groups of people are stuck in a failure cycle, where no amount of hard work, boot strapping or gumption will get them out of it. Where the few I made it out of the situation feel good stories, are often due to a bit of luck, where one wrong move would had ended up in much larger failure.
If you have a business idea you need money, or at least some sort of support for you to get g
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A minority owned company will be used as a shell/front for non-qualifying, already successful/established entity to get the money and work being offered here.
Same old story...just a new program name to be exploited.
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What will likely happens is something that happens all the time with government contracting.
A minority owned company will be used as a shell/front for non-qualifying, already successful/established entity to get the money and work being offered here.
Same old story...just a new program name to be exploited.
So? There will be the illusion of it going to a minority. Who the fuck cares where it actually goes?
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it would truly be able to help out if you disperse affordable housing with middle class and upper middle class areas. Vs having them all in one place... Aka the Projects. Where the people in need who doesn't know any other way, is now living in an echo-chamber of others who don't know how to get out as well. Vs living with a better diversity of people where you can how to do things differently and plan accordingly. As well these upper scale communities also can get out of their echo-chambers and see that the poor people are really not that different than they are, and many actually are hard working resourceful people, who just lack resource.
It turns out that [theatlantic.com] your idea just exports crime [theatlantic.com]. Note I'm not suggesting a racial angle here, and I'm certainly not an advocate of housing projects (having lived in Ravenswood in NYC), I'm only suggesting that what you're proposing doesn't appear to be a solution to what I agree is a very real problem.
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Surely its part of the solution though. And better than nothing. Even the article says it has 'mixed results', not that it fails.
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Only if the reason for the lack of affordable housing is a lack of jobs. If you have empty houses all over the place offered at bargain prices but nobody can buy them because nobody has jobs, then yes that's the better answer.
But the reality is that in most places that lack affordable housing, the REASON they lack affordable housing is that there are TOO FEW HOUSES. Or perhaps too few apartment complexes, and similar. The price of housing goes through the roof when the population exceeds its capacity. A
Maybe I'm naive... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: Maybe I'm naive... (Score:4, Informative)
No it's fine just so long as you donate money to Jesse Jackson.
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To some degree, yes, that is naive. Providing a quality service/product at a competitive price is NO GUARANTEE of success. And it is not nearly enough. A new business with those qualification is still at a severe disadvantage against an established business that already owns most of the market. The established business can set up barriers to entry, and do things like loss-leading, to squelch the new business before it can get off the ground.
And then there is marketing, which has a hugely greater impact
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The issue, as I understand it as it relates to Venture Capital, is that these funding decisions often come down to and intuitive or 'gut' decision. The people making these guts decisions tend to be male and white. When they go with their gut decision they tend to fund people that look like them. Its not about overt racism, its about someone's internal biases.
The solution presented here makes a fund that excludes white people. I personally do not understand how exclusion is a solution to exclusion. Callin
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I personally do not understand how exclusion is a solution to exclusion.
The idea is to use exclusion for a time to reverse some of the effects of historical exclusion, and eventually everyone will be back on a more-or-less level playing field.
That would require people to become less racist though, and the last few years have demonstrated that isn't happening very quickly.
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Again, I think a better approach is a more diverse set of people making the finding decisions. I know there are wealthy people of color and wealthy women, its interesting that we don't see more of them running VCs.
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Yes
That works fine for a child's lemonade stand. No fixed costs, just marginal ones. Especially in information technology, fixed costs are massive, marginal costs less so. Furthermore, early investment is required before you can start selling at a competitive price. You need investors onboard to pay those fixed costs before your users will
It s
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What matters is the systemic inequality people of colour experience. This is one way to address it, one that Apple can do.
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Are you implying that people of colour are not disadvantaged, or that acknowledging that is somewhere bad for them?
What would you do to improve things?
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It is naive.
It isn't necessarily the color of the business owner. However it is aggregate demographics that the business owner of color may bring. Very little Companies even ones owned by racist, will just not do business because of the owners color... However, their color sometimes will bring aggregate racial biases, that when some may be shown could turn them off.
Product Quality, Price, and availability are such a minor factor.
1. Trying to get people to want your product. You can have the best product
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but does it matter what color the owner of a business is?
Yes. Nothing matters more.
NOTHING
MATTERS
MORE
And since some asians are darker then some black folks, ditto hispanics, I assume this is open to all non-pinkos. I mean, you're not exactly "white" are you, Caspar?
Funding (Score:2)
For example this study on bias in hiring [shrm.org] found a bias against women and minorities even though there was no difference in resumes.
We're talking about venture capital, though. Is there a bias against funding companies ran by minorities by VC firms?
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You realize that VC firm is effectively "hiring" the executives of the companies they invest in, right?
And to answer your question, yes there is a very large disparity between whites and non-whites in access to all capital.
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You realize that VC firm is effectively "hiring" the executives of the companies they invest in, right?
And to answer your question, yes there is a very large disparity between whites and non-whites in access to all capital.
It's a little known fact that VC groups don't actually care about money, like they pretend to. Rather, they do, but money is secondary to identity.
When surveyed, 87.1% of VC members indicated that they would rather earn 45% less profits if it meant not helping a "filthy women". You don'
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Quote from your link:
"Perhaps due to the prevalence of diversity initiatives, employers expect that desirable minority and female candidates will receive many offers from competing firms and thus will be less likely to accept any given offer," Low said
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Not true, at least deceptive, from the quoted article
The results of the study were illuminating. Overall, participating employers were not found to be more or less interested in female and minority candidates, but evidence of discrimination against white women and minority men was found among employers looking to hire candidates with science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) majors, Kessler said. In addition, employers report that white female candidates are less likely to accept job offers than their white male counterparts, suggesting a novel channel for discrimination.
So that means that statement was only related to STEM, and since overall their was no difference men must have been discriminated against in other areas.
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If there is a bias, this kind of thing will only perpetuate it. What am I to think of people who are in continual need of assistance? If I have a choice between two vendors, which is more likely to work harder for my business?
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Ideally, it should not matter however the real world has bias in it. For example this study on bias in hiring [shrm.org] found a bias against women and minorities even though there was no difference in resumes.
It's totally true. This one time, I went to buy air-freshener for my car. I went to the auto-parts store, took it to the counter, then caught a glimpse of this woman in the back room.
"Who the fuck is that female and what is she doing here?", I demanded of the cashier.
"Oh, she's the owner", he said.
"
Excellent (Score:3, Interesting)
It is indeed the hight of enlightenment to treat people differently based on the color of their skin, over economic conditions...
So awesome that a black Harvard grad can get a fat loan from Apple while some community college white kid can go pound sand.
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Personally, I'd like to see an Enlightened(TM) corpse swinging from every lamppost. YMMV.
Stop using child labor first (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be cool if they stopped using child labor to build their own products first, but I guess virtue signalling to people with the appropriate skin color is a way to be morally superior without giving up pesky practices like that.
Oh look, racists (Score:5, Insightful)
If you hate racism, vote with your wallets and boycott Apple.
If you don't, you need to take a good look at what you think you stand for.
It always seems strange (Score:5, Insightful)
... to read stories where someone is going to apply rules based on the color of someone's skin to fight racism.
If you base your judgment of someone's worth, good or bad, on criteria like that, you've already lost the battle to correct "racism". At that point, you're only choosing sides, rather than fixing something.
When can we get to the point of Dr. King dream?
They're not basing judgement on skin color (Score:2)
As a lefty I'm not sure how to feel. On the one hand I'm smart enough to know that systemic racism is real (also my black friends have all had "the talk" and I knew about it before it was called that). On the other hand this'll be seized on by wealthy businessmen who run our country and use bigotry to divide their employees and keep us all clawing at each other's throats w
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We tried just saying "ok no more racism, it's illegal now" but it hasn't fixed many of the problems.
If you have other ideas then let's hear them.
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Funny plenty of minorities do great in these United States. Plenty of black business folk and even a black president. Here's my idea, quit being a welfare queen sucking on the white man's tit, take responsibility for your life and make something out of yourself like so many others have.
Seems millions have done just that.
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Individuals doing well do not invalidate the statistics.
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The statistics tell me there are a bunch of people raised to have no morals nor regard for human life or property.
I'm all for investing in those that want to better themselves. We have healthcare procedures and supplies priced four to twenty times what other countries with better healthcare charge, we have overpriced universities with similar inflated prices. We could afford to give healthcare and education through college to everyone that wanted it.
But I've no use for adult babies that just want a hando
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Obviously I disagree, but let's say for a moment I accept your premise. What is your solution?
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Some groups doing badly does not validate claims that they do badly because of racism/sexism/mullet hate.
People are different and like different things.
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So what is the solution? Or are you saying they will just always be an underclass and there is nothing that can be done?
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So what is the solution? Or are you saying they will just always be an underclass and there is nothing that can be done?
You keep asking for solutions without defining the problem. This is not a great process for finding good solutions. One thing I can suggest is maybe stop viewing the everyone in terms of groups and look at them as individuals.
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The problem is that the existing VC firms already exhibit significant bias, so even if the existing funds aren't technically for men from a couple ethnic groups they are in practice.
In general one would expect funds targeted at under-represented groups to outperform other funds.
Apple Supports Rationalized Bigotry (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Apple Supports Rationalized Bigotry (Score:4)
Why the FUCK is this modded down ?
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If you see someone with a flat tyre do you refuse to help them unless everyone gets a new tyre as well? Of course not.
It would be racist if there was no systemic disadvantage, but there is.
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I agree it's a blunt tool, although I expect there is some detail we are not getting that limits it to where your will have the desired effect. At least I hope so.
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There ain't nothing better to keep the world locked in a mire of never ending racism than a bunch of rationalized racism applied as a solution to currently existing racism. Apple decision makers are idiots. The world will be a better place when people mostly ignore race at work, not require people of different races to be treated differently. All of these programs could be defined by class or culture, none of them need to be defined by race, but Apple Elitists insist on it, proving their poorly thought out rationalized bigotry. This will do nothing but make racism worse. Given how smart most folks are at Apple, I guess this travesty of incompetence goes to show that intelligence is a very very different thing than wisdom.
Too true.
If you wish to ultimately eliminate the line between men and women in business, then why the hell do we categorize women-owned businesses?
If you wish to ultimately eliminate the line between majorities and minorities in business, then why the hell do we categorize minority-owned businesses?
All of this compartmentalization, does nothing but breed and enforce racist and sexist lines.
Apple; Let me when you're ready to fund the Human Capital project to provide jobs for entrepreneurs. I know you're on
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Nice post.
TLDR: Let’s solve racism with racism.
People in their 20s are now indoctrinated at uni by dividing everyone into victim or oppressor groups.
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You're thinking too hard. Apple intends for you to consider this at only a superficial level, so that the emotional first impression is "Apple is Good(TM)". You aren't supposed to actually think this all through and realize the negative implications or the overall validity from a practical standpoint.
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The world will be a better place when people mostly ignore race at work
And when you look around, do you see any evidence of that coming to pass in the next few decades?
Heck, the phrase "Black Lives Matter" is incredibly offensive to many people, who are apparently unable to notice it doesn't include words like "only" or "more".
So, while it's lovely to talk about some distant utopian future, you don't get to that future by acting like it is already here.
Systemic Racism (Score:4, Insightful)
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How do they combine their discrimnations ?
Do they give you points based on skin tone, but with an offset to penalise over-represented South Asians and Chinese ?
Do they give you extra points for fully-functioning vaginas, to prevent everyone self-identifying as tarts ?
Do they penalise especially the over-represented non-sporty-male-with-acne-and-glasses group ?
This is a serious question. I mean: they must be working these things out when they make up these horrible discrimination schemes ?
I seem how this kind of politics go in practice... (Score:2)
First, a bunch of people will just self identify as black to get the advantage, then there will be complaints, then they will "improve the racial detection" until to get the bonus, you will have to go thru people that sound like actual racists, doing stuff like measuring your cranial features.
Great marketing at trivial expense. (Score:2)
Corporate wealth is so immense amounts impressive to plebs are less than pocket change to patrician classes.
That money bought lots of free publicity like Slashvertisements so it was an excellent investment.
I'm not saying it's good or bad, but readers should be aware of its function.
Wasted platitudes (Score:4, Insightful)
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With the Uighur situation it's looking more like actual slave labor. Personally, I'd rather see them open up plants in the US instead. Who knows, maybe they'd even hire some black people. Unfortunately, that actually transfers money to the lower class in the long run, instead of transferring loan interest to Apple. So it's not under consideration.
A lot of them have more immediate needs than "I want to start a business".... Some of them need a roof that doesn't leak, a mattress without bedbugs, and access to
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I was gonna say. I wonder what their employees on the assembly lines will think of this.
These days?
Sadly, they probably don't think much differently than the rest of us who should be thankful to still be employed during a global pandemic...
Part of racism you mean. (Score:5, Interesting)
Saying that as a person of color "diversity" myself.
I want to be treated *equally*. Not get special treatment and be part of your racist schemes that really only differ from what you claim to despise in ... polarity.
The core problem is not even racism or sexism or whatever at this point. It's old boys/girls clubs where people get advanages because they know each other.
Which I'm not sure is even a problem in itself. Because I sure will share my cake with friends before I share it with random strangers, even if they might be better friends in some alternate timeline.
I think the core problem is just overpopulation yet again.
Because our human mechanisms of webs of trust and hierarchies of respect fail, when there are more people and more proxies between you and them than we evolved to manage.
The world's just too big for Mr Fatcat to ever be fascinated by that aspiring black scientist with the ghetto parents.
And worse, we push people into these roles of "racists" and "sexists" even when they never thougjt that far. Collapsing the superposition into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Then again, I can still fully imagine some country club for rich people, where the racist mindset is simply a persisting cultural trait.
But so was being pro Trump in the Republican party. Or pro N@zi in WWII. And right after the war, they put buuks by Jewish authors into the shelves of their bookshops anyway because in the end, they were not racists bus simply followers. Despicable too, but not set in stone.
Just my 2 cents as a German with German parents on one side, that doesn't look like a German at all. (Dear Germans, please don't speak English to us. I speak German better than you do.)
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Not get special treatment
Too bad, you get it weather you want it or not. The disgusting truth here is that people will assume you were given special treatment because of your race and not not that your ability merits it.
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That's just racism (Score:2)
Window dressing... (Score:3)
This is classic virtue signaling. Apple has crunched the numbers and determined that it is cheaper to give money to social cause A, B, and C than not to and get sued by some group or other for alleged racism, sexism...fill-in-the-blank ism. So they give money away and conduct sensitivity classes without any measurable goals or stated timelines.
The groups running social cause A, B and C win because by funding these initiatives Apple is implicitly confirming that racism etc. exists to the extent that corporations must come to the rescue. Proof of these allegations is never asked for nor offered. It is just assumed to be. Apple wins because they save money and headaches, as outlined above, and they get the goodwill associated with the feel good initiatives that they back.
As with most charitable efforts, success is measured by intent rather than results.
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Minority including Asians? (Score:3)
The elephant in the room is obviously, do they include Asians, in particular east/SE Asians? The article mentioned wanting to see more “black and brown” only.
If not, why is it ok to discriminate against Asians?
Everything should be awarded by merit (Score:2)
Anything else is, well, bigotry.
Another screw you if youâ(TM)re poor and whit (Score:2)
Well done Apple. Next your corporate ranks will be self-purged of Asians and Whites. Itâ(TM)s the only thing likely left after this epic fail.
Re-patriot factories to poor Black communities (Score:2)
Here is a radical idea for Apple to help Black communities. Re-patriot some of your factories from China to poor Black communities in the USA. Hire people in those communities to build your products. This $60 million "investment" is just a quick pay off, not structural change.
Alibaba and Jack Ma (Score:2)
Slightly offtopic, but is this similar to that show Jack Ma was on before he disappeared (and had his name removed from the gameshow website)?
Africa's Business Heroes
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Apple spending 10 million out of 324 billion in assets: let's say you have $100K, then it's like giving homeless guy three bucks. Why you cheap ass, you could have at least given the guy $6.50 to cover a big mac meal including tax.
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I live in a place where there are a lot of homeless people. I can recall going to a local burger place and having a homeless man ask me for money for food. I asked him what he wanted, he said he just wanted to get a burger. In addition to my order, I ordered a burger for the homeless guy. I'm not okay with handing out cash, especially when I get asked more than once daily, constantly really, and I'd be broke too if I obliged. But I don't mind helping someone that is hungry when I can. This person really los
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Likely collecting money for drugs or booze, some people ok with helping for that, others not.
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I tried doing the same, and the homeless woman told me to fuck off and give her cash. I walked away with her cursing me in the background. Oh SF....
Yeah, but I see her point. People resent it when you treat them like children. Mentally ill street people live lives that you could not understand, and it's not like your $3 (or whatever) is going to cure them, so they're seeking money to spend as they please. They've just learned that middle-class white folks have weird moral proclivities toward how they spe
Re: This is pretty much the same (Score:2)
If you give them cash, all you're doing is feeding their drug addiction, and making the cartel richer.
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Maybe. I see it as perpetuating their situation rather than trying to improve it. Whether its a mental health issue, an addiction, or whatever.
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Maybe. I see it as perpetuating their situation rather than trying to improve it. Whether its a mental health issue, an addiction, or whatever.
Met too, I like to keep my money and imagine that I cured them all by doing so.
Not that I give a damn one way or the other, but I like my thoughts to be comfortable and easily-compartmentalized.
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If you give them cash, all you're doing is feeding their drug addiction, and making the cartel richer.
Not always. Purdue gets rich by bribing doctors with incentives for prescribing, homeless people aren't really in the loop.
And if they're addicted to drugs, you're keeping them out of agony for another several hours, and thus removing the motivation to mug or steal, hell you could save one of your family member's lives without knowing it.
The world is a complicated place.
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This person really lost it on me, what he really wanted was cash and getting the burger he told me that he wanted really pissed him off. Turns out that some folks don't really want help.
More like, they do want it, but they know that you will morally judge them if they tell you why the really want the money, so they lie.
If someone's in heroin withdrawal, and needs money badly for a fix, most people won't give it them because most people haven't been through heroin withdrawal and cannot empathize. On one han
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Well think of it an other way. Having 3 million people paying homeless guys $20. Or more precisely paying 100,000 homeless guys over and over.
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Say **ANYTHING** about Mr. Bright on Ars Technica and watch how FUCKING FAST your account is TERMINATED.
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"After white supremacists storm US capitol, Apple expands racial justice initiative"
To be fair, people for or against discrimination must agree that that is the PISS POOREST headline of the year so far.
And it's not even by the Slashdot "editors".
I avoid Arse precisely because of incompetent rubbish like this.
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Creating opportunities for everyone (Score:2)
Did you see some tripe around here? Me neither. Don't see AC.
Anyway, my reaction to this story was "How can I find one of these entrepreneurs who is doing something I want to support?" Either to invest in (though in a much more minor way compared to the vast money of Apple) or even to work for (in any capacity).
In terms of making the world better, I don't really care who does the work. Even worse, I don't care that much about the money that might be involved.
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You don't do how long I've been waiting for a thread titled "What About Vagina?"
So many replies, so little time ...
Anyway, the Democrats will do anything to prevent people from understanding that the primary discrimination in the USA has been class for the last decade or so.
I knew a guy (well, "knew" is maybe a strong word ... he was a good friend of my Uncles who grew up with him) who was born into poverty in Southern W.Va, with all the disadvantages in the world (you should check out the white privilege i
Re:What about vagina? (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I reading this right....they're using racism to fight racism?
Re:What about vagina? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words....merit be damned, eh?
Wow....I"m just amazed that the irony is lost on so many, and that we've stumbled so far away from the pursuit of actual equality, freedom and common sense.
Is everything today trumped by identity politics?
If so....sad.
Re:What about vagina? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: What about vagina? (Score:3, Insightful)
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Agreed. The only reason they split according race is to make sure we don't split according to class. Fuck that. Unite for democracy.
Okay, that's it. You were warned. Zuck and those Google & Twitter guys gave us your info, and in about an hour your boss is going to know what a racist piece of shit rapist you are.
You can apologize all you want, but each apology is only going to make things worse for you.
Anyone else?
Anyone else wanna get all thinky thinky?
I didn't fucking think so.
Carry on.
I'll be watch
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Why not make it based on socio-economic status? There are millions of Americans that live in generational poverty that are white. Why say "fuck you" to them?
SHH!!!!
What were you told?
Do you want all the members of the proletariat to wake up tomorrow and realize that they have more in common with each other than the do with anyone in the ruling class? Do you want them to look at us as the source of their misery, or do you want them looking at each other with suspicion?
Have you learned nothing from the revol
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Its not like this is a fund to help the negros put down whitey. Its simply says it will have 'an emphasis on minority-owned firms'. Is it such a bad thing that people with links to minorities in Harlem might want to send a bit that way and are open about it (if you're from Harlem I believe the chance of you being a minority is close to 100%)? Why does it bother you so much? Are you a racist, or is it some kind of geek brain itch?
Between you and me, I think he's a racist n@zi misogynist racism n@zi racist mi