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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Mac News > Tim Cook addresses retail, commences 'inclusion training' company-wide

Tim Cook addresses retail, commences 'inclusion training' company-wide
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NewsPoster
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Nov 13, 2015, 05:10 PM
 
Apple CEO Tim Cook has responded personally to the allegations of racial discrimination in the Melbourne, Australia Apple store. Saying that "none of us are happy with the way this was handled" the CEO reminded all Apple employees that "Apple is open" and that "this was an isolated incident rather than a symptom of a broader problem in our stores."

Cook is responding to an incident in the Highpoint Apple Store where the store's security guard took it upon himself to remove "several young men, who are students at a nearby school" from the store, over concern that they would steal something. Some of the students from Maribyrnong College took offense to the instruction, with the BBC reporting those present were black, suggesting the instruction to leave was based on race. A brief video of the event was published on Tuesday, and received a considerable amount of attention on social media.

The Apple CEO decries the entire incident, but celebrates Kate, a senior manager at the store, who on Wednesday "greeted the same group of students to express a heartfelt apology on behalf of our store and our company" according to Cook.

The letter notes that "our stores and our hearts are open to people from all walks of life, regardless of race or religion, gender or sexual orientation, age, disability, income, language or point of view. All across our company, being inclusive and embracing our differences makes our products better and our stores stronger."

Apple retail will now "use this moment as an opportunity to learn and grow." Effective immediately, the company's stores will start "refreshing their training on inclusion and customer engagement" starting in Australia.
     
macjockey
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Nov 13, 2015, 09:29 PM
 
All welcome, except those who steal.
     
Charles Martin
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Nov 13, 2015, 11:20 PM
 
But that's the whole thing, Macjockey ... nobody had stolen anything. We're not quite to "Vanilla Sky" yet, and I've found -- as perhaps Tim has -- that when you treat people with dignity and respect, you generally (not always, but generally) get the same back. When you treat people like potential criminals, you tend to foster them living up to that potential.
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revco
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Nov 14, 2015, 12:15 PM
 
Australia is a predominantly white society. If we see more than two non-white folks together we tend to panic and think the worst (not all of us, but a good chunk of us). We have a ways to go.
     
ElectroTech
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Nov 14, 2015, 10:31 PM
 
@macjockey: I guess that all black people steal and are actually stealing even when they haven't gotten into the store. It must be the extra pigment in their skin, right?

Did you know that even in Australia that you have to at least touch the item you are accused of stealing before you can remotely even be thought to be stealing it?
     
Inkling
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Nov 15, 2015, 11:16 AM
 
This is all too typical of the corporate, political and media elite. The real problem of impoverished minorities (as well as whites) are: 1. fatherless homes, 2. crime-ridden neighborhoods, 3. dreadful public schools, 4. drug and alcohol addiction. Their problems have little to do with the silly things that get fussed over in the news media. Charles Murray's Coming Apart illustrates that racial attitudes has little or nothing with those pathologies. The causes determine the consequences. Have fatherless homes and young males, whatever their race, join gangs, take up drugs, and become criminals, preying on their communities.
Author of Untangling Tolkien and Chesterton on War and Peace
     
climacs
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Nov 15, 2015, 12:04 PM
 
Charles Murray publishes racist pseudoscience that would make the Nazis proud. http://www.salon.com/2014/03/18/paul_krugman_demolishes_charles_murrays_stunning_r acist_dishonesty/
     
Ham Sandwich
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Nov 15, 2015, 10:50 PM
 
Originally Posted by NewsPoster View Post
Apple CEO Tim Cook has responded personally to the allegations of racial discrimination in the Melbourne, Australia Apple store. Saying that "none of us are happy with the way this was handled" the CEO reminded all Apple employees that "Apple is open" and that "this was an isolated incident rather than a symptom of a broader problem in our stores."
What does this have to do with racism? Say I come in to an Apple Store and the security guard asks me to leave because I have (i) a hood on my jacket, (ii) a hole in my pants, (iii) extra pockets in my shirt, (iv) a spare shopping bag, (v) social problems (either too extraverted or too introverted), (vi) no shoes, or (vii) any circumstances that are "different from the expected." All of these can be seen as suspicious regardless of race. Those details also matter. I don't see any of the reports (here or elsewhere) on this story describing what suspicious things might have come up. All I'm able to gauge from the articles is: a group of black students were told to leave for fear of theft. Where did that fear come from? Was it from their ethnicity (i.e., the guard said "you're black and making me nervous so get out"), or was it from suspicious circumstances over which they chose not to exercise self-control? Oh, and by the way, store owners can choose whatever policy they want in whatever store they want. So, until that question gets answered, I find the basis of being asked to leave as not racist, and Apple should not be having an(other) apology campaign.

On the other hand, THIS is something worth apologizing for.
     
   
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