Bryan (they/them)

Does anyone consider that? When you say Tim Cook needs to go, consider that it’s just as likely, if not more than likely, that you’ll end up with someone less principled, less talented at what the CEO of Apple needs to be talented at, and far more likely to be manipulated unwittingly and corrupted by the Trump admin even moreso than Tim Cook.

And if you mind that I said this, I’m sorry, I guess. I’m not so mad at you in general. But like, what the actual fuck. It’s so exhausting. Apple is the ONLY company that hasn’t gutted its DEI program while every other company its size has literally DUMPED them. They’ve come out to effectively say they thought DEI was stupid, while Apple and Tim Cook have done the OPPOSITE, including defeating an activist shareholder proposal.

And one more thing NOBODY ELSE has said? What do you think would happen if Cook refused to do this & Apple got savaged by the DOJ, FBI, FTC, FCC, etc, and their stock price took a giant hit? Do you think Tim Cook would still be CEO? NO. The Board would fire him, because the institutional investors would revolt, and they would replace him with another CEO who would do what Trump wanted, and probably gut DEI and more.

So be mad that Apple and Cook did what they’ve done. But to pretend that Apple hasn’t intentionally taken a hit to its value in order to do things it believes are good for the world, INCLUDING protecting its marginalized employees by the billionaire at the top being willing to debase himself to a twerp who has nearly unlimited power at the moment is a lie. It’s not JUST capitalism.

(These last few toots are me just getting out some things I wanted to say, I don’t necessarily think all the podcasters and bloggers I’ve listened to and read this week about this situation think Tim Cook should go or that he’s a Trump supporter, but it’s just so clear that even when you’re an ally, you can completely miss how marginalized people think about each other and their responsibilities to each other.

Personally, I think Tim Cook is deeply moral. I also think you don’t get to be CEO of a major multinational company without realizing that your own personal morality doesn’t mean shit if you can’t help others, and to some degree that factors into how you make decisions, along with all of the other competing pressures inside a capitalistic society where none of us actually have the ability to be truly moral.

So it’s important for you all to know how much what I said was meant in exasperated love, because it really did surprise me that nobody mentioned this (well, I think if I’m really being perfectly accurate, I think @siracusa managed to say something about it very briefly in the middle of Marco’s tirade. I’ve been lucky enough to share directly with many of you how much your support of my communities has meant to me personally, and that has not changed one bit.

So thank you for everything, and know that when there’s frustration and anger, there’s way more love behind that. 💜💜💜💜