“Jesse Jackson is bringing a strategy borrowed from the traditional civil rights era playbook to the age of social media and a booming tech industry known for its disruptive innovation,” Martha Mendoza and Jesse Washington report for The Associated Press. “Jackson plans to lead a delegation to Hewlett-Packard’s annual shareholders meeting Wednesday to bring attention to Silicon Valley’s poor record of including blacks and Latinos in hiring, board appointments and startup funding.”
“Jackson said he isn’t singling out HP, he’s just using the company’s annual meeting to highlight the broader issue. ‘Technology is supposed to be about inclusion, but sadly, patterns of exclusion remains the order of the day,’ Jackson wrote in a letter released Monday to Apple Inc., Twitter Inc., Facebook Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co., Google Inc. and others,” Mendoza and Washington report. “About 1 in 14 tech workers is black or Latino, both in the Silicon Valley and nationally. Blacks and Hispanics make up 13.1 and 16.9 percent of the U.S. population, respectively, according to the most recent census data.”
“Yet as recently as 2011, The Allstate Corp., in alliance with Jackson’s RainbowPUSH organization, recognized HP for its commitment to diversity,” Mendoza and Washington report. “‘While we certainly agree that diversity is an important issue in corporate America, we’re puzzled by Rev. Jackson’s sudden interest in HP,’ HP Executive Vice President Henry Gomez said in a statement emailed to The Associated Press. ‘Today, HP is the largest company in the world with both a female CEO and CFO, and nearly half of our leadership team and board of directors are women and minorities. Additionally, nearly 50 years ago, HP established the first minority business program in the United States.’ Gomez also points out that in 2013, HP spent nearly $1 billion with almost 500 minority business enterprises in the U.S. and an additional $500 million with businesses owned by women. ‘We look forward to seeing Rev. Jackson at our shareholder meeting,’ Gomez said. Apple and Google declined to comment on Jackson’s grievances.”
“In the past, Jackson’s critics have accused him of profiting from similar protest actions. These critics say that after Jackson targeted companies over diversity issues in the financial sector and other industries, some have ended up donating large sums to Jackson’s organizations,” Mendoza and Washington report. “In other cases, the targeted companies gave contracts to minority-owned firms that paid Jackson for referrals.”
Read more in the full article here.
It’s a shakedown dumbass and it sounds like we’ll be paying up.
By existing one must be proportionally represented in jobs they have zero qualification for. Hey Jessie if you have a serious medical issue just throw a white lab coat on the first buck you see. Now he a doctor and sheet.
Hey Jess………………..how’s that fine son of yours doin’?
Wow sounds like he and Sep Blatter should get together to discuss the art of corruption. Sadly people like him disguise acquiring personal wealth and power with minority opportunity and bask in the glory.
Speaking as a pigmentally-challenged Cornish-Scottish mongrel (i.e. mostly pink, with scattered brown bits), I have to wonder what this Jackson–bearer of an English surname of ancient lineage–is going to do for the millions like me.
Not, I suspect, a helluva lot!
Tim Cook was able to deal with Carl icon effectively. Let’s see if he’s as tough with Jesse Jackson? Something tells me he won’t be. Steve Jobs would ignore Jessie.
We don’t need Rev. Jesse Jackson to tell us that the lack of diversity problem is real and appalling. I am happy that the issue is receiving national attention.
Not enough of one color working at HP…must be discrimination. Too many of one color in prison…must be discrimination. Perfect. Racist minority leader can never be wrong. It’s always rigged against them. Problem remains left wing media will never look at it for what it is. So it goes on.
Jesse Jackson is nothing but an extortionist. A supposed preacher, that doesn’t preach anything, but goes around stirring up racism where there was none before. I hope these companies tell him to get lost and don’t bow to his predator like extortionist ways.
It’s very disheartening reading the comments on this post. It really shows a lack of intelligence that people have and are quick to call somebody else a name not realizing that they do not understand the community in which technology hasn’t been completely embraced. While people are quick to talk about Jesse Jackson and what he’s done in the past, there is a huge void when it comes to the race of people that are in the technology industry.
Why isn’t Jackson advocating more concentrated effort on STEM for people who he claims consume all of these tech products but aren’t represented in these companies and aren’t considered for tech start-ups?
Nothing angers me more than to see an individual who has fooled many people into believing as if he truly cares about their well-being, when all he cares for is lining his own pockets and those of his wealthy friends.
I hope that none of these companies give in to his demands because he is the self-appointed leader of those who follow him and nothing else. If anything, he and his so called wealthy black friends should be financing many of these start-up companies with their own funds instead of looking for a hand-out.
You can’t earn a place at the table if you haven’t earned one and if one doesn’t exist you create your own.