“Apple’s inclusion of minority-owned banks in a recent debt offering has drawn praise from the Rev. Jesse Jackson,” Julia Love reports for The Mercury News.
“Two minority-owned financial services firms — Williams Capital and Ramirez and Co. — landed roles in Apple’s $6.5 billion debt offering announced earlier this week,” Love reports. “Jackson, who has led calls for greater diversity in tech, said in an interview with SiliconBeat earlier this week that the move marked a key step forward for minority-owned financial services firms that want to do more business in the valley. ‘It’s a great breakthrough,’ he said. ‘These companies are very effective, but they have not had access to the table to make their case.'”
“‘We’re proud to have a range of banks participate in our recent debt offering, including two well-respected minority-owned companies, Williams Capital and Ramirez & Co.,’ Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet said in a statement to USA Today, which first reported on the banks’ inclusion,” Love reports.
Full article here.
This guy is a dinosaur and perpetuates racial tensions. 1965 called and wants its racism back…
It’s in Sharpton and Jackson’s best interests to perpetuate racism, though not the country’s of course. Painting every situation that crops up as racist or bigotry oriented is disingenuous. Sometimes a spade is a spade and blacks, as well as white, et al, can be bad guys and should be dealt with as such.
Ultimately we all have to be responsible for ourselves and our behavior. Simple common sense, often overlooked. These days nobody is seemingly responsible for anything they do and there are always feeble excuses & justifications. It has to end.
I believe someone once said “All people should be judged by the content of their character.”
While you’re entitled to your opinion, just because you disagree with something doesn’t make it not true. Racism is very real, and Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton or whomever else you want to list didn’t make it up.
And this stuff about “being responsible for our behavior” is easy enough to type, a bit more difficult in practice when there are forces aligned against you just because of the melanin in your skin.
And it’s particularly easy for people who are treated better than others for no other reason than a lack of melanin (or straight hair) to talk about the content of one’s character, a bit more difficult when you’re male and a person of color and can be shot just for walking to or from the the store.
I’m not disagreeing with anything except for a free ride based on race or celebrity or both. You have to start somewhere and quit perpetuating the idea that no one is responsible for anything.
So NOT being responsible for one’s actions is a workable solution in your eyes? Or is it simply a copout that solves nothing. You are one of those types who wants immediate final chewing satisfaction not realizing how much progress HAS been made and that it will take time for an even better state of fairness to evolve.
Are you black yourself or a white lib type who presumptuously feels free they can talk on behalf of minorities everywhere?
Sure I completely understand the dangers that exist against people of darker complexions but then black officers and other blacks can be equally frightened by people of the same color. Black culture has to be changed. Excellence and ambition is sometimes rewarded by ridicule and “uppity” criticism by blacks bettering themselves from their own family and friends.
You don’t offer any solutions at all, only regurgitating the same circular arguments that don’t go anywhere. This imbalance hasn’t changed overnight, nor will it, but over time. You’d know that if I could send you back in time to the 40’s & 50’s to the Midwest & South. A horse of a different color then.
By the way I am a Native American Cherokee Nation citizen so I think my Trail Of Tears ancestors also knew something about horrendous social treatment, but in our case genocide as well.
First off, what are you talking about? ” A free ride based on race or celebrity or both?”
I can’t speak for the world you occupy, but that’s America’s story (and much of the rest of the world, in differing contexts) for as long as there has been an America.
You don’t know me, so don’t presume to understand who I am or all that I believe. It’s pretty arrogant, and at the heart of much of the problems that exist today.
And what solutions have you provided in your post (other than an fanciful belief in systems that clearly don’t exist. That “content of your character” stuff makes for a nice soundbite, but it’s not the way reality works.
You know that, so why you would imply otherwise is a mystery to me.
And you write that you’re a Native American.
Think about that for a moment. How did all that “content of their character” stuff work for your people, generally speaking, of course.
You can believe that fantasitcal stuff all you like, though what it seems to tell me is that you’re ignoring the lessons of your own history.
And by the way, I don’t see you offering any solutions. Sure, you bring pie in the sky logic to the proceedings–things proven false by history, after all, Martin Luther King was killed by an assassin’s bullet–but if reality has shown us anything, it’s that the content of your character is what people often bring up when they don’t particularly feel like dealing with the underlying issues that a particular group have,
It’s a way of deflecting blame and not taking responsibility. After all, it’s easy to imply that the content of their character is causing–in this particular instance–young black males to be killed, as opposed to owning up to the fact that the system that we currently live under is inherently racist, and values colored lives less.
As an Native American, and considering rates of alcoholism and suicide among your people, I’d think that that would be relatively clear.
“First off, what are you talking about?”
The tendency to tiptoe around race and be intimidated in a PC way when it comes to the criminal justice system. It’s why O.J. was found “not guilty” though clearly he was and the inability of people to see in the Michael Brown Ferguson case a man (regardless of color) was essentially assaulting a policeman and would not stop despite commands to do so. For whatever reason – bad judgment, bad attitude or just a bad guy. (There are plenty of a-holes in the world of all races and they don’t need to be canonized or made martyrs of for a cause if they’ve acted criminally.) He determined his own destiny (as any of us world) challenging an armed policeman. This was not racism but it was disingenuously treated as such. Stupidity knows no racial boundaries and anyone big, threatening and challenging a lone cop would suffer the same fate.
“You don’t know me, so don’t presume to understand who I am or all that I believe. It’s pretty arrogant, and at the heart of much of the problems that exist today.”
Never said I did, no arrogance shown. There’s a lot of unproductive & wasted anger in you that’s for sure. I’m not a fan of those who attempt to stifle the room while offering nothing up BUT their anger. Most people do not want to be perceived as racist and some black groups take advantage of that tendency so yelling “RACISM!” gets the attention. Get over it, as Native Americans have had to get over their mistreatment in the past. Forge your own path. I think you stifle your own progress using mental blockades.
“And what solutions have you provided in your post (other than an fanciful belief in systems that clearly don’t exist. That “content of your character” stuff makes for a nice soundbite, but it’s not the way reality works.”
BS. You hit the mark. Start with great character, yeah? Is that so hard? Undesirable? Stop using your race as an excuse for not trying. Stop breaking up the family unit which only cycles the same problems to the next generation. Stay and be a man and a role model for your kids would be a great start. There are MANY successful black people (rolling their eyes at you right now) out there who know that opportunities exist. You set the bar low for yourself then that’s the life you will receive. No one can do the hard work but you. It’s the same for everyone. Don’t expect a handout. That way lies madness and the self-loathing which leads to substance abuse.
“Think about that for a moment. How did all that “content of their character” stuff work for your people, generally speaking, of course.”
For Native Americans it was a simple matter of Europeans wanting what we had – land. And the constant breaking of treaties. You are referring to the past. Hate to break it to you but we’re in TODAY. I believe it was Martin Luther King who suggested we all be judged for our character. It got him shot, but he also did things that made great headway in civil rights. You seem to need an excuse to avoid elevating your own character and situation. Why is that? It’s easier to sit around, complain and do nothing?
“You can believe that fantasitcal stuff all you like, though what it seems to tell me is that you’re ignoring the lessons of your own history.”
History is just that, and history changes. It doesn’t stagnate. It’s a different world now from fifty or a hundred years ago. You don’t seem very familiar with race history to know the strides that have been made. I saw segregation first hand in a movie theater in Alma, Arkansas when I was a kid in the early 60’s. That’s now history.
” It’s that the content of your character is what people often bring up when they don’t particularly feel like dealing with the underlying issues that a particular group have.”
It’s a great place to start. That concept means a lot of things that seem to be beyond you. If you choose to believe you will fail or the odds are against you or there are people standing in your way then that’s what you will get – failure. Successful people of all races think differently. They don’t let anything stop them from taking action. They don’t give voices excusing them to fail free rent in their heads.
“It’s a way of deflecting blame and not taking responsibility. ”
You’re the one not taking responsibility. It’s just an easy way for you to quit trying. It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to make your life a success but YOU. No one looked out for me, save my parents, but it’s was still MY effort and life. Believe me I WANT you to be successful, I want EVERYONE to be successful. It’s great for the country and the economy. Everyone should have their dignity and self-respect in a perfect world. But lofty goals have to be constantly pursued & worked at or they just don’t happen.
“After all, it’s easy to imply that the content of their character is causing–in this particular instance–young black males to be killed, as opposed to owning up to the fact that the system that we currently live under is inherently racist, and values colored lives less.”
I don’t believe the system is “inherently racist” and feel largely it’s another easy way to justify personal inaction and failure. There may be small pockets of that but by and large blacks have been assimilated into the American mainstream & culture. Most people don’t even think about race until people start screaming about it. I do think some profiling goes on but that’s because it goes back to a solid family unit keeping young black men out of a life of crime and out of jails. The system perpetuates itself to some degree because stability in the black family is still a problem. Bill Cosby pointed this out but now I disappointedly hesitate to use Dr. Cosby’s examples due to his own recent problems.
If President Obama’s plan to make college education is free for everyone, how many more young black men (and women) do you think will take advantage of it? Or just view it as the choice of chumps? You can lead a horse to water…
“As an Native American, and considering rates of alcoholism and suicide among your people, I’d think that that would be relatively clear.”
As it is in the general population and among blacks with drugs. That’s an individual human issue.
All you can do is persist in your goals. If knocked down get up and go again. But your anger will get you nowhere if it doesn’t result in positive action. Opportunities are out there for those with the intelligence, guts, education and persistence to take them. Any other path is someone who prefers excuses and practicing fatalism. We are all the masters of our own destiny.
Take a bow, PB.
Your minority background and understanding of the issues from ground zero resonates for all to read.
A rare rebuttal that says it all for the greater good. Well done, sir. 🙂
I think I can sum up the feelings of most white people I know, very simply:
I don’t hate black people.
But I DO absolutely despise a certain subset of black people, not because of their physical characteristics or color, but because of how they act.
It’s a fairly consistent set of behaviors, too: crime, laziness, drugs, expecting handouts, willful ignorance, wanton sexual promiscuity, piss poor parenting, etc.
It’s not racist because my opinion has absolutely nothing to do with their race, I know it IS just a subset, and I have no problem whatsoever with the rest of the black population.
I also despise a certain percentage of white people for fairly similar reasons, and they generally fall under the term “redneck.”
The only difference is that the percentage of black people in the “bad” group is substantially higher than their corresponding white people (and crime, single mother, drug, and other statistics PROVE this as fact).
That’s why white people stereotype negatively against black people. It has nothing to do with race for most white people.
It’s the actions and behaviors that we hate, not the race itself!!!
The sooner black people, in particular, realize this and clean up their communities, straighten out their brothers, daughters, etc, the sooner the concept of “racism” will fall by the wayside.
(And yes, white people need to do some clean up, too).
I would like to ask you to consider despising the behaviour and not even remotely connect it to skin colour. Pigment does not cause behaviour.
He did if you read his whole comment.
“But I DO absolutely despise a certain subset of black people”
A subset of black people does not describe behaviour. Black is not a behaviour and the lack of the praiseworthy qualities that he would like to see in people is not related to pigment.
Yes but he DOES describe the behaviors in question right after that. He also mentions that bad qualities are not limited to any one segment of humans. Since he’s referring or targeting black culture misbehaviors then “pigment” is relevant to the specific group he’s talking about while also acknowledging ill behavior by many. Pigment is relative anyway, there are many light and fair-skinned blacks out there too. Personally I think this is a silly argument since I think you know all too well what he means.
Pretty well said there sccaldwell. I think you hit an essential truth that it’s more about disliking the obnoxious and self-defeating behaviors of some, not the color of skin (which actually I find quite attractive as many do). That doesn’t make one a racist since behavioral judgment applies to all. If you’re a “jerk” don’t expect to be readily accepted by society or accepted under any condition by virtue of being black. Once again take responsibility for your own life & behaviors and stop playing the victim.
Say isn’t that the same road that leads to “content of one’s character?” 🙂 MLK had it right.
Which one does he have a stake in?
Dvde we fall, one and all.
Divided we fall, one and all.
PISS ON JESSE JACKSON! Why would anyone care about what that race peddling poverty pimp has to say? He’s a leech who feeds off of racial tensions that he helps create. He’s a parasite.
Seriously, tell us how you really feel. Don’t hold anything back.
Ah, Howie. If only everyone could be like your fine and loving self. What a great country that would be.
Right. I don’t have any racial prejudice. Like Martin Luther King Jr., I focus on the content of someone’s character, not the color of their skin. I am sick of assholes like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, etc. constantly stirring up racial strife. They purposefully enflame the racial tensions that they claim to want to fix. They’re helped by an eager and willing news media who want to get more viewers, more readers, and more ad dollars as a result of all of the attention. I see things very clearly. I’m a man of truth. I speak it and live it.
I never do!
Yeah! How dare he bring attention to racial issues that effect real people’s lives (though perhaps not so directly in your case)!
Ask yourself this though, do you have an issue with him doing so because you just aren’t interested in hearing it? And if that’s the case, why?
READ what I said. He’s a parasite. He CAUSES the racial strife that he claims to be against. I stand by what I said.
Fox Daily News!
Just yesterday, I was shown around someone’s house. At one point, I stood in a hallway lined floor to ceiling with old mechanical tin banks. There were MANY non politically correct ones such as “The Greedy N*igger Bank”. I take it Jesse Jackson was not saluting those banks. That would be a step in the wrong direction.
That must be snark because otherwise it makes absolutely no sense at all.
Jesse Jackson makes uncomfortable those who would deny that significant racism lurks in American institutions of all types. He has tirelessly fought racism by focusing the light of truth on ingrained practices that perpetuate this type of racism. Both he and Apple deserve our gratitude for this step. The more we can confront inequality and correct it, the stronger and better country we will be.
Fighting racism is one thing, correcting inequality, by taking from the haves, to give it to the have nots, is a big mistake.
Confront inequality through education, not by taking my hard earned income.
By the way, who is “taking your hard-earned income?” I mean, in places other than your imagination, that is.
The hard earned money being taken from taxpayers to give away for votes is the decades long strategy of the Democrat Party and in action present day by the White House.
What part of this do you NOT understand?
Here is another clue for the clueless. Make the rich pay their fair share, ever heard that? And where do you think that money goes to? Get a grip!
Confront inequality through education. These words should be on a poster in every classroom in America!
Jesse hears the sound of inevitability and his irrelevance. This is the type of grandstanding that has-beens do. Not that he ever was a “been”. In September 2014 he was slamming Apple to squeeze more moolah for non-scientist contract workers, like janitors and security staff:
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/jesse-jackson-apple/
Like Sharpton, Jesse is addicted to the sound of his voice and the adulation of his retinue however hollow. He accomplishes little or nothing for the cause of minorities.
dd
So if you marry 3 times and have 6-8 kids and the Dads left you to handle it all, it’s not your fault? Gov should provide for you and assist you? That’s the JJ way right? lol
I’m not sure what article you’re referencing but this one has nothing to do with what you just said.
If those banks are competitive then I’m all for it, great news!
Though with Jesse Jackson involved, I have my doubts.
There seems to be a lot of misinformation here regarding what happened and how it happened, specifically regarding Jesse Jackson’s role. This seems to result in many of the comments here such as Jubei’s who want to turn this into some kind of welfare argument.
What happened here is that Apple wanted to offer corporate debt. Traditionally, when this is offered it’s not simply “posted” such that anyone can click and submit.
Instead, for levels this large, it’s very much a person-to-person transaction. Here’s the issue… since this is all done so personally, it tends to be something where a company like Apple will reach out to people they know. They place a few calls and start getting together. There’s nothing wrong with that in of itself. However, when you’re outside of that circle, this is an opportunity that’s closed off to you.
So there are minority owned companies who would like to get in on purchasing that corporate debt. Not being friends with the mostly white board members and executive team, and not being from the same area, there is little to no access.
Along comes Jesse Jackson. Now, regardless of whether you love, like, dislike or hate him, and whether or not you agree with his political views, he’s a person who has a following and can call attention to things that can result in companies responding to.
In this case, he had already called upon Apple and other companies for disclosure and other minority related issues. He already had a relationship (for better or worse) with Apple and leveraged that to make the introduction and give access to the minority owned banks.
The subsequent offers of debt purchasing still needed to meet or beat the competition, but through Jackson, the opportunity to compete was made.
Well stated. It’s great to see Apple take a a mature approach and include entities that have long been “outside” the business climate.
We are still very much a racist nation, and while no doubt there are those who game the system, nonetheless the oppression of minorities but the “dominant” species is very real, cannot be denied.
Jesse Jackson, whether you hate him or stand neutral with him, is doing what many of us do if we were in his shoes, and that’s fight for equality.
No, no, 88!!! Racism is gone. The fact that segregation was cheered a few days ago (on the scale of history) means nothing. The beatings, the murders, the institutionalized barriers to social participation, the voting laws that disproportionately affect poor people — it’s all ancient history.
Sean, you can shout all you want, but racism is far from over. Improvements have been made, Yes, but not without a vloume of intervention, which should not be needed. Civilty is a start.
Correction: volume
I’m sorry but the mechanism of issuing corporate debt is nothing like you state.
Usually, the company, in this case Apple, meets with a lead underwriter, the offering bank. The lead underwriter then assembles a consortium of other underwriting banks, that Apple likely has never met.
Apple may have at one time met with a number of banks in order to choose one or several to be the lead of the original issue, but this is now a well-trod process. Since Apple’s original offering was the largest corporate offer ever, it would be normal to have several of the world’s largest banks lead the underwriting. Below the lead underwriters are several tiers of additional banks. In general, these tiers of banks are broken down by size, because, they are obligated to sell a portion of the debt offering to their clientele. A bank doesn’t want to take more debt than it can chew, for diversification reasons, so it’s obvious size matters.
Companies don’t deal with buyers directly, the banks each take a portion of the debt offering, generally in relation to their size, and sell it to their banking clients. For minority banks, they tend to be smaller, thus don’t have the capacity to take on a piece of the underwriting for a company the size of Apple, since you don’t want to have to manage 1000+ banks to do the underwriting. It would take a specific request from Apple in order for those smaller banks to be involved.
Ultimately, the problem is one of logistics. Apple’s offering was the largest corporate offering ever. Thus, in order to make the sale manageable, they would typically include the world’s largest banks to do the underwriting, somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 50 banks should do it. If you were to do an offering only with smaller banks, you might need 1000 of them or 10,000 of them. The logistics would be impossible. So, to include a couple small banks had to be a specific request from the issuing company.
As for the last sentence about meeting or beating the competition, that has nothing to do with it. The banks doing the underwriting get a commission, that’s it.
You just further detailed what Kevico wrote and $6.5 billion is far from the largest corporate debt offering. Read what you yourself just wrote, “Apple, meets with a lead underwriter, the offering bank. The lead underwriter then assembles a consortium of other underwriting banks”. I think Kevico is saying that this is where JJ was involved in introducing minorities who want in on the deal who otherwise would’ve never had access.
Wow, you didn’t understand what I wrote at all. Apple’s initial debt offering was the world’s largest corporate debt offering. Since then, following debt offerings are a “well-trod process” I wrote.
Why don’t you just let Kevico explain what he wrote, but the notion that the minority banks want to buy Apple’s debt and can’t because they don’t know Apple’s board and execs is nonsense. They don’t actually want to buy Apple’s debt at all. They want to broker it to their customers and collect an underwriting fee.
I’m not sure what the point was of mentioning Apple’s initial debt offering. The whole point is that these companies wanted access now, and were outside of “the well-trod” process.
“They don’t actually want to buy Apple’s debt at all. They want to broker it to their customers and collect an underwriting fee.”
I think you’re looking for errors in what Kevico said where they don’t exist. Read what he wrote again. The whole point is that these minority owned companies wanted access and were, as you admit, outside of the existing well-trod process (not connected). Read what William Michael Cunningham had to say on this.
What are you being argumentative for? You clearly don’t know the first thing about what I wrote or Kevico wrote. I used to comment quite a lot on MDN, and have written Opinion pieces here years ago, but have lost interest exactly because people like you will willfully misinterpret things. As a minority who used to work in IB, I can assure you I know what I’m talking about and that Kevico was completely wrong. The problem is, his misunderstanding of how debt offerings work, led him to conclude things that he just made up out of thin air.
Is there something wrong with the corporations involved that is not generally known ?
Its worth finding out if some of the above critics are more interested in the message that Apple is sending than some of the messengers.
Apple chose to work with some corporations. It turns out that some of those corporations were mentioned by Mr. Jackson.
As Apple investor, I am interested in Apple profit, PR, customer base, financial innovation. This move by Apple is likely to help in most of those areas. PR is a problem because of the low boiling point of some critics.
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