Category: Randomness

FEATURED POST: Why Racial Bias Still Pervades America

That race remains one of our most vexing national issues – from bias in the sharing economy, to the lack of diversity in the executive ranks to the violence that plays out daily between communities and the police – comes as no surprise to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson. “There is a direct line between our history and the headlines you see today,” she says. “And nothing will improve until we address that history.”

It took her 15 years and over 1,200 interviews to finish The Warmth of Other Suns, the massive and beautifully rendered account of the slow but steady migration of six million African Americans from the violent repression of the Jim Crow South, to the North and West in search of a better life. The Great Migration lasted between 1916 and 1970 and reshaped America in ways that we are just now starting to understand.

It was a tough road. “The migrants were cast as poor illiterates, who imported out-of-wedlock births, joblessness and welfare dependency wherever they went,” Wilkerson writes.

Wilkerson’s extraordinary reporting, however, tells a different and more nuanced tale – one of risk, hard work, and achievement despite racial barriers that still exist in some forms. “It’s hard to imagine what it would be like if there was no Great Migration,” she says. “So many aspects of what we view as American culture were affected by this unleashing of pent up, unrecognized talent, creativity and ability, that had been withheld for centuries.”

An astonishing number of prominent African American executives, artists or athletes either are, or are direct descendants of, someone who took that perilous journey.

In a recent conversation, I asked Wilkerson to help explain what we get wrong about the Great Migration, and why it is imperative that business leaders closely study the difficult history that shapes our world in unseen ways.

“If there are disparities in how African Americans are making their way in the business world, and they are encountering barriers and assumptions, it is a direct manifestation of the unaddressed history of the world in which we all live. History can be a tremendous guide, and more of a comfort than people can imagine.”

Read the entire interview here, it has been lightly edited for clarity.

Florida Politician Slaps Man Who Took Down One Of His Campaign Signs

Wow. The sakes are extremely high this election and the republicans are ready for war! Literally.

According to Gainesville.com –A republican Florida politician was caught punching slapping a man attempting to take down one of his campaign signs.

Keith Perry, who hadn’t returned calls since Monday, sent an email to The Sun shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, explaining his role in the altercation. The email said he would be available to speak to the media Thursday.

“Anyone who knows me, knows that it takes quite a bit to rile me up. What began as a silly disagreement over a legal campaign yard sign — that was authorized by the owner to be placed in his yard — escalated, and for my part in that, I apologize,” the email read.

Perry said he approached Norman Robert Leppla, 46, in “good faith” to talk to him about a sign he’d removed from the gate of a home Leppla was visiting and at one point, Leppla agreed to put the sign back where he found it.

Leppla, who has not returned calls about the incident, told police he went to put the sign back, but removed it a second time after he said Perry made rude comments to him, according to his sworn complaint.

Originally posted on Bossip

Leaked Emails Say Apple Has ‘Sexist’ And ‘Toxic’ Work Environment

Female employees of the beloved iPhone pusher Apple, leaked emails alleging that the company has a “sexist” and “toxic” work environment.

Approximately a dozen unidentified female Apple employees claim to have been the victims of a “very toxic atmosphere” at Apple that include jokes about rape and gender stereotypes by male workers who allegedly conveyed feelings that women are “nags,” according to emails and interviews reportedly obtained by Mic’s Melanie Ehrenkranz. One woman, using the pseudonym Danielle in the interview with Mic, said that some of her male co-workers joked about the possibility of a man entering their office to “rape everybody.” After repeated attempts to file formal complaints about the “toxic” work environment with managers, Danielle is said to have escalated the concerns to Apple CEO Tim Cook.

“Rape jokes in work chat is basically where I completely draw the limit,” she wrote to Cook, according to Mic, which obtained the email from Danielle. “I do not feel safe at a company that tolerates individuals who make rape jokes.”

Danielle says Cook never responded to the concern.

However, her experience might not have been unique. Ehrenkranz says she obtained more than 50 pages of emails between approximately one dozen female Apple employees discussing “stories of discrimination and workplace harassment.”

The emails come from both current and former Apple employees, the report says.

Have YOU ever worked in a toxic environment?

Read the rest of this article: Leaked Emails Say Apple Has ‘Sexist’ and ‘Toxic’ Work Environment — Fortune