Pretty bold of Citi to publish something like this. I wish more companies had the balls to do something like this... Not just some "Yay equality!!" Tweet, but a real and specific stance. Kudos.
How many people did they foreclose upon during the mortgage crisis? How many people have they extracted usurious amounts of interest from? How many people have they lured into debt and deceitful loans?<p>This is a large corporation with as much a hand in perpetuating systemic inequality as any other large corporation. Moreso because it exists in the financial sector. Calling out inequality and donating funds generated from parasitic practices is not enough. Let's talk about debt forgiveness, defunding the carceral state and dismantling other structures of oppression.
When it comes to speaking for racial justice and equality for LGBTQ, private corporations have been much more on the side of the angels than the government.<p>The same government that wants to shut down Twitter.
This investigation will likely end in nothing.<p>This will be delayed until news coverage stop, then everyone can continue their life business as usual.<p>The cops that choked Eric Gardner to death are all free right now.
"Despite the progress the United States has made, Black Americans are too often denied basic privileges that others take for granted. I am not talking about the privileges of wealth, education or job opportunities. I'm talking about fundamental human and civil rights and the dignity and respect that comes with them. I'm talking about something as mundane as going for a jog."<p>What progress?<p>This song was written in 1966. It could have been written this morning:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFNkacckLBU" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFNkacckLBU</a><p>We have made technological progress, which has brought it's own benefits, but that may be more in the form of keeping us busy / distracted; pointing our genetically evolved anger and biases towards the Internet rather than the real world.<p>But progress within humanity itself?<p>There can't be progress if there are no consequences, or if the consequences are escaped too frequently, or if the blame is laid upon the symptoms and not the cause: Rioting and looting is anti-social and illegal, yes, but property destruction isn't the same ball park as murder. Focus on the cause, and the symptoms disappear.<p>But then it's impossible to provide any absolute answer. There's overwhelming beauty in humanity. The good ones are forgiving, and the bad ones will take advantage, and this takes us into game theory. The only way the game changes is if the rules are changed to have more / worse consequences for the bad actors; better systems to ensure the enforcement of these consequences.<p>Bad elements of humanity will persist despite all this; we'll be colonising Mars in parallel with children being brought up to hate anything unfamiliar, female circumcision will still be law in some countries, and there will still governments that censor and censure even minor dissent, flat-earthers, anti-vaxxers, holocaust deniers.<p>I don't know if the US is making progress in race relations. That song from 1966 says a resounding no. I don't know if the political will exists within those with the political power to change things. US politics (only because that's the current example) is like my parents' fashion sense: stuck in their favourite era and showing no signs of even the consideration of modernising.<p>I don't know the answer, and it's maddening and depressing. But it's ignorable, for me, and therein lies the cause of the lack of political will: the symptoms aren't bad enough warrant the cost of seeing the doctor. School shootings once a month aren't bad enough to change gun laws; one dead black man doesn't have anywhere near the political capital of a dozen dead children.<p>For there to be change, the symptoms have to be more extreme, and they have to persist. History says so.<p>Technologically, this is 2020. Sociologically this might as well be 1966.
I admit, I was cringing when I saw the Citi logo at first thinking they would somehow pivot this into some marketing ploy.<p>Good on Citi for taking a firm stand and calling on some organizations people can donate to, which I personally hadn’t heard of until I read the post.
Police stood by and watch someone presumably getting murdered. Aside from also heart condition present, society can't tolerate bullying any longer. Grow some spine, even if they break you.
Some information on the pressures driving statements like these, beyond the writer's personal impetus: <a href="https://www.corp-research.org/citigroup" rel="nofollow">https://www.corp-research.org/citigroup</a>
I wish he'd gone a little further in condemning the rioting. It would have been the courageous thing to do.<p>The rioting is a mistake. It will not change hearts and minds. It will not undo the problems endemic to police forces. In fact, it may very well exacerbate them.<p>The problematic archetype is the bigoted cop who's drunk with power and behaves more like an animal operating on instinct than a thinking human. These people, in the collective, are irrational, aggressive, and reactionary. They also hide behind authority and a convenient veneer in the "rule of law". We also are now seeing that there may be many of more of them (and many more enablers of them still) than we thought.<p>And it is exactly these people who will feel vindicated and emboldened in the face of the rioting currently underway. If we're not careful, it may also give them a pretext to resort to even more horrible tactics in the future. Increased surveillance of political organizers and low-income neighborhoods, more military weaponry at their disposal, laxer guidelines around 'use of force'.<p>The current trajectory is not the way. We need to use the system of governance we have at our disposal to try and fix this. It's the harder but also only truly effective means of recourse society has at its disposal.