Glass Ceilings and Class Consciousness

Tim Cook as Truthdigger of the Week? OK, so let’s begin with his piece in Bloomsburg Businessweek, and with his first sentence: “Throughout my professional life, I’ve tried to maintain a basic level of privacy.” He goes right on to say, “I like keeping the focus on our products,” and I say believe him.

In the last paragraph, he says that framed photos of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy greet him each day when he goes to work. I keep framed photos of Frederick Douglass and Rosa Luxemburg in my study, so if Tim Cook and I ever had a political conversation — unlikely — we might well begin from some shared premises, but would certainly reach different conclusions. Granted, the views from above the top glass ceilings of the top corporations are also one kind of class consciousness.

I think Josh Tyrangiel, editor of Bloomsburg Businessweek, was correct to say of Cook this week (when he was interviewed on Bloomberg TV), “Politically, he’ll be receiving calls from Barack Obama, from the Clintons, and there are a lot of people who will be rooting for this story to be a positive thing and to go away quickly, because truly we should all be getting back to work.”

That’s right, Cook will receive calls from some of the very career politicians who were (until quite recently) publicly endorsing marriage for one man and one woman, but who finally tried jumping in front of a parade that had marched without them. But really, should we all go back to being cubicle drones and growing accustomed to the surveillance state and the global reach of drone wars? Just take another bite of the sweet Apple, and get back to work.