Apple's video of 2014 San Francisco Pride Parade celebrates company diversity

Posted:
in General Discussion edited July 2014
Apple on Monday published a video showing its side of last week's Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Pride Parade in San Francisco, where the company showed up in force to celebrate the day and hand out vouchers for free iTunes songs.


Apple CEO Tim Cook at this year's Pride Parade. | Source: Apple via YouTube


Set to Coldplay's "A Sky Full of Stars," the short film is done in the style of Apple's typical store opening featurettes, which let the images do the talking instead of overdubbed narration.

The video starts out by showing preparations for the Pride Parade, including the handing out of rainbow-colored flags for the march and special edition T-shirts emblazoned with the word "Pride" just below a similarly colored Apple logo.

Apple's YouTube description:
On June 29, thousands of Apple employees and their families marched in the San Francisco Pride Parade. They came from around the world -- from cities as far as Munich, Paris, and Hong Kong -- to celebrate Apple's unwavering commitment to equality and diversity. Because we believe that inclusion inspires innovation.
Apple CEO Tim Cook can be spotted taking a selfie with an employee during what looks to be a pre-event refreshment gathering catered by Caffe Macs personnel. Lisa Jackson, the company's head of environmental initiatives, was also on hand for the parade, though she was not featured in the video.

Along with Cook, a few Apple products make appearances as well, with the iPad Air being used for logistics operations and numerous iPhones in the hands of employees. The remainder of the video shows different views of Apple's significant 5,000-person presence in the procession, and wraps up with the tagline "Inclusion inspires innovation." Cook tweeted out the same quote on the day of the parade.



This was the first year Apple officially sanctioned a group to march in the San Francisco parade, and to celebrate the company handed out free iTunes song cards to bystanders along the route.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 70
    poochpooch Posts: 768member
    yay, apple!
  • Reply 2 of 70

    This was a wonderful gesture of goodwill, but let's also admit that it was great marketing as well.

  • Reply 3 of 70
    dnd0psdnd0ps Posts: 253member
    Now imagine samsung copying this
  • Reply 4 of 70
    "inclusion inspires innovation" ? examples please.
  • Reply 5 of 70
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    "inclusion inspires innovation" ? examples please.

    Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver come to mind. They couldn't exactly do what they did if they were slaves who would be denied a formal education now could they?
  • Reply 6 of 70
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    Benjamin Banneker and George Washington Carver come to mind. They couldn't exactly do what they did if they were slaves who would be denied a formal education now could they?



    That being said, I don't think the people in the parade are being denied schooling, or being enslaved.

  • Reply 7 of 70
    Yea! A COMPANY, (and CEO!), that merits the respect AND EVALUATION it is starting to regain. A company that for a very long time has shown it has a soul. No wonder it enjoys so much customer loyalty.
  • Reply 8 of 70
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    So where was the rest of the executive team? Phil Schiller didn't even tweet about it.
  • Reply 9 of 70
    foadfoad Posts: 717member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     



    That being said, I don't think the people in the parade are being denied schooling, or being enslaved.




    But in quite a few aspects they are denied other rights. In more and more states they trend has been more positive.

     

    On a side note, it is a bit disheartening to see so many dislikes of the video on YouTube. Growing up I was always taught about how precious each life is and to see people go out of their way to even dislike the video bums me out.

  • Reply 10 of 70
    saintstryfesaintstryfe Posts: 142member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     



    That being said, I don't think the people in the parade are being denied schooling, or being enslaved.


    You asked for examples, they gave examples. You are moving the goalposts. But since we're on this, let's give one more, which merges both gay rights and racial equality. Bayard Rustin was a close ally of Martin Luther King Jr. and the main organizer of the 1963 March on Washington (where King gave his famed I have a Dream speech). Also? Gay. And the powers-that-be, who were trying to discredit the Civil Rights movement tried to slander him, like it was a problem. Well Rev. King got up when his people questioned and asked of Rustin should be removed and he said the simplest words: "He who is without sin can cast the first stone". He did organize the March and it was successful. Oh, and he also wrote about his experiences working on North Carolina chain gangs after being arrested for early Civil Rights protesting in the late 40's - it lead to those chain gangs being abolished. He was given a posthumous Medal of Freedom by President Obama last year.

     

    So there, there was a qualified person being discriminated against because of his seuxal preferences, and succeeding inspite. 

  • Reply 11 of 70
    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger Posts: 1,583member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by photoshop59 View Post



    "inclusion inspires innovation" ? examples please.

     

    If you don't ostracize, marginalize and foster hatred of people for irrational reasons, you don't end up missing out on what they can contribute to society. 

     

    Examples include a lot of artists and musicians, but also engineers and mathematicians like Alan Turing, who developed a critical crack for Nazi ciphers that allowed England to intercept German messages. Winston Churchill said Turing made the biggest contribution to the Allied victory against the Nazis.

     

    Turing later went on to develop some of the first pioneering designs for computers in the late 1940s. He was subsequently persecuted for being a gay man in the 50s and was forced to take estrogen, a humiliating and physically and psychologically torturous punishment for admitting that he was attracted to other men. Thus a war hero who made major contributions to technology ended up committing suicide because of religious-driven hatred by an ignorant, delusional society. 

     

    Hitler also singled out gays for special persecution and murder in concentration camps, driven by his right wing ideology that was hateful and contemptuous of the liberal society that existed in Germany, particularly in Berlin, before he came to goose-stepping into power with a message of intolerance, blind nationalism and fascist devotion to misguided ideals of what people should think, how they must act and what art was appropriate for his perverse vision of a "1000 year reign."

     

    Today militant muslims and extremist tea party American conservatives also ostracize and demonize gays, to the point of beating, killing or disowning their own children. That isn't advancing technology, art or anything else of value in the territories those extremists control, much of which is unlivable, unappealing and purely backward.

     

    If you look at the most desirable, successful, technologically advanced and affluent societies one can live in (places like Scandinavia, Switzerland and Bay Area/Silicon Valley), they don't pursue people over superstitious hatreds. They support inclusion. Because inclusion broadly promotes innovation. 

  • Reply 12 of 70
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by dnd0ps View Post



    Now imagine samsung copying this

    I don't know about Samsung but Google is a very big supporter of Gay rights. They have been sponsors of Gay Pride Parades through out the US and Europe since the early 00's and have donated heavily in passing Gay Right legislation. As far as actually donating real money for these events though, Budweiser and Virgin Airlines seem to be the biggest.

  • Reply 13 of 70
    souliisoulsouliisoul Posts: 827member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by TheWhiteFalcon View Post

     



    That being said, I don't think the people in the parade are being denied schooling, or being enslaved.


    Is reply was correct, since nothing about denying schooling or being enslaved, but bigger, not excluding another human because there are different, which has nothing to do with laws, but weak minded people, not knowing how to handle people different from what they define as the 'norm'

    You should have that applauded is answer, I do.

  • Reply 14 of 70
    wdowellwdowell Posts: 226member
    Love that Apple is inclusive, but I'd love to know if the costs associated with the banners, the filming etc are logged as Marketing or not in their financials..

    Perhaps it's just a US thing, but to me as a european this all looks awkwardly well thought through and managed.
  • Reply 15 of 70
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member

    I believe that it is an over simplification of things to simply place Hitler and Nazism as a right wing ideology. It's more complicated than that, and I don't believe that you can merely place Nazism on a simple graph that goes from left to right. That is too elementary school. Nazism has many left wing traits and is closer to left wing ideology and liberals today, than to the right wing and conservatives.

     

    Some people like to point out that the Nazis were against the communists and socialists (even though the Nazis had the word socialist in their party name), but that doesn't automatically make Nazis "right wing". Communists and Nazis were rivals, and just because they disliked each other, that doesn't mean that they were on opposite ends of the political spectrum. No ideology on the planet has killed more people than left wing ideology, this includes Stalin, Mao and Hitler. I won't deny that Hitler had some right wing traits, but let's not pretend that he also didn't have any left wing traits, and his right wing traits have very little to do with any modern right wing traits, and he's much closer aligned to modern left wing thinking.

     

    Just because Nazism borrowed elements of fascism, that doesn't make them right wing either, because fascism is equally as comfortable on the left, represented by various left wing fascist groups and movements that exist today. The Nazis were also anti-capitalist, they were for big government, they were for gun control, they were environmentalists, they were extremely for animal rights, they were of course anti-semitic and they were bizarrely race obsessed. I just described a typical progressive person right there.

     

    I do agree with Corrections on one thing though. The way that Turing was treated by the UK was a disgrace. I remember seeing a documentary about that a long time ago.

  • Reply 16 of 70
    relicrelic Posts: 4,735member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wdowell View Post



    Love that Apple is inclusive, but I'd love to know if the costs associated with the banners, the filming etc are logged as Marketing or not in their financials..



    Perhaps it's just a US thing, but to me as a european this all looks awkwardly well thought through and managed.

    Though we would all like to think that corporations sponsoring civil rights is a noble cause, the average annual income for a single homosexual gay individual in the San Francisco is above the national rate. So I'm sure Apple sponsoring the parade had a little to do with both marketing and supporting their community. Budweiser was the principal sponsor this year so I wonder what category they fall under. I really do not know if these parades do much to help the gay community, but I'm leery of any corporate sponsored event, especially if that corporation is Budweiser.

  • Reply 17 of 70
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member

    Godwined!

     

    Well done people.

  • Reply 18 of 70
    marvfoxmarvfox Posts: 2,275member

    Figured Cook would be there.

  • Reply 19 of 70
    dgnr8dgnr8 Posts: 196member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Corrections View Post

     

    Today militant muslims and extremist tea party American conservatives also ostracize and demonize gays, to the point of beating, killing or disowning their own children. That isn't advancing technology, art or anything else of value in the territories those extremists control, much of which is unlivable, unappealing and purely backward.


     

    I can't believe you are so blind in your defending of LBGT that would would begin to compare "Militant Muslims" who torture and mutilate small children and women, who find the weakest and most venerable in the society and send the to their death on suicide runs and who spew more hatred and venom than any radical group in the world to the "Tea Party" who is tired of a government they believe to be to intrusive. I would like to see you offer a side by side comparison of bullet points comparing the two groups so I can see the error of my ways...

  • Reply 20 of 70
    richlrichl Posts: 2,213member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by DGNR8 View Post

     

    I would like to see you offer a side by side comparison of bullet points comparing the two groups so I can see the error of my ways...


     

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