iGive Up: Even in death Steven Jobs provides distraction

In the span of one week, we saw the deaths of two civil rights pioneers, one of whom defined the modern gay rights movement, and the other a cornerstone of the last century's fight for racial equality. In that same week, a former CEO of a tech company died. Two gave hope and voice to millions. The other marketed shiny tech toys.

One could argue that Mr. Jobs' impact was as great as that of both Rev. Shuttlesworth and Frank Kameny. Based on press coverage of their passing, though, one would get the impression that commercialization of the computer mouse stands head and shoulders above the fight for basic civil rights. The goals of a man driven to make his company number one in the marketplace must be more noble than the two who gave their lives and their safety so that others could live without fear, if media coverage is the barometer.

Slate would get some credit for at least memorializing Frank Kameny, if only the piece they published had not served to demonstrate their complete indifference. Not only does it say little about his life, but it appears to have been completely ignored by Slate's copy editors. One paragraph features the sentence, "They then and force the shrinks to listen to their claims that they were not crazy." The previous paragraph tells us that he founded the Mattachine Society. He did not. He founded the Mattachine Society of Washington. A week after the readers pointed out the error, Slate still
had not corrected it.

Farhood Manjoo eulogized Jobs for Slate in an article titled "The Man Who Invented Our World". He also deified the man, going so far as to say "Jobs had no patience for evolution. He was the intelligent designer." The writer even took his family on a pilgrimage to Jobs' house.

Slate's Rachel Larimore wrote "Steve Jobs Baby-Sat My Kids", about how Pixar, and by extension Jobs, raised the bar for children's entertainment. Thanks. Until that, few people had been aware that Pixar puts out good family movies.

On the same day, Aaron Lammer reposted a Longform.org collection of Job's speeches and interviews. Not to be left out of the dogpile, William Saletan wrote about how one should become an organ donor to honor Job's memory. Seriously, if you became an organ donor only to honor Steve Jobs, you should probably consider expediting the process.


Ron Rosenbaum's article on how Jobs was inspired by early phone hacking was published by Slate the day after Larimore's piece. Jobs was clearly inspired by the idea of using technology to circumvent paying for phone service so much that he created devices like the iPad where you are captive to the company store for content.

There was more in Slate about Jobs and Apple that week, but the point stands. And how many pieces about Reverend Shuttlesworth did Slate publish? Zero. Its African-American spin-off, TheRoot, had an announcement, a decent piece on the man's life and work, and a section of Al Sharpton's piece on HuffPo, but apparently didn't think his passing relevant to the general interest. Slate's editorial staff decided that its readers had no interest in Shuttlesworth's life. In keeping with the rest of their coverage, they could have at least tied it back to Steve Jobs, "Civil Right Leader Inspired Millions, Despite Failing to Impact Cell Phone Market."

What is clear is that they were judged based on how their efforts impacted us today. Largely straight, white fans of iPhones carried the moment because their interests dominate our view. This is a small part of the larger picture of how groups must continue to fight for basic rights in an environment of apathy and distraction. It isn't enough to say that Don't Ask, Don't Tell is over, or that people can no longer be fired explicitly because of the color of their skin. The fight for equality is far from over and it never will be as long as we fail to value freedom from oppression over the latest touch screen baubles.