The Role of Philanthropy and Foundations in Thwarting Black Liberation

The Race for the Bottom

Al Jazeera (2021)

Film Review

This is an excellent documentary about the role of wealthy philanthropists and their foundations in thwarting the battle end institutional racism. Filmmakers make the point that “insurrection” that stormed the Capitol on Jan 6 didn’t start with Trump: that it was decades in the making.

Narrated by prestigious African American historians and academic, the begins with efforts by Carnegie and John D Rockefeller to steer newly freed slave into manual labor training that would keep them in agriculture and in the South. In 1903, Congress authorized the Rockefeller foundation to create General the Education Board. The latter would set standards for rural public schools, as well as universities and medical schools for the next 50 years. In 1910, the Flexner report, funded by Carnegie Foundation, recommended the closure of five black medical schools. In severely restricting the supply of Black doctors, the move also reduced access to medical care for Black patients.

The rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s would lead to a new wave of philanthropic funding, aimed at preventing the Black “insurrection.” The Ford Foundation, the source of significant funding to Black Studies, Black Art and Black higher and post graduate education, used it to split the African American community by create a Black liberal elite. I was very surprised to learn the the Black Panther Party received Ford Foundation funding for their free school breakfasts, medical clinics, eye programs and sickle cell foundation.

The film also mentions the role of George Soros’ Open Society Foundation in funding Black Lives Matter.

The rise of the Black Power movement, as well as women’s and gay rights movements in the late sixties and seventies would also trigger a white backlash, giving rise to a host of conservative foundations and think tanks (eg Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society, Walton Family Foundation, DeVos Family Foundation). The work of these foundations (along with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) would lead to a sustained attack on public schools through the (publicly funded) charter school movement, as well the training and appointment of conservative judges and an electoral coalition that would elect Donald Trump in 2016.

The film can be viewed free at https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-big-picture/2021/2/11/a-race-for-america

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Inside the Rivalry

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates: Inside the Rivalry

Al Jazeera (2017)

Film Review

This is an intriguing documentary about the notorious rivalry between Apple founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Despite their personal war over Microsoft’s alleged patent infringements, they collaborated on both the Apple and the MacIntosh computer.

The two men were similar in both dropping out of college and both having big issues with interpersonal relationships. Jobs, together with his friend Steve Wozniak, is credited with inventing the first true personal computer (PC), the Apple, in 1976. Gates and his friend Paul Allen were more focused on developing the software needed to make personal computers user friendly. The first Apple computers ran on Basic, the programming language Gates and Allen created for the Altair microcomputer.

Gates would later develop MS-DOS, an operating system written in Basic. It was designed to run on IBM personal computers and IBM “clones” designed by IBM’s competitors.

Gates, notorious for profiting off the inventions of other inventors (see The Inside Story on Bill Gates and Microsoft), also “appropriated” the graphical user interface Apple created for the MacIntosh in designing the Windows operating system which replaced MS-DOS.

Jobs introduced the Mac, the first PC to employ a graphical user interface (GUI), in 1984. This new feature made the Mac even user friendly (ie usable by people with a non-science background) than the Apple. Jobs always maintained Gates stole the GUI Windows is based on when they collaborated on the Mac.

The film also explores Jobs’ tyrannical management style, which in 1985 led the Apple board to fire him. His subsequent involvement with Pixar, the first company to produce full length animated feature films (eg Toy Story), would make him a billionaire overnight.

Eventually Apple, on the verge of bankruptcy, invited him back and he oversaw the production and release of the fabulously successful ipod, ipad and iphone.

In 2008, Gates began winding down his role at Microsoft to enable him to work full time at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The filmmakers suggest the decision relates in part to growing pressure he was experiencing from anti-trust lawsuits.

Jobs died in 2011.

The video can’t be embedded for copyright reasons but can be seen for free at the Al Jazeera website: Steve Jobs Bill Gates Rivalry