Room for hate: Satya Nadella backs Black Americans, as he did Muslim Indians

There is no place for hate and racism in the society, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said, asserting that empathy and shared understanding certainly are a start, but more should be done. Nadella’s remarks come in the wake of the custodial death of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American man who was simply pinned to the bottom in Minneapolis on, may 25 by a white officer who kneeled on his neck as he gasped for breath.

“There is no place for hate and racism inside our society. Empathy and shared understanding certainly are a start, but we must do more,” Nadella said in a tweet on Monday.

“I stand with the Black and African American community and we are focused on building upon this work inside our company and inside our communities,” Nadella said.

A day earlier, Google CEO Sunder Pichai expressed solidarity with the African-American community.

“Today on US Google & YouTube homepages we share our support for racial equality in solidarity with the Black community and in memory of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery & other people who don’t have a voice,” Pichai wrote on Twitter on Sunday.

“For all those feeling grief, anger, sadness & fear, you aren't alone,” Pichai said, sharing a screenshot of the Google search home page which said, “We stand to get racial equality, and all those who seek out it.”

Nadella’s Microsoft also said they will be using the platform to amplify voices from the Black and African American community at the business.

Nadella had also spoken out some time ago about the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act passed in his native country. Talking to BuzzFeed’s editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, in Manhattan, Nadella said what’s happening in the country is “sad.”

“I think what's happening is sad. Personally i think, and in fact to be honest, now being informed (and) shaped by both amazing American things that I’ve observed which is both, it’s technology reaching me where I was growing up and its own immigration policy and even a story like mine being possible in a country such as this.

“I believe, it’s just bad, if anything, I'd love to see a Bangladeshi immigrant who involves India and creates another unicorn in India or becomes the CEO of Infosys. That needs to be the aspiration. EASILY had to type of mirror what happened certainly to me in the US, I hope that’s what goes on in India,” Microsoft’s India-born CEO was quoted as saying by BuzzFeed.