Action alert: Tell corporations to divest from police foundations
On Sunday Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old Black man, was shot in the back seven times by a Kenosha, WI police officer. His 3 children watched it happen.
This has been a summer of uprising as people across the country take to the streets to condemn the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many others. Miraculously, Jacob Blake didn’t die — instead, he’s been left paralyzed from the waist down.
Jacob Blake’s shooting is just the latest example of ultra-militarized police forces showing an utter disregard for Black life.
The attempted murder of Jacob Blake is yet another reminder of why millions of people across the country are rallying behind the demand to defund the police: Our nation’s heavily militarized police kill over 1,100 people a year.
This week, we’re joining Color Of Change and more than 40 organizations to demand divestment from police foundations because it’s not enough for corporations to say they want racial equity — they need to move their money and prove it.
Police foundations are private, corporate-sponsored groups that supplement already bloated police budgets. From NYC to LA and everywhere in between, police foundations help cops acquire surveillance tech, SWAT team equipment, and weapons that are used to terrorize Black, Brown, and Indigenous people.
There are 3 actions you can take right now to support the call for corporations to divest from police foundations.
- Sign the petition demanding corporations divest from police foundations.While police budgets are public documents that must be approved by local elected officials, police foundations exist as a backchannel to funnel private money and resources toward law enforcement. They shouldn’t exist and corporations pretending to care about racial equity certainly shouldn’t fund them.
- Share the petition on Twitter and Facebook and encourage your friends and family to take action.As we continue to demand corporations like Goldman Sachs, Verizon, and Target stop propping up militarized police foundations, we’ll need your help to share the petition on social media. Click here to tweet and click here to share on Facebook instantly.
- Take the fight directly to the corporations on social media.Corporations that fund police foundations — including familiar fossil fuel companies and funders Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Chevron, and Shell — all have public social media pages.On these pages, you can comment on posts to hold the corporation accountable, message the brand directly, and spread the word about the company’s support of police foundations and the harm they help inflict on Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. Stop the Money Pipeline supports the demand to defund the police because we know that the systems that maintain white supremacy and the fossil fuel industry are one in the same.
Each of the days this week has a different focus — today the banks, tomorrow oil and gas companies, and Friday communications companies. We’ll send you reminders the next two days with links to a few specific targets.
As a coalition that works to defund climate destruction and reinvest money in our communities, it’s essential that we stand in solidarity with our allies who are working to defund the racism that is also at the root of the climate crisis.
In solidarity,
Stop the Money Pipeline
P.S. Looking for more information about police foundations? Read the whole report from LittleSis.
