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June 2020 saw the culmination of long-term work behind the scenes resulting in huge public successes, without much visible credit to AFSC's contribution. Here's a summary:
In the beginning of June, three high tech giants announced they would stop supplying the police with facial recognition technologies.These technologies were shown to be intrusive and racially-biased; a coalition of investors, including the AFSC, has been engaging with these companies over technologies of mass surveillance for a year now. The first was IBM, which announced it would drop that business completely; then Amazon announced a one-year pause on police use of its facial recognition products; and Microsoft followed suit with an announcement of a moratorium on sales to the police until the development of federal regulations for the use of these technologies.
Later in the month, the Racial Justice Investing Coalition, which we have been working with, published a powerful statement that opens thus: “We recognize that the investor community has contributed to and benefited from racist systems, ...We therefore take responsibility and commit to hold ourselves accountable for dismantling systemic racism and promoting racial equity and justice through our investments and work.”
The statement continues with a commitment to “either engage with or divest from companies with practices or business relationships that further systemic racism or white supremacy, or that enable state violence and criminalization. Direct specific attention to those connected to the prison, military, and immigration industrial complex, including technology, communications, services, and financial sectors, and those that are complicit in state violence.”
This statement, which we at AFSC helped draft, was signed by over a 100 investment firms and institutions, some of them well known, lending it wide exposure in the mainstream financial press (including in Bloomberg and Barron’s). We were quoted in the coalition’s press release, and our Investigate website was referred to in the coalition’s implementation guide.
Similarly, the Black-owned investment firm of Robasciotti & Philipson, our partners, clients, and supporters, has gained a lot of media attention over the last month, with interviews in Financial Planning Magazine and in the New York Times, describing its approach to racial justice activism and divestment from mass incarceration, based on AFSC's research and information.
Finally, on June 26, after a year of preparations supported by our program, the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) voted overwhelmingly (95%!) to adopt a resolution calling for divestment from companies involved in violations of human rights and international law, a review of human rights consideration in investment decisions, and strong communication between the investment committees and UU social justice organizations. It was cosponsored by several UU social justice groups including: Black Lives UU, UU Refugee and Immigrant Services and Education, UUs for Justice in the Middle East, UU Ministry for Earth and UU Peace Ministry Network.