America’s Great Racial Reckoning Comes To The Auto Industry As Some Ford Employees Call For End Of Cop Car Manufacturing

Some American corporations have been forced to come to Jesus in the past few weeks with acknowledgements of racial insensitivity, failures in workplace diversity, and other contributions to institutional racism — but for the most part this reckoning has largely bypassed the automotive industry. Or so we thought, before hearing that Ford Motor Company has a situation brewing that could lead to a re-examination of the automaker’s role in law enforcement.

According to a tip in the Jalopnik inbox, a number of Black Ford employees came together to raise concern about their employer’s manufacture of police vehicles. (We have since received clarification that the letter was written composed by a group of Black and white Ford employees.) Ford wouldn’t be the first company to come under scrutiny for making equipment for law enforcement, as folks around the country are raising flags about who gets contracts to produce what for use by police. From small players like bike companies — such as Trek, who makes police bikes — to behemoths like Amazon and its facial-recognition technology a number of companies are facing pressure now, and Ford certainly isn’t the first company with internal revolt.

But questions of Ford’s share in the law-enforcement market couldn’t have come at a more inopportune time for the automaker, as events in addition to the uprising related to the death of George Floyd might have to force some uncomfortable conversations for Ford CEO Jim Hackett — who, according to our tipster, quickly rejected the idea of Ford halting sales of police vehicles.

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Because Ford essentially owns the police market, and because police departments are not going to switch to bikes and scooters anytime soon the automaker probably isn’t in a hurry to jump out of the police car business, even if it wouldn’t send them on a path to bankruptcy. Think about your town. Do you, like a good majority of Americans, live in a red state or a city or town with a government that prides itself on purchasing Made In America goods and maybe, totally misinterpreting parts of the constitution? Imagine the public relations headache emanating from areas like yours if Ford canceled thousands of contracts across the country with those kinds of elected officials, and then imagine if all of those towns told their populations to stop buying Fords because a Detroit company is infringing on their freedom or first-amendment rights or some crazy shit.

https://jalopnik.com/america-s-great-racial-reckoning-comes-to-the-auto-indu-1844285290