IASJ acknowledges that our country’s economy is rooted in structural racism and was founded and developed on the exploitation of Black Americans, Indigenous Peoples, and immigrants. We also recognize that structural racism is not unique to the US context, but also has played a role in the global economy. Indeed the vestiges of colonialism globally and the ongoing legacies of the slave trade permeate our financial, criminal justice, and immigration systems, with racial inequality ever-increasing. As representatives of faith-based investors, we see racial justice as a moral imperative, as well as an existential necessity. Our faith calls us to condemn racism, in all its forms, as a sin that violates human dignity. This calling extends to the way we view and treat immigrants. Echoing the words of the Bible, we affirm the inherent dignity of all immigrants: “The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34).
In these tumultuous times, when existing institutions of oppression grasp to stay in power, IASJ recognizes our responsibility as financial, faith-based actors to use our investments as leverage to advance racial justice in all forms. Our organization was founded almost 50 years ago, pushing companies to stop doing business in apartheid South Africa. In the wake of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, IASJ helped coordinate and draft the Investor Statement of Solidarity to Address Systemic Racism and Call to Action that was released in June 2020 and mobilized over 200 investors to endorse it. And, we continue to advance racial justice in our corporate engagements. With the ongoing efforts to dismantle diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts, the anti-ESG efforts to limit investors’ ability to exercise their First Amendment rights (including the freedom of religion), the ongoing human rights violations against the Palestinian people, and the unchecked governmental and police surveillance and abuse of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) individuals and communities, we remain unwavering in our commitment to advocating for racial justice through systemic change.
Our Goals:
- To ensure companies – whose products, services, or operations further systems of racial oppression – identify, prevent, mitigate, and remediate any adverse human rights impacts of business activities on communities of color and immigrants;
- To push companies to incorporate racial equity into their operations and throughout their value chains;
- To promote intersectional understandings, approaches, and solutions to combat systemic racism, in all its forms, that is informed and guided by impacted rights holders.
Our Approach:
Our Racial Justice & Immigrants’ Rights campaign is comprised of two lines of work:
- A line of work focused specifically on the racialized implications of the development, sale, and end-use of surveillance, artificial intelligence, border militarization, and cloud storage technologies.
For the past few years, IASJ has been engaging the tech sector, to ensure technologies are not being used to further racial injustice and discrimination. This line of work focuses on both the intended and disparate racial impacts of big tech companies’ development and sale of technologies, their partnerships with police and other governmental actors, and the misuse of these technologies by such actors to violate human rights, including civil rights, freedom of expression, and privacy. Our work focuses on big tech companies, urging them to identify, prevent, mitigate, and remediate adverse impacts on communities of color, both in the US and abroad. Our engagements in this work include:
Amazon: regarding the sale of surveillance and cloud storage technologies to law enforcement agencies and other governmental actors and the misuse of such technologies to further racial discrimination and violate human rights of Black and Brown individuals in the US and Palestinians abroad.
Microsoft: regarding the sale of surveillance and cloud storage technologies to law enforcement agencies and other governmental actors and the misuse of such technologies to further racial discrimination and violate human rights of Black and Brown individuals in the US and Palestinians abroad.
- A transversal racial equity lens that applies to all our campaigns.
IASJ promotes racial justice and racial equity from a holistic, intersectional approach, understanding the ways racial injustice intersects with climate change, war and conflict, workers’ rights, and human rights more broadly. As such, we endeavor to incorporate a racial equity lens into each of our other campaigns: Climate + Dignity, Human Rights in the Value Chain, and Peace & Demilitarization. We believe that pursuing racial justice means pursuing economic justice, climate justice, Indigenous sovereignty, and upholding the rights of immigrants, women, and workers.
The following list describes a few of our engagements that incorporate a racial equity lens:
Dow: regarding operations being located near environmental justice communities, predominately Black and Latinx communities, and the resulting disproportionate pollution, and exposure to hazards, and carcinogens.
JPMorgan Chase: regarding the intersection of the fossil fuel industry and the violation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights, particularly their right to Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) as it relates to decisions affecting their land.
Tyson Foods: regarding the mistreatment of workers in meatpacking facilities and throughout the supply chain and the disparate adverse impacts on such workers, who are mostly migrant workers, and on BIPOC communities.
General Dynamics: regarding the sale to and misuse of weapons by foreign governments to violate human rights and international humanitarian law, and to further systems of racial oppression, including against the Palestinian people.
Ford: regarding the intersection of unions and equitable benefit sharing for BIPOC communities in the South, related to EV battery plants.
