In its enviable tradition of employee dissent , Googlers have used this moment of civil tempestuousness to reevaluate their company ’s family relationship to police . The finding of fact , according to over 1,600 of them , is that there should n’t be one .
Accordingly , a postulation began distribute last Wednesday asking CEO Sundar Pichai to end all sales of its ware to constabulary . Yes , all — from the obviously villainous on down to the enterprise version of its ubiquitous Gsuite package , like Gmail and Google Docs .
Past military action in the technical school blank have often focused what might be called Obviously Immoral Decisions by companies with outsize top executive and influence . Google’sshort - liveddrone oeuvre withthe Department of Defense ; Amazon ’s aid to our detainment and deportation setup ; Facebook ’s treatment of its subject matter moderators . Shrinkingly few people will fight a company ’s right wing to give its own proletarian PTSD , or to hunt down and imprison children .
Photo: Getty/AFP
At first blush , there ’s a immense chasm between those preceding action at law and deny fuzz the form of basic interoperable productiveness package most of us take for granted . Still , as one Googler who requested anonymity assure Gizmodo , the gist are the same even if the software itself is less instantly an accomplice to the project of racist policing . There ’s no acceptable amount of money for a company to make off of extrajudicial killing . “ Americans are cope with the historical legacies of slavery and genocide that the state is build on , and have begun to name the role of the police forces in maintaining a essentially bloodless supremacist system , ” the petition reads , “ Google is benefit off of these racist systems , and we believe this means Google is part of the trouble . ”
The petition is reproduced below ; we ’ve reached out to Google for comment and will update if we try back .
Dear Sundar ,
We are writing you this letter to take that Google stop sell our technology to police force .
The protest apparent movement that lead off with George Floyd ’s murder has thrive across the US and around the world , developing into a rebellion against racialism and constabulary panic . Americans are grappling with the historical legacy of thraldom and racial extermination that the country is built on , and have commence to identify the role of the constabulary strength in maintain a fundamentally white supremacist system . The demand to defund the police has been raised in city after city , as the first step in ending that system permanently .
The past weeks have shown us that addressing racism is not merely an issue of word , but of actions taken to break apart the actual structures that perpetuate it . While we as person contain difficult but necessary conversations with our family , friends and peer , we are also incredibly disappointed by our company ’s response . We desire Google to take actual step to help break up racism . We as a society have moved past the point where saying Black Lives Matter is enough , we call for to show it in our thinking , in our words and in our action that Black lives do count to us .
We ’re disappointed to know thatGoogle is still selling to police personnel , and advertises its link with police forces as somehow progressive , and seeks more heroic sales event rather than severing ties with constabulary and joining the million who require to defang and defund these introduction . Why serve the institutions responsible for for the stifle on George Floyd ’s neck to be more effectual organizationally ? Not only that , but the same Clarkstown police force out being advertised by Google as a success account has beensuedmultiple timesforillegal surveillance of Black Lives Matter organizer .
We ’re disappointed that Google is helpinglaw enforcement track down immigrants with drone surveillance footage , through Gradient Venture ’s financial and technical investments . Google is encouraging employees to give their money to Google ’s PAC , only for Google to thendonate to racist politicians and white supremacists . Google is profiting off of these antiblack systems , and we believe this imply Google is part of the problem .
We desire to be gallant of the company we work for . We need the society we build to talk to our values and how we want to show up in the domain .
The racist bequest of police across the United States go all the way back to its roots , when police force power emerged to protect the wealth get from slavery and genocide . We have a long way to go to address the full legacy of racism but to start with — we should not be in the patronage of profiting from racist policing . We should not be in the business of criminalise Black macrocosm while we intonate that Black Lives Matter .
We , the undersigned Googlers , call on you to stop making our applied science available to police force forces .
None of us is destitute until all of us are free.x2
Googlers Against racial discrimination
ALPHABETBlack live on MatterGoogleSundar Pichai
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