Dear Larry Fink: it’s time to stop lavishing your wealth on the police – The Guardian

This summer, as millions of Americans marched and put their lives on the line for racial justice and an end to police brutality, too many wealthy Americans have done nothing more than offer their solidarity and moral support. Our countrys most fortunate have gotten rich thanks to a system that has for centuries excluded fellow Americans from the nations prosperity. They can, and should, go beyond statements in support of racial justice and Black Lives Matter and put their money where their mouth is.

If Americas millionaires tried even one-tenth as hard to end police brutality as theyve tried to cut their own taxes, we would be looking at a completely different world.

Larry Fink, the CEO of BlackRock, one of the largest financial management firms in the world and my former employer, is a perfect example of the problem with the way rich people approach these issues.

Mr Fink has voiced a commitment to racial equity and said all the right things in the last few weeks, but he has not actually done what he professes to believe in. As a firm committed to racial equality, we must also consider where racial disparity exists in our own organizations and not tolerate our shortcomings, he said, in a statement published on 30 May.

Yet, at the same time as Mr Fink is sympathizing with a movement against anti-Blackness, he has remained a donor to the New York Police Foundation (NYPF), which pays for equipment and training and provides incentives for anonymous tips that lead to arrests. For the last three years, Mr Fink has served as co-chair of the NYPFs annual gala.

Funding and publicly supporting the NYPF means that despite his stated commitment to racial equity, Mr Fink has chosen to stand with a group of people who have murdered some of our fellow citizens. The police are clients of BlackRock, but Mr Fink can take a powerful stand for racial justice by making sure his personal contributions reflect his stated commitments. His dollars dont have to reflect BlackRocks client list.

Of course, Mr Fink might see no problem with his financial support of the New York Police Foundation because he, like me and other wealthy, white men, has had generally positive interactions with police. But part of committing to racial justice is understanding the world outside your own narrow scope and its impossible to ignore the damage that the NYPD has done to Black communities and other communities of color in our city.

We know what it looks like when rich people in America really want the government to do something: they spend money to make sure it gets done. From financially supporting public advocacy efforts to hiring lobbyists to contributing to sympathetic elected officials, when rich people in America want something passed, they do a lot more than releasing a statement.

We are in yet another crisis moment. Many wealthy people give generously to philanthropic causes, but most of their giving tends to be aligned with their own vision of how the world should work. This cannot continue. The rich and powerful need to step back and recognize the role we play in systems of oppression even when were not actively contributing to them, and then use our wealth and our power to fix whats broken.

I will even make Mr Fink a deal. If he drops his support of the New York Police Foundation as the racial justice organization Color Of Change has called for and skips the annual police foundation gala, I will go 50-50 on donations to racial justice and workers rights organizations.

If Mr Fink and other wealthy people are going to decry racial inequality, then the least they can do is use their dollars to disrupt the status quo, rather than support an organization that continuously harms low-income and marginalized communities in New York City.

Morris Pearl is chair of Patriotic Millionaires, which focuses on promoting public policy solutions that encourage political equality, guarantee a sustaining wage for working Americans, and ensure that wealthy individuals and corporations pay their fair share of taxes. He previously was a managing director at BlackRock, one of the worlds largest investment firms