Good Grief: Ford Employees Want Company to Stop Making Police Cars

A woke collection of Ford Motor Company employees, apparently too ignorant to be grateful for having a stable job in this uncertain economy, is pressuring the car manufacturer to stop making police cars – because of racism and George Floyd and all that jazz. So far, Ford CEO Jim Hackett is not taking the employee complaints very seriously, telling them that it’s not “controversial that the Ford Police Interceptor helps officers do their job” and confirming that Ford would continue to provide cops with transportation.

We’ll see if he can hold onto that clearly-racist interpretation of reality as the pressure piles on. Make cars for the cops? Doesn’t he know that modern police descend from the slave patrols of the blah-blah-blah? Has he even read the 1619 Project?

According to Jalopnik, an employee group called Ford’s African Ancestry Network (FAAN) circulated a letter this month demanding that the company “cease development, production, and sale of all custom police vehicles and products.”

“We cannot claim to support the fight against systemic racism while supplying and supporting the very systems that perpetrate violence against Black Americans,” the group wrote. “Throughout our history, the vehicles that Ford employees design and build have been used as accessories to police brutality and oppression.

“We know that while many join, support, or supply law enforcement with good intentions, these racist policing practices that plague our society are historic and systemic — a history and system perpetuated by Ford for over 70 years — ever since Ford introduced the first-ever police package in 1950. As an undeniable part of that history and system, we are long overdue to ‘think and act differently’ on our role in racism,” the letter continued.

If we were a part of Ford’s corporate leadership, we would have been sorely tempted to tell these employees about all of the wonderful unemployment benefits they could receive if they continued to make idiotic demands of the company. We suppose that’s why we’re not part of the board. Nonetheless, we detect a small but distinct note of contempt in Hackett’s reply to the group.  

“The issues plaguing police credibility have nothing to do with the vehicles they’re driving,” he wrote, stating the obvious. “In fact, as we imagine the future power of our connected vehicles, smarter Ford vehicles can be used to not only improve officers’ ability to protect and serve, but also provide data that can make police safer and more accountable.”

Yesterday it was Aunt Jemima. Today, it’s Ford.

We honestly can’t tell if things are getting worse or better.