“Every system of control depends for its survival on the tangible and intangible benefits that are provided to those who are responsible for the system’s maintenance and administration. This system is no exception.” Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow. 

As payments professionals, when we discuss systems of control we are typically referring to tools and governance frameworks for payments. While we regularly ask our audience to disrupt how they think about payments systems, as a business we’ve implicitly consented to a system of racial control through silence and a lack of advocacy.

No more. 

As individuals, members of our organization have taken to the streets with protesters in Los Angeles and Washington DC, contributing our time, skills, and money. Some of us help ensure the safety of protesters through open-source mapping, others analyze data sets for policy recommendations, and many of us call our local elected officials daily. Others of us are just beginning our journeys, learning how we can listen to black leadership and understand the multiple dimensions of systemic racism. This includes reading works from publishing scholars like Ibram X. Kendi, Michelle Alexander, and Angela Davis while following local leaders like our own Nikkita Oliver in King County.

We have heard them: a budget is a moral document. Budgets reflect society’s values and outline what we see as a just and equitable system. Such a system would enable the most amount of people to participate in our global marketplace. As a U.S. company, we don’t see how a militarized police achieves that goal. We believe in, and will advocate for, government budgets that divest from policing in favor of community services like free education, accessible transportation, and housing for all. 

While we are currently taking action as individuals, we are speaking now as a company:

The 400 years of racial injustice must end now. 

Black Lives Matter.