Maybe I can't appreciate his industry because I'm stuck on the fact that dude was a Nazi sympathizer and idolized Hitler. How am I supposed to appreciate his innovations when his vision was so corrupt? His capitalist cronyism did not do the world a favor. I get that people believe that he did Michigan a favor by bringing his manufacturing techniques to the state's economy. But I still don't like that Michigan is Ford obsessed. Its Henry Ford everything, even though the man possessed strong beliefs in eugenics, joining other prominent business tycoons of the day such as Nelson Rockefeller. Nelson believed in the family mission and along with John Rockefeller, perpetuated his beliefs through a foundation that funded pro eugenic studies and research. Ford contributed to this, and many people's car payments provided the means necessary to conduct this research. Ford himself played a big part in funding the powers that gave rise to the horrors of concentration camps, mass killings, etc.
I feel like everybody in Michigan needs to learn this history before spouting of his greatness. They celebrate the man like he is a God. The Henry Ford Museum, the Henry Ford Hospital, the Henry Ford academy in his home town of Dearborn are just a few of his progeny.
None of this should be shocking to anyone. There are thousands of materials that document this history. It is no secret. But what is shocking to me, is that his philanthropies continue to have a grip on our society even to this day. The Ford Foundation, started by Henry Ford's son, Easel Ford, was started in order to fund "charities" which also contended with Henry's sick world view. Ford had a knack for marketing though, so it isn't surprising that his son was able to market this control mechanism as something positive:
This philanthropy is as much BS as Henry Ford's views. I'm not buying that a racist eugenics supporter possessed the forethought required to save the world. What I find to be most disgusting though, is the power Henry Ford's progeny still has over the nonprofit world to this day. Even posthumously, Ford's money is being used to control the philanthropic intent of hundreds of thousands of organizations across the country.
This form of deception through the Non-profit Industrial Complex was first brought to my attention by listening to a speech by Andrea Smith, a fierce scholar and feminist, who does an excellent job of breaking down the role of the NPIC by preventing people on the ground from organizing themselves. In one of her lectures, Smith relates how the grant process interferes with attempts to curb domestic violence:
...the state being the sneaky thing that it is comes in says, 'little ladies, it looks like you all have a problem with violence, and we'd like to give you a grant to solve this problem. However, when you accept our grant, you accept all the stipulations that go with this grant. So we are not going to fund any unseemly rabble-rousing activities. No, we think the problem is that survivors are victims, they are ill and need professional therapy from somebody with an MSW or a PhD, and you wanna do any activist work we want you to work with the state. We want you to work with the criminal justice system because as it so happens, we are building up the prison industrial complex and we'd like to co-opt your feminist rhetoric to support our repressive anti-crime agenda.Specifically, the Ford Foundation was one of these grantors she spoke of.
...the most obvious way we can see is the huge foundations and how they impact our work, like the Ford Foundation. For instance, it's been documented how the Ford Foundation used its funding deliberately to ensure that the anti-apartheid struggle against South Africa would not have an anti-capitalist critique.
I could say on a personal level, with INCITE, we had a little run-in with the Ford Foundation ourselves because they gave us this $100,000 grant and told us to go spend it, so after we committed all our funds, they then retracted it over our statement on Palestine. So we had like $60,000 we had to raise in like three weeks, and what we found was we actually did raise it by calling a lot of people, so that goes to show that sometimes you don't need the funding that you think you need to do, but this also shows what these big foundations dictate the terms by which you may think to struggle or organize.Its pretty crazy to think about how much influence and control these supposedly philanthropic foundations have over our lives. According to guidestar.org, the Ford Foundation has an income of $1,501,033,240. In recent years, it has used a portion of its wealth to allocate grant money on a mission devoted to "protecting immigrant and migrant rights." Yeah, right.
I've written about how bills disguised as human rights, such as S 744, propose to further militarize Tohono O'odham lands and how many nonprofits are now staging hunger strikes that deceptively benefit the prison industrial complex. There is also plenty of reading available on how CIR in it's current form is anti indigenous and also anti immigrant. In addition, an array of resources and material educating migrants on the affects of such reforms are available on Moratorium on Deportations' page.
After doing some research on Ford and the NPIC, I also discovered that they are heavily invested in diversity, which I find very interesting given Henry's eugenics advocacy. What I find more interesting is their investment in migrant social justice. The Ford Foundation only provides grant money if the mission is to "educate and move public opinion to support reform of immigration systems." Notice there is a catch to this education clause. Nonprofits aren't supposed to educate unless it is to move public opinion towards supporting immigration reform. In addition, they want these grantees to be engaged in "promoting advocacy and legal support for enforcement issues specific to the Mexico-U.S. border," along with other flowery language that pretends that the Ford Foundation cares about migrant lives.This misnomer is about as genuine as the myth that Henry Ford himself was a good person. You get an idea of where the foundation's priorities lie when the criteria specifically states, "We do not support work on refugee issues."
Most disappointing of all though, is noting who is most manipulated by this marketing of grant funding. The most targeted and vulnerable populations depend on nonprofits as their only sources of advocacy. Many are cut off from speaking out themselves because they have the entire system working against them. Nonprofits are the only visible and vocal microphone that supposedly represent the interests of the people. The problem is, nonprofits, because of their funding sources, work from the top down. Many in leadership positions are well read about the ill effects of reform but stay silent. Some organizations are explicit in their reform advocacy, others don't say a word. Sometimes silence is complicity. As in the words of an organizer at Moratorium Against Deportations, they aren't going to bite the hand that feeds them. These nonprofits who support immigration reform most likely can't speak out against it, or else they would cease to be an organization.
That doesn't mean they should get a pass though. When nonprofits push for comprehensive reform, it lacks substance. They package it as this super deal and never even discuss what the reform does. What is worse, they disguise it with language such as "not one more," failing to note that the bill they promote would deport a lot more. That is deceptive. That is straight up lying to your people. My question to them is: At what point does your organization become greater than the cause? When are you (as people, not an org) going to dump these failing strategies and fight for real?
Reform is nothing revolutionary. Not only that, it has an "Indian problem" to address. Some of these organizations even claim to be pro indigenous as they promote these Andrew Jackson-like colonial policies that threaten the very existence of indigenous peoples along the border and their connections across.
Some organizations claim to be from the ground up rather than the top down, but when one understands how these orgs are held hostage by grant gatekeepers, that premise is harder to believe. When are the demands of the people on the ground going to be heard? When are people going to finally rid themselves of this divide and begin to recognize their own power en masse? Any entities playing politics should be informing people of what ultimately threatens many. These organizations are supposed to be advocating for the people, but they don't inform them of certain nuances that come with the reforms they advocate (e.g. militarization, hefty fines, a long and difficult process, and deportation for many criminalized non-DREAMers). Staying informed is key to survival as a movement, and until that happens, these so-called ground up impostors funded by the Ford Foundation will continue in their ability to succeed in their corporate sponsored campaigns of mass deception.
Related: Beware of the Funders of Immigrant Rights
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