8th June, 2020
By Nimot Adetola Sulaimon
Jeff Bezos, American industrialist and CEO of Amazon shared disturbing and angry emails that he received because he supported the ”Black Lives Matter” movement.
Earlier on Friday, Bezos issued a public pledge of support to the movement. At the moment, the website Amazon.com has a bold banner at the top of the page that links to a blog post describing actions the company is taking to support black communities and racial justice.
A customer took issue with the banner, saying “it is quite disturbing to get on the AMAZON website and see ‘BLACK LIVES MATTER.’” The customer later said that “ALL LIVES MATTER,” a common right-wing refrain used to criticize the Black Lives Matter movement.
However, Bezos replied, saying; “Black lives matter’ doesn’t mean other lives don’t matter. Black lives matter speaks to racism and the disproportionate risk that Black people face in our law enforcement and justice system”.
Another customer sent abuses to him, calling him an ”asshole”. This same customer called his support for ”negroes” stupid. He also wrote that all business transactions he has with the company, are hereby cancelled.
This mail got a reply as well. The Amazon CEO wrote; ”There have been a number of sickening but not surprising responses in my inbox since my last post.
”This sort of hate shouldn’t be allowed to hide in the shadows. It’s important to make it visible. This is just one example of the problem.
”And, Dave, you’re the kind of customer I’m happy to lose.