| Friend,
Today is Black Friday, which is usually all about shopping and finding the best sales. But this Black Friday we’re asking you to think about the world you want to live in and put your money towards that vision.
We’re not asking you to buy anything or even make a donation today. Instead, we’re asking that you pledge not to spend your money at Amazon.
Amazon’s low prices are delivered at a cost to our communities. The company has notoriously undercut the small businesses that sell on its platform.1 And it’s been under fire for retaliating against its own warehouse workers for speaking up about unsafe workplace conditions that could lead to the spread of covid-19.
The pandemic’s second wave is here, and we just can’t in good conscience spend money at a company that punishes essential workers so that Jeff Bezos can take home $24 billion in quarantine profits, at a time when small businesses are struggling to stay afloat.
Take the pledge to drop Amazon this holiday season, and spend your money where it can make a difference. Invest in your community and support local-, Black-, Indigenous- and other People of Color-owned businesses.
As people across the country take to the streets demanding an end to police violence against Black communities, Amazon has quietly positioned itself to rake in the benefits of the next phase of policing. Instead of sincerely aligning itself with today’s Movement for Black Lives — which demands that cities #DefundThePolice and reinvest funding in Black and brown communities hardest hit by the COVID-19 pandemic — Amazon continues to increase its partnerships with police departments, while providing agencies, like ICE, with facial recognition technology to separate and detain immigrant families.
Enough is Enough. It’s time to rip off the Band-Aid before we get too deep into the holiday season: Take the pledge to #BreakUpWithAmazon, and stand against all of the company’s racist profits.
Thanks for all you do,
Lucia and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net
1. "Is Amazon Undercutting Third-Party Sellers Using Their Own Data?" Forbes, Oct. 30, 2014. |
