Amazon, Bezos, and Trump

The inspiration for this article came after watching Amazon's Underground Railroad limited series. There really was an Underground Railroad — the conductor was Harriet Tubman. The series is more of a fictional account, but a poignant docudrama nonetheless. The rather low rating of 2.5 stars is because, in spite of centuries of systemic racism and wanton mistreatment, the resiliency, determination, and success of Africans living in America cannot be denied. Ten episodes, a very nice soundtrack, along with phenomenal displays of thespianism. 

There was a dialogue between Cora (Thuso Mbedu) and Georgina (Kara Flowers) after a young black girl recited the Declaration of Independence.

Cora: "You sho taught these pekingese how to give a proper talk."

— Georgina has a rather incredulous look on her face. —

Georgina: "There are no pekingese here Cora, just children."

Cora: "Oh, I'm sorry..."

Georgina: "It's alright, see oftentimes when folks minds finally get freed, they have to unlearn as much as they learned, you understand."

My tenure with Amazon started in November 2016. Donald Trump became the 45th POTUS in January 2017. In my second year with Amazon, I was promoted to a Resolution Specialist (RS), aka Supervisor. An RS is simply an elevated customer service agent (makes a couple dollars more per hour) that handles the irate idiots. These folks call practically every day to argue over a $10 order they insist never came —  means nothing to the caller that the tracking shows delivered. 

When a customer (consumers include myriad Caucasian Americans, some African and Asian Americans, Hispanics, Middle Easterners, and 'Others') does not agree with the decision made by the Agent, they request to speak with a supervisor. A few months into Trump's presidency, for the first time in my life, I was called the "N-word" to my face (over the phone but still blatant and direct). I heard it as a child growing up in Dallas, TX but it was usually in passing. For example, me and a couple friends walking by a group of white folks, one would occasionally hear something like, "damn n*gg*rs" or something to that effect.

This ignorant dude didn't even afford me the opportunity to be called n*gg*r, he referred to me as a "stupid n*gg*r"! Now the reader may think, "since it was a phone conversation, how could he tell you were African American?" I speak with a Black dialect. This does not mean I cannot precisely articulate the English language; does not mean I cannot extrapolate and expound a point. But if you speak with me on the phone you'll know rather quickly that you're conversing with an intelligent Black Man.

Pardon me for digressing. Trump opened the gate for bigoted white folks who secretly despised black folks. They no longer had to stay on the fence and bolted from the closet by the millions. Their savior had arrived. This emboldened more than 50% of White America to abandon their pseudo-moral compasses and say pretty much the first thing that popped in their minds pertaining to people of color. 

Caucasian Amazon customers quickly jumped on the xenophobic bandwagon. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos lent his financial support to the Black Lives Matter Movement. For 2-3 months after George Floyd was murdered by Derek Chauvin, any time you logged into your account, you saw the banner, "Amazon Supports the Black Community." Many Caucasian customers did not like the support that Bezos gave to our community.

Throughout this time frame, several calls were transferred to me because customers wanted to complain. One such call, the woman goes, "I want to cancel my Amazon Prime membership because Amazon supports the protestors."

I quickly corrected her and let her know that the banner shows, "Amazon supports the Black community," and went ahead and canceled her membership. A white guy named 'Dave' (the counterpart to 'Karen') wrote Bezos an extremely nasty email where he referred to the Amazon CEO "n*gg*r lover" several times. Then the imbecile closes out his email by writing, "I will never do business with Amazon again." Jeff Bezos obviously doesn't read the millions of emails he receives. Actually, that is one of the responsibilities of the RS. However, this email was so vile and despicable, it was passed on to Jeff (refuse to refer to a white guy as Mister, especially when I'm older). I will always respect Bezos as a man, as a human being because he responded to this racist individual by replying:

"And Dave, you're the kind of customer I'm happy to see leave."

Most people that cancel Prime based on their racial prejudices or some other idiotic reason, will often renew once they realize they can no longer watch Prime movies, or their packages started arriving in a week instead of one or two days.

I will never debate the issue of racial or religious benightedness because as Mark Twain stated, "Never argue with a fool, onlookers won't be able to tell the difference.