Amazon came under fire earlier this week for allowing a racist tshirt to be sold by a third-party vendor on its website. The tshirts, which read Slavery Gets Sh*t done, were pulled from the site, and the vendor, Styleart, was banned according to a statement released by Amazon.
'All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don't will be subject to action including potential removal of their account. The products in question are no longer available.' an Amazon spokesperson said in the statement
The seller offered a line of adult and baby clothing, mugs, baby bibs and tote bags emblazoned with the racist phrase and an image of the Egyptian pyramids to drive their point home.
The majority of products were modelled by children and babies who were all white.
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Amazon pulled the vendor when enraged customers threatened to boycott the company in reaction to the clothing line.
Anti-slavery organisations and charities also lashed out at Amazon and denounced the racist designs.
Jakub Sobik of Anti-Slavery International told Reuters 'If it's meant to be funny, it fails miserably'.
According to the website's policy, 'products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual or religious intolerance or promote organisations with such views,' are prohibited.
This comes hot on the heels of the H&M 'Coolest Monkey in the Jungle' hoodie scandal and the racist nail polish name 'Thick as a N*gga' that Italian company, Wycon, thought was a good idea but caused an international furore.
It seems companies are using racism as a convenient marketing tool and in the long run, profiting from black outrage, if not financially, then certainly in free media and social media coverage.
They do say any news is good news!