Amazon touts free one-day, two-day, and same-day delivery as one of the many benefits it offers consumers who shell out $14.99 a month for a Prime membership subscription. Yet for residents of two predominantly Black neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., the tech giant is failing to deliver on that promise.
According to a complaint filed recently in the District of Columbia Superior Court, the city’s Office of the Attorney General alleges that the tech giant secretly stopped providing one-day, two-day, and same-day shipments to two Black neighborhoods despite collecting millions of dollars from the residents who paid for a membership that promises the benefit.
Instead, Amazon – which had total revenue in 2023 of $575 billion, and average daily sales revenue of $1.6 billion – imposed a delivery “exclusion” on Wards 7 and 8 and passed packages off to third-party delivery services.
To add insult to injury, Amazon blamed residents of the two neighborhoods – saying “[t] here have been specific and targeted acts against drivers delivering Amazon packages” – yet only voiced these claims after the lawsuit was filed. And according to the complaint, when residents questioned Amazon about the slow deliveries, the online retailer “deceptively implied” that the delays were due to routine shipping fluctuations and not due to a change in the company’s policy.
Amazon’s alleged actions in the nation’s capital read like a modern-day account of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation’s (HOLC) redlining reports from the 1930s, which identified and highlighted minority communities where banks should withhold financial services such as loans, mortgages and insurance.
That’s unsurprising from a company that has faced widespread criticism regarding its service availability in Black communities. And it is particularly galling that Amazon willingly deceived residents of these neighborhoods after taking their money.
Black residents of the nation’s capital should think twice before spending their hard-earned money on gifts and products from Amazon. The allegations laid out in the lawsuit are far from the first time that the retail behemoth has not practiced what it preaches when it comes to the country’s Black community.
As far back as 2016, there were accusations that Black residents of cities like Atlanta and Chicago were about half as likely as white residents to live in neighborhoods with access to Amazon’s same-day delivery service. And the company’s now-shuttered restaurant delivery service excluded many predominately Black neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. — including one of the ZIP codes mentioned in the district’s lawsuit.
Then amid the racial reckoning that occurred following the murder of George Floyd in the spring of 2020, Amazon made a concerted PR push to portray itself as an ally of the social justice movement – announcing big dollar donations to organizations like the NAACP and National Urban League and sending out social media messages of solidarity. Yet many, including the American Civil Liberties Union, were quick to point out that Amazon sold law enforcement facial recognition software that numerous studies found had a bias and improperly identified people with darker skin tones.
This is only scratching the surface of Amazon’s egregious examples of disrespect and disregard for the Black community. There are also the racist dog whistles during a smear campaign against warehouse workers on Staten Island who were trying to unionize – calling one worker who led a walkout “not smart, or articulate” and the inordinate amount of books from white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and other hate groups published on Kindle Direct Publishing, the company’s self-publishing arm, and promoted by Amazon.
Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, with $412.1 billion in annual web sales in 2023, claims to walk the walk when it comes racial justice and the Black community, but its actions clearly show that that is far from the case. With a purchasing power expected to reach $1.7 trillion by 2030, Black consumers are a major force in the American economy and where they spend their money matters.
Amazon needs to realize that the redlining tactics of the past century will not stand today, and that if it continues to treat Black Americans as second-class, overlooked citizens, then there will be financial repercussions.
Barrington M. Salmon is an award-winning independent journalist enjoying his 40th year as a working professional. Barrington has focused on social justice, civil and human rights, politics, and other subjects pertinent to African Americans and Africans in the Diaspora.
