“Is it 2020 or 1720? Please Amazon take it down.”
Amazon have removed a listing from its website that described a pair of brown shoes as ‘n****r-brown’ after David Lammy MP made a complaint.
Posting on Twitter, Lammy wrote: “Just buying brown brogues tonight leads to this racist micro aggression. Is it 2020 or 1720? Please @amazon take it down.”
Attached was the following screenshot from Amazon.
The listing was removed, but Lammy followed up by asking: “Given the item has been on sale since March what systems do you have in place for reviewing descriptions and not allowing offensive terms to be posted in the first place? This is not the first time.”
An Amazon spokesperson told The Independent: “All sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who do not will be subject to action including potential removal of their account. The product in question is no longer available.”
The removal of the listing from Amazon came shortly after Lammy had posted a screenshot of a vile racist tweet he had been sent, describing the Shadow Justice Secretary as a “monkey boy” and threatening that the Tottenham MP would be “hanging from a lamppost”.
Lammy called on Twitter to be more effective at dealing with racism on the platform, saying: “Tell me racist abuse is not welcome on your platform. You need to get so much faster at removing hate.”
The account that sent the tweet to Lammy appears to have been suspended. The Metropolitan Police are aware of the incident.
