What does Amazon’s donation to the Obama Foundation and Van Jones mean?
Amazon’s business revenue dramatically increased in 2020 and 2021 due to the pandemic and people’s need to order online. Jeff Bezos was the main benefactor of this, and his net worth skyrocketed as a result. The company has been fighting accusations of workplace mistreatment, including racism and harsh working conditions. They have thus far successfully fought against their workers unionizing. The former CEO’s recent donations to two people, Barack Obama and Vance Jones, are interesting, to say the least. Let’s look at the possible reasons he gave money to these two black men.
First, he donated to Vance Jones, and made a statement saying, “the world needs more connectors than dividers”. A man who conquered the internet, a businessman gives a public donation to someone who is widely known for being a democratic strategist. He announced this after he personally went to space with his tourism company Blue Origin. The other person, a white man with an international foundation, was less known. Now, choosing Van Jones was not accidental. It was a message to black people, many of whom have been criticizing Amazon’s working conditions, “if you don’t rock the boat and challenge the status quo” you too can get some crumbs of mine”. Like the other guy, you can find black men doing great things who are not in the public eye.
Secondly, he made a recent donation to the Obama Foundation. Yet again, in the same year, another donation to a very public person. Now, I saw the Obama Foundation’s nationally televised event with Stephan Curry. This was ok, but I have not read about anything of substance that “My Brother’s Keeper is currently involved in doing”. The south side of Chicago where the foundation is based needs the money and the economic infusion to help turn things around. Why did Jeff Bezos give money to Obama now? One reason is to help sway public opinion in a positive way, especially since so many essential workers at Amazon’s factories are Black and former voters of the president.
During the campaign of Donald Trump, you may recall Jeff Bezos saying, “Trump is bad for our democracy”. He meant Trump is bad for capitalism and more specifically, companies like Amazon. The strength of America is its economy, not the political system although it is often framed that way. The efforts have always been economic and everything else was built to perfect it in the most efficient way. Jeff Bezos is doing nothing more than paying for cover so he can maintain and grab more power with Amazon. Do you really think Van Jones and Obama will say anything bad about Amazon now? Will they go on Twitter or media outlets and take the side of the workers, in a meaningful way? Probably not.
Our community needs businesses and an economic base. Money donated to an organization strictly for business investments would make more sense, right? Amazon, like other corporations, is not interested in empowering black people, as a group.