So, some asshat thought it would be a good idea to sell on Amazon.com children’s clothing featuring the slogan “Slavery gets shit done,” prompting the online retail giant to scrub the site of the hideous items after backlash.
According to Reuters, there were a range of products—including mugs, bags, kids T-shirts and even a baby bib—that were listed by third-party sellers and had to be removed because of the slogan, which was complete with a picture of pyramids in the background.
“All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don’t will be subject to action including potential removal of their account,” an Amazon spokesman told the newswire in a statement. “The products in question are no longer available.”
As Fortune magazine notes, that company policy prohibits “products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views.”
In this, the year of Fenty Beauty and Mary J. Blige’s double Oscar nod, we’re still having to deal with people’s tastelessness.
Human rights organizations also took the retailer to task. As Reuters notes, according to the United Nations International Labour Organization, more than 40 million people were living as modern-day slaves last year—trapped in forced labor or forced marriages. And that is certainly nothing to joke about.
“Children the same age as those modeling the T-shirts will be forced to work long hours for no pay in desperate conditions where starvation, beatings and sleep deprivation are common,” David Westlake, chief executive of International Justice Mission UK, told Reuters.
“Rather than trivializing slavery, companies and the global community must recognize the vast injustice of modern slavery and work together to end it for good,” he added.
Read more at the New York Post and Fortune.