For Black History Month this year, Amazon unveiled a new campaign that highlights Black entrepreneurs, including a virtual storefront that makes it easier for its 300 million customers to shop and buy from Black-owned businesses.
The campaign, titled “Remarkably Black—Black and worthy of remark,” features a video series profiling people behind Black-led small businesses in the United States—like Iconi athletic-wear in Denver and Red Bay Coffee in Oakland—as well as global innovators, such as Pierre Thiam, a chef who created Yolélé Foods to connect rural West African farmers with a vibrant global market for Senegalese cuisine. A division of Amazon’s Launchpad startup accelerator also spotlights “inspiring stories” of Black founders within its program.
But arguably the most salient aspect of Amazon’s campaign—and the one most likely to make a difference—is simply the filters that let customers browse the selection of products from Black businesses, or handcrafted goods from Black artisans, as well as books written by Black authors and music recorded by Black artists. (The website even alludes to video games made by Black developers.) A common criticism of many modern diversity efforts is that they serve to market a company’s virtues but often fail to provide real economic value to the communities they’re meant to support; however, patronizing Black-led businesses puts the money directly in the hands of those community members.
The campaign is set to last through February, which was designated as Black History Month largely because it encompasses the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation that officially freed slaves of the Confederate states (at least on paper), and Frederick Douglass, a prominent abolitionist and social reformer whose powerful speeches galvanized the nation. But most of Amazon’s shopping filters will be available indefinitely. (The website also offers filters for women-, military-, and family-owned.)
Amazon itself has had a rough past year on multiple fronts, fielding controversies over its treatment of low-wage workers—some of whom were allegedly forced to pee into bottles as their strict shift schedules didn’t allow time to find a bathroom—as well as the company’s financial squeeze on its third-party vendors.
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