On Amazon Prime Day Ellison Wants Answers for White Nationalist Propaganda Sales

Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison wants Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to ask about the website’s sale of white nationalist propaganda and toys. Ellison, who is running for Minnesota attorney general, sent a letter to Bezos asking about the sale of literature published by organizations billed as “hate groups” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. “I would like to know whether Amazon is committed to ceasing the sale of all products that promote hateful and racist ideologies,” Ellison’s letter said. Despite Amazon’s policy of prohibiting the sale of “products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views,” there was a “shocking” amount of SPLC designated hate groups using Amazon, Ellison said. The letter cited a study from the Action Center on Race and the Economy and the Partnership for Working Families that found Amazon was selling baby onesies, toys and Halloween costumes with Nazi, anti-Semitic and white nationalist imagery. Amazon has plenty of white supremacist literature for sale both in hard copy and e-book format, Ellison’s letter said. “I am alarmed that hate groups can make money by selling propaganda on Amazon, and that Amazon is able to profit from these transactions,” he said. Among the questions in the letter, Ellison said he wanted to know how much Kindle Direct Publishing made from the sale of “SPLC-identified hate groups since 2015,” how Amazon will enforce its policies and whether Amazon will destroy merchandise with hate symbols. Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android.