Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said the company has no plans to stop selling a controversial movie that has been described as anti-Semitic despite calls to do so from Jewish organizations.
The movie “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” was released in 2018 and is directed by Ronald Dalton Jr., who authored a book of the same name in 2014. The more than three-hour-long movie is available to rent on Amazon’s website for less than $12.
It features themes of Holocaust denial; claims that Jewish people control the media and are in part to blame for the African slave trade; and seeks to prove that certain people of color, including black Americans, are the real descendants of the biblical Israelites.
The movie has sparked outrage among members of the public and Jewish communities.
Jassy, speaking Wednesday at The New York Times DealBook Summit in New York City, was asked if Amazon would continue to sell the controversial movie.
Amazon Customers Have ‘Different Viewpoints’
The CEO responded by stating that while Amazon does not tolerate hate, discrimination, or harassment, it must “also recognize as a retailer of content to hundreds of millions of customers with lots of different viewpoints that we have to be willing to allow access to those viewpoints even if they are objectionable and even if they differ from our own personal viewpoints.”It adds that viewers will discover what “Islam, Judaism, and Christianity have covered up for centuries in regards to the true biblical identity of the so-called ‘Negro’ in this movie packed with tons of research.”
Jassy, who is himself Jewish, noted on Wednesday that “trying to decide which content contains hate content to an extent of which we don’t provide access to customers is one the trickiest issues we deal with at the company,” noting that the hundreds of millions of Amazon customers have varying viewpoints.
“When you have content whose primary purpose is not to espouse hate or ascribe negative characteristics to people, that is much trickier and a very slippery slope if we take a lot of those out of the store,” Jassy added.
Although it was released in 2018, “Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America” recently garnered more attention after NBA player Kyrie Irving posted a link to the film on Twitter.
Now with an increased spotlight on the movie, the American Jewish Committee, one of the biggest Jewish organizations in the country, is calling on Amazon to take the film down, noting that “previously, Amazon admirably removed antisemitic hate from its site.”
Calls for Amazon to Pull Movie
The committee has launched a petition regarding the removal of the film from the e-commerce platform and pointed to a rise in crimes against Jews.“Amazon has a critical role to play in ensuring Americans do not consume hate-filled propaganda and misinformation,” the petition reads. “We are grateful that, as recently as January of this year, Amazon removed more than twenty Nazi propaganda films and other antisemitic content to stop the spread of hate. We urge you to swiftly take action and remove this film and book from your platform.”
Jassy on Wednesday was also asked if Amazon would consider putting a disclaimer on the movie for viewers but the CEO said that doing so is “tricky” and “hard to scale.”
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