Bezos, Anya and late Queen Elizabeth II
No smoke without fire best sums up the clapback at Professor Uju Anya by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos over the professor’s tweet which some considered insensitive to the grieving British monarchy.
At the centre of the tiff is Chris Smalls, ex-Amazon staff who caused the unionization of Amazon employees and was fired in 2020 by Amazon, claiming he broke covid-19 protocol by orchestrating a protest against Amazon.
After the tweet, Jeff Bezos who rarely grazes on twitter fired a salvo at Anya rebuking her for her insensitivity. But the professor didn’t waste time to take a dig at Bezos for his callous way of doing business even if it harms humanity.
Professor Anya had in August this year openly identified and applauded Mr Smalls for his role in unionizing Amazon, describing him as “brilliant and powerful.”
On August 20, she tweeted: “Y’all I met Chris Smalls! Extraordinary brilliant and powerful young man who unionized Amazon!!,” as she posed with Mr. Smalls.
This was said to have riled Bezos who had spent so much money to frustrate any form of unionization of Amazon staff.
Bezos found a perfect moment to get even with Anya after he tweet which literally invoked more pain on a dying Queen Elizabeth II.
Buckingham Palace had issued a statement earlier in the day to let it be known that doctors were “concerned” for Her Majesty’s health as royal family members began flying out to Aberdeen, which is the nearest city to the estate where the Queen would later pass away.
But Anya responded thus: “If anyone expects me to express anything but disdain for the monarch who supervised a government that sponsored the genocide that massacred and displaced half my family and the consequences of which those alive today are still trying to overcome, you can keep wishing upon a star.”
Anya, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon University further tweeted in response to Bezos’ now deleted tweet: , “I heard the chief monarch of a thieving raping genocidal empire is finally dying. May her pain be excruciating.” Bezos acknowledged the post, responding, “This is someone supposedly working to make the world better? I don’t think so. Wow.”
Bezos’ tweet attracted tens of thousands of likes before it was deleted but it didn’t take long for Anya to fire back at the 58-year-old billionaire. She tweeted: “May everyone you and your merciless greed have harmed in this world remember you as fondly as I remember my colonizers.”
The success of Chris Small at winning a unionization case against Amazon and the accolades poured on him by Professor Anya was the real reason a Twitter-cold Bezos suddenly crawled out of his shelf to hit at the Professor of Applied Linguistics.
The Amazon Labour is led by former Amazon worker, Smalls, who made his name protesting against safety conditions at the retail giant during the pandemic.
