Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz wrote a letter to Amazon demanding equal same day delivery, which some students felt reflected bias against minorities. (Alexandra Brennan/ The Fordham Ram).
By Mike Byrne
Amazon is working to expand its same-day delivery service for Prime members to underserved communities, such as the Bronx.
On April 21, Bloomberg released a report of the areas that have the ability to get same-day delivery service from Amazon and those that do not. The report found that Amazon did not provide same day delivery to anywhere in the Bronx-which has the lowest percentage of white residents compared to other boroughs — or many primarily black neighborhoods in Queens. It also showed that Amazon did not provide same-day delivery service to many other minority urban areas, such as the South Side of Chicago and the Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.
Bronx Borough President, Ruben Diaz Jr. recently wrote a letter to Amazon’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, explaining his disappointment in the company’s neglect of the Bronx. “Customers in the same city, sometimes just blocks away from one another, are not receiving the same level of delivery service,” Diaz said. “And, in what is either an unfortunate coincidence or an act of digital redlining, the excluded areas tend to be minority communities.”
Diaz went on to say that the Bronx is currently in resurgence, with unemployment and crime going down, and that Amazon should include the borough in its same-day delivery service.
Mark Naison, Ph.D., professor of African and African-American studies, said that it is not new for companies to discriminate against the Bronx. “Fresh Direct, when it was first launched several years ago, did not deliver to the Bronx at all,” Naison said. “This created a huge furor, so I am quite frankly surprised that Amazon would do the same by denying same day delivery service to the borough.”studies, said that companies discriminating against the Bronx is not a new trend. “Fresh Direct, when it was first launched several years ago, did not deliver to the Bronx at all,” Naison said. “This created a huge furor, so I am quite frankly surprised that Amazon would do the same by denying same day delivery service to the borough. I am hopeful the publicity given to this unfortunate practice will lead Amazon to change its policies.”
Diaz said that Amazon’s neglect to serve minority communities like the Bronx is inconsiderate. “While your company serves four of the five boroughs, my own constituents, largely Black and Latino in ethnic makeup, are excluded,” Diaz said. “Such a level of insensitivity, if not hostility, should not be an accepted business practice for the world’s leader in online retail…My constituents, many of whom are avid Amazon customers, deserve the same respect as their neighbors in the other four boroughs.”
Lili Huang, FCRH ’19, and a member of Fordham Students United, said that Amazon’s choices were prejudicial and needed to be fixed. “I think that Amazon’s initial refusal to deliver the same quality of service to residents of the Bronx is blatant discrimination against people of color and other minority groups and reveals an elitist attitude that aims to serve a much more privileged demographic,” Huang said.
USA Today reports that Amazon is trying to expand its same-day delivery services to areas that do not currently receive it. For example, after an angry response to the lack of equal service, Amazon agreed to expand same-day delivery to the Roxbury area of Boston, which is predominantly black.
Bloomberg reported that after criticism from Diaz and New York State Assemblyman Jeff Dinowitz, Amazon stated that they would offer same-day delivery services to every part of New York City. Amazon will also expand to Chicago’s South Side. Amazon stated that they would begin expansion into the Bronx in the coming weeks.
