Discrimination: Arab American event moved from Amazon headquarters

Amazon refused to host an event celebrating Arab American culture at the eleventh hour, prompting fears that the move was “discriminatory” and part of a broader systemic effort to suppress Arab American voices and visibility.

The National Arab American Heritage Month Commemoration was scheduled to take place on 9 April at Amazon East Coast headquarters in Arlington, Virginia (known as HQ2), to honour the achievements of people from the Arab-American community.

Organisers had been planning the event for six months and began working with Amazon’s employee resource group, Arabs at Amazon, in mid-February to coordinate logistics. The group has 4,000 members worldwide.

Then, on 7 April, 48 hours before the event was due to take place, Amazon announced that it was "postponing" the event.

One of the key organisers of the event was Warren David, co-founder of the Arab America Foundation (AAF). He established National Arab American Heritage Month in 2017, commemorating Arab American heritage and culture each April. 

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The commemoration has been an annual event since 2017, celebrating the contributions of Arab Americans to the United States.

David spoke to Middle East Eye about his disappointment with the incident, given the extensive work done on the event and the lack of clarity on why it was being cancelled.

“It was quite disheartening for us to be denied doing this event by Amazon after we had booked all of these different speakers,” David said.

“Normally, venues work with you on resolving technicalities for an event. We felt Amazon were trying to find loopholes to not hold the event. After they cancelled it, Amazon told both Arab and non-Arab employees not to attend the event. Then there was the stress. We only had 48 hours to rearrange.”

The event featured speakers, musicians, and almost 300 attendees registered from across the country who were flying in and had booked accommodation, making it impossible for AAF and Arabs at Amazon to postpone the event.

David said they had to scramble to find an alternative venue.

“We found a church - literally, thank God, that took us in - an Arab church that was willing to host the event,” he said.

The event was held at Saint Peter and Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church in Potomac - around a 50-minute drive without traffic from the original venue.

AAF had to organise a shuttle bus for those staying in hotels near the Amazon headquarters, while others who did not see their emails with the updated venue details went to the Amazon venue.

The organisers believe they lost 100 attendees because of the venue change.

Internal pressure

David had heard from Arabs at Amazon that they were under pressure internally.

“I don't know all the details, but I know that they were under pressure, and there were certain things that they were trying to comply with and so forth. Amazon were questioning some of the speakers that were there.”

He added that Amazon’s diversity and inclusion staff told Arabs at Amazon that some administrative things needed to be completed that they were not aware of.

“They didn’t know about it and weren't on boarded,” he said. “They wanted talking points of the speakers that were going to be at our event. They wanted to know exactly what they were going to say and things like that. It was a week before. Arabs at Amazon complied and gave them a lot of the information they needed, but they said it was too late.”

David said AAF had invited Palestinian American Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to speak, and Amazon had been “concerned” about her coming as well.

"Judging from the past and what's happened to us with the Hilton Hotel and so forth, we don't know for certain but can only assume we were discriminated against," David said.

Brad Glasser, a spokesperson for Amazon, denied Amazon had cancelled the event.

“Amazon didn’t cancel this event. When employees request to use our spaces to host a community gathering, they’re responsible for ensuring it complies with company policy and has the required approvals. That’s true for every event, and unfortunately, the organizers failed to fulfill that responsibility,” the spokesperson said.

Amazon told MEE they had repeatedly reminded the organisers of the company’s requirements.

When MEE asked Amazon for more details on how organisers failed to comply with company policy or for evidence that Amazon had reminded the organisers of the requirements repeatedly, they did not respond. 

Precedence

David said that there was historical precedent for AAF’s events being cancelled.

The organisation’s annual summit, which was due to take place at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Orlando at SeaWorld in November 2023, was cancelled by the hotel, citing security reasons, despite the fact that the AAF were planning to hire security.

However, the Department of Justice said the hotel had discriminated against the AAF and filed a complaint in January, alleging that the owner of the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel had discriminated based on national origin when it cancelled AAF’s annual summit almost a month after the Hamas-led attack on Israel on 7 October 2023.

The owner of the hotel reached an agreement with the Department of Justice after the agency sued, alleging discrimination.

David said that his organisation was not political.

“What's really interesting is that the Arab America Foundation is a nonprofit. We have no political agenda at all. We're all about heritage, culture, empowering Arab Americans, identity, all of that.”

David believes the current climate of discrimination against Arabs and Muslims is the worst he has ever witnessed.

“There's a history of denigrating Arabs and Muslims and so forth, but this is probably the worst I've ever seen it,” he said.

“I think this is even worse than [after] 9/11."

middleeasteye.net