Fight for a Union
This is the only photo taken of Jeff Bezos at #MetGala last night, which is strange considering he spent $10 million to sponsor it. Here's the story...
Turns out Jeff Bezos' involvement with Met Gala provoked so much backlash that emergency plans were put in place to contain the public outrage.
The backlash was so swift Grand Dame Anna Wintour convened an emergency meeting to devise a PR ploy — and it stands to reason Bezos not walking the red carpet or appearing at all — was the plan they landed on.
Let's be clear the Met Gala this year was a PR-washing for billionaires. The Met museum sits on PUBLIC land. The Met receives $30 million a year in taxpayer money to keep the doors open. The Met received an additional $25 million this year for a major lighting upgrade. As always, the public bears the expense of supporting public goods while billionaire predators toss a few pennies they extracted from the working class.
But beyond the humiliating turn of events for Jeff Bezos, there is the reality of who makes art, who keeps the Met museum running, who creates fashion, and who truly contributes to our society.
The Met staff are paid poverty wages. Without them, celebrity attendees would have been tripping over the hundreds of 'pee bottles' distributed at the event. Amazon's workers make every cent of Bezos wealth and they can barely afford to pay rent. New York taxpayers foot the bill for the museum. Why were none of these people honored despite contributing 10 times as much as the Bezos, who it should be noted looked tacky and gaudy as ever, despite wearing million dollar outfits.
This year, the working class made Met Gala our own. Activists plastered the city with anti-billionaire billboards, piss bottles, bus station ads calling out Amazon's profiting from ICE contracts, light projections from Amazon employees, and even a literal red carpet for Starbucks and Amazon workers to show off their looks. Amazon Union founder Chris Smalls was tacked by police.
