Dear UK supporters,
As you know, petition is just the first step. It is MEGA IMPORTANT that those of you in the UK complain to Ofcom TODAY or asap (or if elsewhere, to your local regulator who regulates video on demand services). Below is a copy of my complaint if you want to copy and paste it.
If you are not in the UK, please email Jeff Bezos and Amazon Legal team, the copy of my email to them is below also. Feel free to copy and paste.
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OFCOM (complain here: https://www.ofcom.org.uk/tv-radio-and-on-demand/advice-for-consumers/how-ofcom-deals-with-vod-complaints
Please support me in calling on Amazon Prime Video to stop the release of highly damaging and racist "Borat 2" film
Description:
"Borat 2" is a sequel of infamous 2006 "Borat" film by Sacha Baron Cohen, a wealthy white man, who decided to pick a real country, a small nation of Kazakhstan inhabited by Kazakhs, majority of whom are Asian, and racially abuse, culturally appropriate and mock their culture, traditions and people for crude racist laughs and profit.
Mr Cohen is rich and well-connected so he probably thinks he is outside of reach of any sort of responsibility for his openly racist behaviour. It might have been the case in 2006 but now we are in year 2020 and we have seen firsthand what damage and harm racism can havoc on people's lives.
I am British but also Kazakh, as are many of my friends and family who are well educated, Asian and live worldwide. We have had to endure years of racism and racist jokes since the release of the last Borat in 2006. We are bracing for mental turmoil, bullying and racism that release of Borat 2 in October-November 2020 will inflict on us, our families and our children.
If Mr Cohen was mocking Chinese, Black people, Native Americans, Jewish or any other such “high profile” nationality, there would have been an international uproar and he would have been outcast with studios and VOD platforms refusing to work with him. However somehow a small Central Asian nation is a fair game and this is what he, and racists like him, are banking on. I want Amazon to see that "Borat" and "Borat 2" are no different from blackface and that Mr Cohen is a white supremacist who exploits and racially abuses people of colour.
I am calling on Amazon and Prime Video to stop the release of the highly racist and offensive "Borat 2", to stop profiteering from racism and enabling Mr Cohen to do the same, and I am asking Ofcom as a regulator to support me, a regular British person of colour, in my appeal. I have started a petition which has more information http://chng.it/W7XcWDyb to help apply all possible pressure on Amazon to help them understand that "Borat 2" is extremely harmful, highly racist content that their platform should not support or promote.
Many thanks.
Lola
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EMAIL TO Jeff Bezos at jeff@amazon.com and AmazonDigitalUK@amazon.com
Dear Mr Bezos and Team,
I am a loyal Amazon and Amazon Prime customer. I love your services which I actively use. Today I am reaching out to flag a piece of highly racist programming that you are planning to release internationally soon and demand that you take the right action with regards to it.
Sacha Baron Cohen, a creator of Borat and a wealthy white man, decided to pick a real country, a small nation of Kazakhstan inhabited by Kazakhs, majority of whom are Asian, and racially abuse, culturally appropriate and mock their culture, traditions and people for crude racist laughs and profit. I am British but also Kazakh, as are many of my friends and family who are well educated, Asian and live worldwide. We have had to endure years of racism and racist jokes since the release of the last Borat in 2006. We are bracing for mental turmoil, bullying and racism that release of Borat 2 will inflict on us, our families and our children.
If Mr Cohen was mocking Chinese, Black people, Native Americans, Jewish or any other such “high profile” nationality, there would have been an international uproar and he would have been outcast with studios and VOD platforms refusing to work with him. However somehow our small Central Asian nation is a fair game. I want Amazon to see that Borat and Borat 2 are no different from blackface and that Mr Cohen is a white racist who exploits and racially abuses us, people of Kazakhstan, and our rich cultural heritage for cheap racist laughs.
It is year 2020, we see firsthand the toll that racism has on people's lives, so please explain to me how Amazon and Prime Video decided to approve and support the release of this racist film openly berating, bullying and traumatising a nation of people of colour? Does this sort of Proud Boys/ white supremacist style of cheap entertainment really meet Amazon's values?
I have started a petition to increase awareness of you supporting this openly racist content and will be contacting Ofcom here in the UK as well as a number of mass media outlets with my complaint and this story. I can no longer stand by while my people, my nation, my ancestral heritage get publicly racially abused by a wealthy white guy, a Harvey Weinstein of racism, who under a pretence of "fighting racism" tortures a nation of 15m people with his extremely offensive, absolutely inappropriate racist jokes.
I call on you to please stop the release of Borat 2 and disassociate the Amazon and Prime Video brand immediately from this franchise and Mr Cohen.
Many thanks.
Lola Askarova
Your loyal customer and a proud Kazakh