Amazon Pulls Anti-Immigrant Sticker After Pa. Second Lady Gisele Fetterman Says It's Offensive
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - It's called an anti-immigrant vinyl window or bumper sticker. It shows a full map of the United States of America map, but inside that map it says "(expletive) we are full."
Well, the wrong person happened to see that sticker: Pennsylvania Second Lady Gisele Fetterman.
"It was really mean and kind of hateful and I wondered many things, like 'why does this person feel this way?'"
It was at an intersection in West Mifflin where the Second Lady says she saw the sticker on a truck as the driver sat in traffic.
Fetterman, who is married to the Lt. Governor, googled the sticker to find out who sold it. Her search led her to Amazon. So she reached out to the world's largest online marketplace.
"So I just sent a simple, sweet kind of tweet to Amazon, asking them to reconsider their power and their platform and their responsibility to put something that was really glorifying hate out into the masses."
"Spotted locally and made me so nauseous. Please reconsider the power and influence of your platform," the tweet read.
Several people re-tweeted Fetterman's post. The noise got attention within a day.
Amazon responded: "Thank you for letting us know. We're removing the item and addressing this with the seller."
KDKA's calls to Amazon were not returned.
So why such a strong and emotional reaction to the sticker? Fetterman was born in Brazil and moved with her family to New York when she was just seven. For a time, they were all undocumented immigrants.
"Every knock at the door was terrifying because at any moment our family could have been deported and we lived in fear for a really long time," she says.
"I'm sure there are going to be other places that sell it, but I teach my children if you see something, do something. How can I teach them that if I don't act when I am in the presence of an injustice?"