Amazon under fire for 'racist' description of shoes using the 'N word'

Amazon came under fire for listing a pair of men's shoes with a description that contains a racial slur. Labour MP David Lammy took it upon himself to flag the product listing and expressed his dismay in a tweet on Monday with a screen grab of the product. According to Lammy, he was shopping for shoes when he came upon the listing. He said the offensive listing had been on the website since March.

In a screen grab of the Amazon listing which Lammy posted on his Twitter, the item was listed as: "RINCO Formal Oxford For Men Pull On Style Lace Up Upper Material Genuine Leather Rubber Sole Are Easy To Wear Non-Slip." However when referring to the colour, it reads "Colour: N**** Brown, Size: 5 UK."

In a statement released from Amazon, the company reassured the public that its sellers follow selling guidelines and those who do not comply will be facing the removal of their account. The said product has since been removed from the site.

According to the e-commerce giant, the said shoes were put up from a "marketplace" seller. This means that it came from a third party that sells its products through Amazon but are not part of the company at all.

Based on the listing the item came from a manufacturing company from Sichuan, China. This seems to be a common occurrence in many English language sites over the recent years . Product descriptions of items being sold by Chinese firms are punched out online containing the racially offensive term. This has been blamed on a bug in their translation software, which is meant to say "dark brown."

The MP thanked the firm for taking action. However, he questioned Amazon on the systems they use to review descriptions to ensure offensive terms do not fall through the filters and allow such words to be posted.

In what seems to be a bad day for the shadow justice secretary, this comes hours after Lammy became a target of racist abuse on Twitter where the perpetrator, Mikolaos Nichaloliakos, called him a "monkey boy." The Tottenham MP called on the social media company to be prompt in removing hate messages. He said it took more than 13 hours for Twitter to act before suspending the abuser's account.