Good morning to the hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers whose withheld wages are now going to support HBCUs and other causes. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/15/business/mackenzie-scott-donations.html

Admittedly, MacKenzie Scott’s situation is complicated. But given the union-busting and tax avoidance that made the fortune possible, one way to understand the gifts is through @chiaracordelli’s analogy of the stolen painting.

I understand good people can see this differently. But if the money is the fruit of injustice, the giving of it is an act that demands scrutiny. We scrutinize senators and soldiers. We should also scrutinize givers.

In the rush of some to defend her against scrutiny, you are witnessing the process I fear: good deeds will have a secondary consequence of justifying the system that makes them necessary in the first place. Because she chose good causes, we’ll go a little softer on the system.

In my reporting, I heard so often that money buys silence.

Usually, it was folks in nonprofits saying individual givers achieve an immunity from criticism because of their gifts.

But it’s also true as a class. Billionaire do-gooding buys collective silence.

And just to wrap up: I began this thread with a simple point. The people who should (as well) be praised for these historic donations to HBCUs are rank-and-file Amazon workers. Let us salute some folks barely holding on, running up and down warehouse aisles, whose wages did this.

When someone next year gets a scholarship they otherwise wouldn't have, or chooses a new major that otherwise wouldn't have been available, let it be known that someone making $15 or $20 an hour sacrificed to make that opportunity come true for someone else. It's lovely.

I would love to live in an America in which that person hadn't had to sacrifice the opportunity to be in a union so that extra money could go to the owners of the company so that more money could be given away.

But for now, under our system, they are the ones who deserve thanks.