The last 24 hours have been pretty amazing. I became aware the Sephora, a company that markets 'beauty' products was selling a Kat Von D lipstick with the shade called 'cellebutard.' I reacted, as I do, to words that hurt and demean others. I started a petition at Change.org and went to work. I personally contacted over 700 Facebook Friends, I emailed everyone in my contacts list, I sent requests to friends who had access to large mailing lists. Then I posted the petition on Facebook. From there it was picked up and shared and reposted over and over again. Within twelve hours there were over a thousand signatures and they were coming in, from around the world, and at quite a clip.
Over at the Sephora Facebook page, many who signed the petition, and many who'd heard through other means, had swamped the page with protest. No one was leaving any kind of 'canned' or 'form letter' message. They wrote personal messages crafted uniquely from their own life experiences and their own outrage. The same was true on the petition page, it's moving to read the 'why' of the signatures. People spoke of love of family, of justice, of fair play. People expressed deep, deep caring.
I was on the road and checked in to the petition every hour or so and was shocked to see the numbers climbing so quickly. I was amazed. We got settled in our hotel and I went on line to find that Sephora had left this message, over and over again, on their Facebook page to the messages of distress and protest:
Thank you for calling this matter to our attention. We are
deeply sorry that the name of this lipstick has caused
offense, and we will be ceasing the sale of this shade both
in our stores and online.
All of this was achieved in half a day of organized protest. It was amazing to see so many people decide that action was better than inaction. So many people push aside the leading cause of 'inaction' - nothing will change anyway. So many people just do something. Doing damns the darkness.
I have always loved the idea of community, thanks for letting me experience the reality of it.
13 comments:
Amazing the ability of a committed few to stem the flow of hatred!! Thanks for starting it all, Dave - and thanks to your co-worker who urged you to do so!!!!
Thank you Anon, but I think my role in this was fairly small. What matters is that somehow, magically, a community came together.
Best thing to wake up to ( well ok, second best thing ....)Congrats community, THANK YOU Dave!!!!
"Doing damns the darkness." Fantastic!
Wow! That's so awesome! And what a fantastic message to the self-advocate that you worked with. She's going to feel majorly empowered by her role--as well she should. You should feel awesome, too, Dave.
Sue
What a great example of what "community" can do. It also makes me think about how we define it. In this case, it was the community of the entire world!
We made it! I'm amazed at what we were able to do. And I'm glad that Sephora reacted and stopped selling the lipstick.
Yay! (Tears in my eyes)
I think about how ordinary and unenlightened my life would be without this amazing community I'm so fortunate, humbled and excited to be a part of.
Thank you for starting this and everyone else who in some way led the petition to my Facebook feed.
"Victory is always possible for the person who refuses to stop fighting"
That is amazing! I expected the petition would get many signatures. I never expected the company to act so quickly. It was also gratifying to see that they didn't try to rationalize why this wasn't important.
HOORAY!!
Did you see that Kat D doesnt get it......she tweeted something like At the end of the day its just a f*cking lipstick......well its not, and horray for everyone that spoke up!!!!
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