*Please read
here for my response to her blog post on the Chinadoll Campaign*
Oh I seriously cannot wait to talk about what's happened since my last
update. I had a contingency post written out on the off chance that Doe did not contact me but now that she's had. Long story short, she's completely blown me off basically.
To recap, I posted my
blog post on Wednesday, the Makeupbee collaboration contest was cancelled on Friday and later that night, Doe contacted me.
To prove that she did, here's a screencap of the Facebook Message from Doe Deere.
I did verify her identity since clicking on her picture lead me to her real profile. I immediately responded back saying this:
Immediately following my correspondence with her, I wrote this
update post, indicating that I had received a Facebook message from her saying that she wanted to announcing that I would neither accept nor purchase any Lime Crime products at this current time and in the future.
After that I waited for an email, for I had thought from her wording of her Facebook message to me that she had already had the questions thought up, or at least had the general idea of what she wanted to say. I also checked my Facebook inbox carefully to check if I had missed a message. I didn't get an email on Saturday so I sent her this message on Sunday:
I still hadn't gotten a response by Tuesday so I wrote this comment on her facebook wall. Awkward cropping but I wanted to put a time stamp on when I commented.
I think by now, I've put a lot of effort into contacting her you know? I'll give her the allowance of not responding to me over the weekend because it's likely she was busy with her personal life. By Monday though, I would have already Facebook messaged twice, and she could have seen the messages on Monday. Then after that, I commented on her personal facebook. She had also been active on the Lime Crime Facebook wall.
So today, nearly a week since she had first Facebook Messaged me, I emailed her using the email I found on her Doe Deere Blogazine site, doedeere@gmail.com
Finally, this is the response I got:
My first thought when I read that was "....that's it?" I mean seriously, that's it? After everything that's been said in my post and in the comments, not to mention the public outcry on the Lime Crime Facebook and Makeupbee Facebook, that's it? After I facebook messaged her twice and commented on her personal profile, AND emailed her, THAT'S it?
This is basically a thank you but kindly fuck off email. She completely blew me off. It doesn't address ANY of my concerns at all. From this, I feel like she obviously doesn't care about how ignorant the campaign was, she obviously doesn't care that her words help to reinforce Asian stereotypes and she obviously doesn't care at all because if she did, then she would have done SOMETHING about what I said but she's not and I don't expect she will.
If she expected me to be done with this, oh no I'm just getting started. In my opinion, it's obvious from her actions that her prior "apology" means nothing now since she's STILL not changing anything.
She has said this prior to my post:
"I'm very sorry to hear that some of you found the Chinadoll concept offensive. Chinadoll is inspired by a time and a place, and is not meant to depict any contemporary or even real person. My Chinadoll is strong but not afraid to cry, rebellious but in control, traditional and untamed all at once. She is a living contradiction and, above all, a *woman* -- she can never be, or will be stereotyped. I hope you guys can continue to support our independent brand, we truly do pour our hearts and souls into it. Thanks for your feedback!-Doe"
but a friend of mine summed it up best by saying that apologizing for the way SOMEONE ELSE feels isn't apologizing, especially if you aren't doing anything to fix it. You can't feign ignorance if you don't try to figure out why people are upset and it's also silly to REPEAT more stereotypes in your apology.
At the end of the day, her behavior indicates to me that she doesn't care about being ignorant, doesn't care about perpetuating negative thoughts about other cultures, it's all about the money and what she can sell. Three weeks before the release of the palette and there has been no news on whether production is being stopped or if the release date of the Chinadoll Palette is being postponed. At this point, she has yet to legitimately apologize for the campaign. You know those computerized "thank you for your response, we'll get right on that!" emails you get from customer service? Her email was basically that, except I expect better behavior from the owner of a cosmetics company.
I think the whole thing is just bullshit. Within American popular media, women are already being told to be and act a certain way and then I'm also told how I'm supposed to be and act a certain way due to my Asian heritage and culture. Living within these confines isn't fair and it's not fair to be inundated with these ideas how I should act just because I happen to be a member of a specific community. We're not in a post-racial America and the stereotypes represented in the Chinadoll campaign are hurtful to others.
I'd like this time to thank everyone who read, retweeted and commented on my post over the last few days and thank you to everyone who started following me! I'll take this time to fangirl a little bit because I was so astonished that Sam of Pixiwoo from Youtube actually read my post, and it showed me that it really reached a wide audience and I enjoyed the opportunity to discuss the topic of PC words and Asian Stereotypes, especially within different countries and their culture about it. I specifically wanted to give a shoutout to @MoonCave who took the initiative to tweet my post at Makeupbee.
Many people also got referred to the post thanks to links from fellow bloggers and other sites (please read
Lillian's commentary on the situation in addition to
Robyn's discussion on what it takes for you to boycott a company).
Thank you for reading, commenting, and being respectful during this whole endeavor.
