 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||
A&F Redux: Spencer Gifts Redoes Racist T-shirts; Apologizes
posted Jan. 14, 2006
updated Jan. 30, 2006
************************************************************
Within two weeks of launching a campaign against racially
and religiously derogatory products by
national retailer Spencer Gifts LLC, graduate student Vanessa Au received
an apology from the company and a pledge to discard its remaining stock
of the products.
She is now working with a national coalition of advocacy organizations
and community leaders who
seek a resolution with the company.
If you thought the Abercrombie & Fitch debacle would raise some awareness among retailers about racial sensitivity, think again.
My friend recently spotted some very offensive shirts at Spencer Gifts (New Jersey based company) at Mayfair Mall in Victoria BC. Please go to http://vanessa_au.blogspot.com/2006/01/boycott-spencer-gifts.html to see the photos of them.
Below is a letter I sent to the company's executives at their headquarters in New Jersey today. I encourage you to do the same. The company's contact info follows my letter.Or, at the very least, please sign my online petiton http://www.petitiononline.com/APA911/petition.html Please pass this along...
Best,
Vanessa Au
To Spencer Gifts:
You obviously learned nothing from the Abercrombie & Fitch debacle. I am appalled and disgusted by your line of “Asian-themed” t-shirts featuring stereotyped Asian caricatures and offensive text. The shirt that reads “SUK MAI COCK POULTRY FARM” is an obvious mockery of the Chinese language and sophomoric jab at Asians and their supposed difficulty with English spelling and comprehension. The shirt featuring the likeness of Buddha, which reads “I MAY BE FAT BUT MY COCK IS HUGE,” demonstrates blatant disrespect for a religious deity and the religion’s followers. One need only replace the image of Buddha with that of Jesus Christ and swap “fat” with “skinny” to see how offensive this would be to the Christian majority. Finally, the shirt that reads “HANG OUT WITH YOUR WANG OUT” features a caricature of a slanted-eyed, buck-toothed Chinese man wearing a queue and rice paddy hat and childishly holding his penis. This image is demeaning and painfully reminiscent of racist images in popular culture in the early 1900s.
Whether you intended to offend or to be funny and irreverent is not the issue. The issue is that the shirts are plainly offensive. Images like those on shirts sold by Spencer Gifts serve to promote the misleading notion that Asians are exotic foreigners to be insulted and ridiculed without consequence. The shirts are not funny, innovative, novel, or edgy. They are racist and degrading and I demand an official public apology and a recall of the aforementioned shirts. Until then, I vow to boycott Spencer Online and all Spencer Gifts stores and will encourage others to do the same.
Respectfully,
Vanessa Au
Email the execs:
Steven Silverstein
President and CEO
steven.silverstein@spencergifts.com
Isaac Silvera
EVP and CFO
isaac.silvera@spencergifts.com
Michael D. (Mike) Champion
Manager, Promotion and Publicity
michael.champion@spencergifts.com
Call or write to corporate headquarters:
Spencer Gifts, LLC
6826 Black Horse Pike
Egg Harbor Township, NJ 08234
Phone: 609-645-3300
Fax: 609-645-5633
sign my online petiton
http://www.petitiononline.com/APA911/petition.html
