Rip the Runway for Darfur. Are you kidding me????
I try to keep things positive on this blog…but when it comes to those fake charity products and events I call charitising, it’s hard to do so. People think I’m too cynical. I hear it all the time. But how come people aren’t disgusted by the way the mega rich are using the people who are the worst off in order to sell their products? That’s like kicking a dog when he’s down and claiming that you’re helping the dog.
They lure the public into thinking that part of what they spend is going into a “charity” and the charity will “do something”. It’s hard to explain why this isn’t the case. And I’m beginning to think people don’t care much anyway. But check out this flick photo gallery by Gawker and give me some feedback.
A Vodka company thought it was in good taste to throw a “fabulous” party to “celebrate”… what? Their new product? That people are being tortured and slaughtered in the hundreds of thousands?
How do people react to such a crass event? An attendee had “Soooooo much fun“ (in case the site does remove or change the post, and I hope they do out of shame, just note that there was lots of talk about how great the party was and zero understanding of Darfur).
These are the “good guys” helping the poor in Darfur? I wonder how that person would feel if they watched their son be killed and their daughter maimed before their eyes and someone else threw a “fabulous” caring party to “donate” part of the proceeds to a charity to “help” this person?
What an outrage.
At least Gawker had the right attitude.
UPDATE: Ran into another article on this event and just when you think that they can’t get more crass, it gets worse. The host fell ill, they replaced the host with two backups just in case. Those two were offended that the other was involved or some such nonsense, so they both bailed. Then a self-important Prima Donna organizer couldn’t take the pressure anymore and uttered this classic quote: “We think the only people who truly suffered from their selfish no-shows are the poor citizens of war-torn Darfur.”
The person that should be ashamed of themself is you… I actually attended this event as a representative from Doctors Without Borders and can assure you that this was not a celebratory event. If you check out what the organizers of this event (Designers For Darfur) have been able to accomplish with their efforts, you would truly be ashamed of posting a ridiculous item like this on your blog. If you had a shred of decency you would remove your post. To follow the opinion of a rag such as GAWKER as a reference only verifies that you are a ‘HACK”.
Concerned Citizen
Posted on August 23rd, 2007 at 10:10 pmAh, the Anonymous, “Yahoo Email account”, “concerned citizen”…
Nice try, but to me those pictures certainly do look like a crass, celebratory, corporate PR campaign. Too bad you seem to be too shallow to understand it…
As for your claims… what HAS Designers for Darfur actually ACCOMPLISHED for Darfur? Let’s see, a T-Shirt Design Competition,? Bravo. The baby who just saw his mother killed in Darfur must be so relieved and hopeful now that there’s a T-Shirt Design competition to let people know of his plight…
What else? Here’s another NOT “celebratory” event? Take a look at these pictures of half naked models sponsored by designers for Darfur.
If you do not see that as crass in the face of the bloody murder going on then I cannot help you Mr. Concerned Citizen.
What else? A letter writing campaign to congress? That’s been really effective so far…
A private screening of a Darfur documentary so that you all can feel good about yourselves? Congratulations…
Saved even one life?? No.
The biggest accomplishment DFD have made has been entertaining rich folks with FABULOUS parties and giving lots of fantastic and PRICELESS P.R. to the likes of Donna Karan, Perry Ellis, Oprah Winfrey, Roberto Cavalli, Kanye West, & the big “caring” human rights advocate Russell Simmons.
A lot of people in my community are sensitive when it comes to Darfur because of our ties to an earlier genocide. My father survived Auschwitz, Dachau, Kaufering lagers, lost his father and entire community and way of life… I grew up with it as a kid and naively used to think that Nazi Germany taught the world something. I honestly thought genocide couldn’t happen again. But that is what is happening in Darfur. Here we go again… The few times you see it in the news, it’s from corporations who are trying to use the situation to market their products and some celebrities who want to create a positive image. The very few who seem to care… They are like you. They just want to go to fabulous parties and have fun. Which is fine… but stop using their suffering as an excuse. Have your parties and call it a party. But don’t play Saints when you aren’t.
Only a cynical mind can think that an appropriate response to torture is a fundraiser party with models strutting their stuff half naked to dance on the graves they pretend to show “concern” for…
I’m making this personal because you are so far from reality that I’m driven to finding an example that might “touch” you… But I know it won’t… You will never understand until you are the one suffering.
As far as achieving something in Darfur, if Oprah cared, if Russell Simmons cared, if all these powerful organizations cared, they would donate tons of money FROM THEIR OWN POCKET to an organization that can be effective… which I’ll explain in a moment… without a high-profile fundraiser trying to get PARTICIPANTS to DONATE THEIR money (and making sure the press covers how good these companies are). After all, the parties are PROFITABLE for these corporations.
How to take care of Darfur? It would be a piece of cake if all these powerful people would stop thinking about how to make money off the tragedy and just started calling up their powerful friends in Washington to put some pressure on.
In fact, instead of all these useless letters to congress and stupid parties, if they just hired a firm on K Street in Washington… iow, a lobbyist, this would get taken care of 1-2-3. A one week affair and pretty cheap monetarily.
For the U.S. this problem can be handled with our hands tied behind our back. In fact, a small private army of mercenaries can handle it. That’s how the mines are protected in Africa… and it works… $100 million should more than do the trick.
This is a needless atrocity that has been allowed to go on because the people in charge, the ones that could make a difference do not care one iota…. Write letters to congress. That’s just a funny joke told to citizens to make them feel as if they have power to do something.
Posted on August 24th, 2007 at 10:40 pmJust found this post and must say that this seems like a lot of misplaced anger - Especially from a person that has named their site “Diamondring.Com” at a time when the diamond industry is completely suspect by any one with half of a brain. I must agree with Concerned Citizen that this blogger might not be the best to judge anyone. The opposite of what the guys at Designers For Darfur or any other worthy organization are attempting to accomplish would be doing nothing or moreso writing trash blogs like this one.
Posted on August 25th, 2007 at 12:47 amVery interesting comeback…
Why don’t you check what we have to say about Conflict Diamonds before you judge? We are not making apologies for the Diamond Industry and have been quite strong about saying it needs to be cleaned up with action and not PR.
But thanks for your notes. Oh, and you misrepresented yourself. The IP Address for blogfriendly is identical to the IP Address for “Concerned Citizen” and I bet you are also the author of the blog that was linked to in the first place.
Any other comebacks?
Posted on August 25th, 2007 at 12:58 am