Congratulations to Rob Mitchell for taking an important stand yet again in fighting intolerance and the tide of suicide victims.
If you’re not speaking out, you’re part of the problem.
Michael.
From: Rob Mitchell <rob@rjm.it>
Date: 8 September 2010 20:11
Subject: Stephanie Rice
To: customerservice@davenportunderwear.com.au
Hi,
Can I suggest you check out
It is a web site I have set up highlighting the link between the systemic vilification peddled by your ‘star’ and the inevitable result is has on the mental health of the 10 % of young people in this country who are not straight.
For years Davenport has banked great wads of money from the gay community by flogging it their expensive underwear, but when the time comes to discipline one of your ‘ambassadors’ for vilifying that community, you are missing in action.
It’s not good enough, and we are not going to put up with it.
Starting tomorrow (Thursday) we are going to be hitting the GLBTI and metro media with the website, and that is just the start. If you google ‘Davenport’ and ‘suicide’ you will see we are already at number six out of 360,000.
You should ditch Stephanie as an ambassador, as Jaguar have done. To do anything less is to simply profit from hatred and vilification.
Stephanie Rice can burst into tears as often as she likes but I can see no concrete offers of help, monetary or otherwise, to genuinely assist the GLBTI community deal with the vilification related rates of suicide and depression that are endemic in our communities.
If it’s one thing we’ve learnt fighting HIV / AIDS over the last quarter of a century, it is that persistence works. Sooner or later, the broader community are going to associate Davenport underwear with bad corporate governance, and you don’t have to be clairvoyant to work out what that will mean for your bottom line.
It’s unfortunate it’s come to this, but for too long sport has been a ‘safe harbour’ for behaviour that would be unacceptable in any other context, and too often companies that profit from the sporting world won’t step up when required.
Those days are gone.
Rob Mitchell
Member Governance & Inclusion Project, Vic Dept. Sport
Member Integrity In Sport Committee, Australian Sports Commission