Comments

  1. says

    This is one of the issues I have to admit I have never thought about until a few years back. I always tried to be a good person and I always was against racism, bigotry and all that. But I never even thought about how often Indians (mostly just some generic head in a feathered headdress) are used as logos for not only sport teams in US, but also for some products even here in EU. AFAIK this is a unique thing, I am not aware of any other ethnic group being used for product branding or toys. There are indian themed toys, whole costumes etc. with long standing traditions. It is so comoon that it became that kind of thing that we do not see anymore despite having it in plain sight all the time.

    Thank you for informing me.

  2. says

    Charly @ 2:

    It’s everywhere. It’s particularly bad in France, where tribes are being used as the names of clothing lines. And there’s Apache Pizza in Ireland. The Navajo finally won a series of lawsuits over Navajo being used as a brand. No one cares, it’s always been open season on Indians.

    Marcus @ 3:

    Yes, they do. The protests against that have been going on for decades. I was at one of the protests a quarter of a century ago. Again, no one cares. Where it’s not okay to do this with other groups, it remains perfectly okay to do it to Indians. No one cares if our names or cultures are used and / or co-opted. Hell, there’s a blogger right here on FTB who thinks there’s no such thing as cultural appropriation, and people are being stupid and irrational if they think otherwise.

    People think it’s just fine to use us as mascots, jokes, cool brand names, and costumes. We are always treated not only with great disrespect, but as if we were extinct.

  3. chigau (違う) says

    Caine
    .
    You didn’t get the Memo?
    You were all extincted at The Little Big Horn.
    Custer won.
    And went on to invent the telephone.

    .
    Sorry.
    I took one of those multi-symptom-lemon-drink-cold-remedy-thingies.
    That was a 60s-worthy half-awake dream.
    Custer was played by Richard Mulligan.

  4. cubist says

    “Tribute”.

    Yyyyyeah, sure, you bet, uh-huh.

    “I do not think that word means what you think it means.”—Inigo Montoya

Leave a Reply