Urban Outfitters is Obsessed with Navajos

October 10th, 2011 by Guest Contributor

Your corporation’s use of Navajo will cause confusion in the market and society concerning the source or origin of your corporation’s products. Consumers will incorrectly believe that the Nation has licensed, approved, or authorized your corporation’s use of the Navajo name and trademarks for its products – when the Nation has not – or that your corporation’s use of Navajo is an extension of the Nation’s family of trademarks – which it is not. This is bound to cause confusion, mistake, or deception with respect to the source or origin of your goods. This undermines the character and uniqueness of the Nation’s long-standing distinctive Navajo name and trademarks, which—because of its false connection with the Nation—dilutes and tarnishes the name and trademarks. Accordingly, please immediately cease and desist using the Navajo name and trademark with your products.

As a Nation with a distinguished legacy and unmistakable contemporary presence, the Nation is committed to retaining this distinction and preventing inaccuracy and confusion in society and the market The Nation must maintain distinctiveness and clarity of valid association with its government, its institutions, its entities, its people, and their products in commerce.When an entity attempts to falsely associate its products with the Nation and its products, the Nation does not regard this as benign or trivial. TheNation remains firmly committed to the cancellation of all marks that attempt to falsely associate with the institution, its entities, its people or its products. Accordingly, immediately cease and desist using Navajo with your products.

I haven’t heard what the response was from Urban, if any, but I think it is a bold and positive choice for the tribe to take matters into their own hands and push back on instances of misrepresentation and cultural appropriation.

What do you think? Should tribes go the route of Navajo and trademark their tribal names? Do you think this will be an avenue for positive change or just mean tribal courts will be mired in lawsuits, taking away time from other important tribal business?

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Posted in We're So Post Racial, american indian/native american/first nations, cultural appropriation, indigenous peoples, marketing | 21 comments

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  • Julia

    Something’s going on with the font above, beginning just below the photos. It’s teeny-tiny–impossible to read.

  • Harper

    I think it’s a little depressing that the Navajo Nation trademarks its own name as a commodity and plays these marketing games. That said, better them than Urban Outfitters.

    Also, sorry to inform but your code seems to be broken – all text after the hotpants photo is in tiny, tiny font that’s unreadable without awkward enlarging.

  • Anonymous

    I don’t see how it could mean anything other than being mired in lawsuits. By trademarking the name it means that the various tribal nations will have a legal duty to vigorously defend their position with every single breach that occurs; there is a massive legal industry that has emerged around corporate copyright and this would be similar to that. Depending on how initial cases go I could just see companies going with a generic ‘tribal’ title to avoid future problems.

    Will it solve the issue of authenticity and misrepresentation that can occur as part of a larger consumist cultural trend? I don’t believe so as the original interest that creates and pushes specific, popular themes through society — the cultural zeitgesit, if you will — is rarely motivated by authenticity to the origins of an idea but to the interpretation of that idea itself (hence the misrepresentation. A good example of this is the early work of Osamu Tezuka and how that relates to western animation ideals at that time, and how his initial interpretation spread rapidly through the Japanese industry.) 

  • Anonymous

    Those are the photo captions.  I could take off the captions, if that is easier…

  • http://twitter.com/baitlins Caitlin Gephardt

    I think it’s even MORE depressing that the Navajo Nation HAS to do this.
    Would you prefer them to be totally passive and let white hipsters stereotype them into oblivion? It’s not a “game”, it’s an attempt to protect a culture.

  • http://pickygirltriestoeat.wordpress.com/ mclicious

    First, this is awful, and most other “trendy” retailers do it, too. http://wtforever21.com/2011/10/forever-21-sells-faux-native-american-items-in-their-columbus-day-sale/

    Second, when, oh when will white corporations learn that a) “tribal” doesn’t mean anything, especially when the point of the word “tribe” is that it describes a specific group of people, not all groups of different tribes from different nations, traditions, continents, etc?

    Also, did you do a search for “ethnic?” That’s another favorite word in fashion, and I think it’s funny that not a single person in the fashion industry has taken a 101 college course and learned that “ethnicity” means “culture” and technically white people have it, too. So, like “tribal,” what the word actually means (various groups with distinct traditions/beliefs/etc) and how it’s being used (one kind of non-western style/tradition) are at odds with each other.

    In response to some of the comments, I agree that it’s sad that the Navajo Nation has to do this, but I think it’s necessary because it brings to light the fact that dominant cultures feel free to misappropriate all they wish.

    Finally, yuck. Just yuck. But thanks for another reason to despise this nasty store. Even when they’re not being offensive, their clothes are gross.

  • Angus

    Yoooo, Julia’s right though.  The font on this post is microscopic, in the comments, captions and part of the article.  It’s only this post, none of the other ones.

    I can read it when I copy/paste the text into MS Word though.

  • Harper

    Perhaps there’s an unclosed tag after the last photo – or tag closings that are out-of-order? These will manifest oddly in some browsers.

  • Harper

    Perhaps there’s an unclosed tag after the last photo – or tag closings that are out-of-order? These will manifest oddly in some browsers.

  • Harper

    Perhaps there’s an unclosed tag after the last photo – or tag closings that are out-of-order? These will manifest oddly in some browsers.

  • Harper

    Perhaps there’s an unclosed tag after the last photo – or tag closings that are out-of-order? These will manifest oddly in some browsers.

  • Harper

    Not that what I prefer matters too hard, but no, absolutely not. The fact that white hipsters have the consumer spending power to change what ‘Navajo’ means is a gross systematic inequality, there’s no doubt about it.

    As it happens I don’t have a preference as to what the Nation should do, within this system of name commodification as it stands. It’s depressing that the Nation is absorbed so far into it, to defend and protect their own name as well as to sell it themselves.

    I don’t at all mean a “game” in the sense of lighthearted fun. I mean “play the game” in the sense of “play by the rules”, because no new player is a big enough force to change any rules as they stand.

  • Harper

    Not that what I prefer matters too hard, but no, absolutely not. The fact that white hipsters have the consumer spending power to change what ‘Navajo’ means is a gross systematic inequality, there’s no doubt about it.

    As it happens I don’t have a preference as to what the Nation should do, within this system of name commodification as it stands. It’s depressing that the Nation is absorbed so far into it, to defend and protect their own name as well as to sell it themselves.

    I don’t at all mean a “game” in the sense of lighthearted fun. I mean “play the game” in the sense of “play by the rules”, because no new player is a big enough force to change any rules as they stand.

  • Harper

    Not that what I prefer matters too hard, but no, absolutely not. The fact that white hipsters have the consumer spending power to change what ‘Navajo’ means is a gross systematic inequality, there’s no doubt about it.

    As it happens I don’t have a preference as to what the Nation should do, within this system of name commodification as it stands. It’s depressing that the Nation is absorbed so far into it, to defend and protect their own name as well as to sell it themselves.

    I don’t at all mean a “game” in the sense of lighthearted fun. I mean “play the game” in the sense of “play by the rules”, because no new player is a big enough force to change any rules as they stand.

  • Anonymous

    Damn. Cultural appropriation in it’s lowest form. Don’t white folks ever get tired of doing this shizz let alone explaining why they thought it was ok?

  • Anonymous

    The problem I have with these “ethnic’ and “tribal” fashions is that the most of the people who buy them don’t actually give a shit about the people and culture the items are derived from. It’s like dancing at the club to the latest Hip Hop music, but using the N word to describe black people in general.

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  • Anonymous

     I just noticed something totally insidous here (other than the obvious) – how many of the models were black. As many of you may be aware, there are large numbers of black men and women in this country with some degree of indian heritage who are often excluded unfairly from tribal culture/events/etc. At best I would say that I have not found a welcoming or open attitude in many tribes toward welcoming our black members and/or citizens. This can be see in the recent almost wholesale expulsion of black citizens from the Cherokee Nation. And this urban outfitters trend, combining stolen native images with black models, seems like an attempt to exploit the psychological wound this has inflicted on many black indians in this country. its as if they are saying “hey, recently been thrown out of your tribe? well here – throw on this sweater – then you can feel indian again”. as if their disgusting tactics could ever be a substitute for the real thing.  I haven’t checked the website to see if the majority of models there are black too but it seems really blatant. And it is weird that there are no  “indian” (what, no fake Pocahontas?) models – but also reassuring. maybe we are getting better as saying no to letting our images been used for exploitation of our people and traditions and they just were refused by every native model they approached (assuming the models here are not native – and thats a big assumption on my part).

  • Anonymous

    And I hate the way that UO uses models of color and/or women and then cuts off their eye area like they aren’t people.  I know they do this with all their models and that they aren’t the only ones but it feels like a sick tradeoff is the only time they want to show people of color is when they have half their heads cut off.

  • http://arathershortgirl.blogspot.com/ Shortgirl

    Dear cheap and tacky clothing retailers,

    Stop appropriating our cultures. And thanks for  creating a direct association between Natives and hipsters.

    Not pleased.

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