Navajo Nation Enraged at Urban Outfitters, Clothing Retailer

It hasn't sued yet, but the Navajo Nation thinks hard about that right now. Urban Outfitters, a clothing retailer, appears to be infringing trademark or committing marketing no-nos when using the word 'Navajo' in a branded product line.

Insulting and misleading

Particularly irksome products at Urban Outfitters include a line of women's panties and cloth-covered hip flasks bearing traditional Navajo designs. Such designs are representative of Navajo art and have appeared in plenty of products manufactured nowhere near Navajo reservations. Using the designs is not the problem. Using the name 'Navajo' to brand the products is.

It is Urban Outfitters' use of 'Navajo' in the product line that affronts the Navajo Nation, according to a Fox News report. The name misleads customers to suggest that the products were made by Navajo people. They are not. Furthermore, the panty line besmirches the decent way of Navajo cultural life, and the hipflask shows insensitivity to Navajo issues with alcoholism.

The Navajo-named products add insult to the injury Native Americans have already endured from white folks taking their lands, among other atrocities, long ago.

The rez

The Navajo are indeed Americans, but they have their own nation. A vast reservation encompasses hundreds of square miles in Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, on land titled back to the natives who lived there in the first place.

You can tell exactly where the reservation begins and ends by the dry barren lands where nothing grows. Early American government officials were gracious enough to bestow the most arid, moon-like, unproductive ground back to the natives. Now, retailers have borrowed the Navajo name with the good intentions of giving it back when they're done using it up.

Dare to use my name

If I were Navajo, I would be incensed too upon marketers using my name to sell panties and hip flasks. If it were me, it would be 'Lorraine's Licentious Line of Lingerie' or 'Cohen's Can-Can Cognac Container.' Either way, I would be pissed, pardon my French, and would not wait a minute to sue.

But, as I said at the beginning, the Navajo have not begun to sue but only express their distress at the bad use of their good name.

Urban Outfitters ought to read up on historical accounts of the settling of the West. And learn what fate awaits those who irk the Indians.