{"id":2465848,"date":"2018-07-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-25T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/uncategorized\/stop-buying-native-inspired-designs\/"},"modified":"2022-05-12T12:54:07","modified_gmt":"2022-05-12T18:54:07","slug":"stop-buying-native-inspired-designs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/culture\/opinion\/stop-buying-native-inspired-designs\/","title":{"rendered":"Op-Ed: Stop Buying “Native Inspired” Designs"},"content":{"rendered":"

When graphic designer Vernan Kee received an invitation to the winter Outdoor Retailer market in January 2017, he jumped at the chance to attend, hoping the opportunity would help him advance his career and build his client base. Like most Outdoor Retailer rookies, he was initially blown away by the innovative product designs and outdoor merchandise displayed by brand after brand. Outdoor Retailer is, among many other things<\/a>, a chance for brands to debut new product lines and show off a bit.<\/p>\n

But the more products and brands Kee saw, the worse he felt about pursuing work <\/em><\/strong>in the outdoor industry.<\/p>\n

Kee is Din\u00e9, or Navajo. As he walked among the flashy booths, he saw the designs of his people plastered on everything from scarves to snowboards. Symbols like the sacred Din\u00e9tah diamonds that symbolize the four corners of the Navajo Nation, the traditional Spider Woman crosses that honor the culture\u2019s history as weavers, and the sun-face graphics that symbolize prosperity were being used with no respect for their traditional meanings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI tried ignoring it at first, but it just got worse. Almost every brand had something Native American\u2013related,\u201d says Kee, who had at various points approached some of the brands for work but had never been hired. \u201cA lot of them were using actual symbols that are sacred and mean something.\u201d<\/p>\n

This uncredited adoption of imagery and symbols has a name: cultural appropriation. Outdoor brands, like countless clothing, bedding, and furniture manufacturers before them, have put Native imagery on all sorts of apparel and technical gear for years. Only a fraction of that imagery has been created by Indigenous designers and artists. The problem is especially ironic as the outdoor industry has aligned itself with tribal interests in protecting public lands, from Bears Ears National Monument to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. It\u2019s time to elevate the work of Native people who are fully capable of creating that aesthetic on their own and have been doing it for untold generations before white people realized how good these designs look on Instagram.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s face it,\u201d says Shain Jackson, a Coast Salish artist and lawyer based in British Columbia, \u201cwe are the most impoverished demographic in this country. Our artwork, nationwide, is our biggest source of private direct revenue. Handcrafts, arts, and designs are hardly scratching the surface, but we just want the benefit from the artwork to go to the right people, or at least a large part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mainstream\u2014that is, mostly white\u2014culture continues to steal from and profit off Indigenous people who have already lost land, language, culture, and countless lives to colonialism and cruel policies. Using meaningful Native images on products simply for aesthetic reasons is a way of ignoring the context of colonialism and stolen lands. <\/strong>The trendiness of Native imagery compounds the problem even further by making it harder for talented, motivated Native people like Kee to break into the industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not stuck in the Stone Age,\u201d Kee says. \u201cI graduated with a bachelor\u2019s degree in graphic design, and I\u2019m implementing traditional designs in modern, artistic ways.\u201d Kee\u2019s client list includes NativesOutdoors, a B-Corp organization that works to support Indigenous people in the outdoor industry and beyond. (NativesOutdoors was founded by Len Necefer, a co-author of this article.)<\/p>\n

This problem extends far beyond the outdoor industry, but it\u2019s worth scrutinizing especially as outdoor brands publicize their politics, as they did in 2017, when Outdoor Retailer moved<\/a> from Salt Lake City to Denver in protest of Utah\u2019s position on public lands. Brands walk a fine line between a white savior complex and true allyship when they ignore other injustices in how they treat Indigenous cultures and artwork.<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of reconciliation is being honest about the history that is difficult to hear,\u201d says Gregg Deal, a Native activist and artist who is very vocal about the relationship between Indigenous identity and pop culture. \u201cAnd knowing your history isn\u2019t just like saying, \u2018I know Indians got a raw deal.\u2019 Look at something like the Sand Creek Massacre,\u201d in 1864, when U.S. soldiers raided a Cheyenne and Arapahoe village, killing hundreds. \u201cOnce you have that context, then you understand things like historical trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to elevate the work of Native people who are fully capable of creating that aesthetic on their own and have been doing it for untold generations before white people realized how good these designs look on Instagram.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n

The outdoor industry, which is already making strides in upholding stringent guidelines in other areas, such as sustainability<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0specific standards on feather sourcing<\/a> for down products, could give the same treatment to ethical standards when it comes to Native designs. \u201cA good ally is someone who facilitates the opportunity for our people to speak for ourselves,\u201d Deal says.<\/p>\n

Customers should ask questions and make sure they\u2019re spending money on real Indigenous <\/em><\/strong>designs, Jackson says. \u201cAsk if an Indigenous design on a product is not only a real Indigenous design, but also if the artist has been remunerated for that design,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, Jackson has partnered with Mountain Equipment Co-Op, Canada\u2019s version of REI, <\/em><\/strong>to help the retail chain set standards of fairness to Indigenous artists. He educated MEC staff about the impact of cultural appropriation as the co-op began to remove products from its inventory that used Indigenous imagery but weren\u2019t created by Natives.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, it\u2019s been an incredible learning journey,\u201d says Shona\u00a0McGlashan, MEC\u2019s chief governance officer and internal leader of the company\u2019s effort to remove appropriated designs from its shelves. \u201cThe first two or three times this question came up to me, I was like, \u2018Yeah, this is no big deal.\u2019 It has taken me a while to understand what I currently understand. You have to confront things that you were doing in the past that you maybe don\u2019t feel that great about.\u201d<\/p>\n

MEC has been relatively quiet about this new policy, but the company now asks each brand it carries to prove a Native artist was financially compensated before placing an item with Indigenous symbols or graphics on its shelves.<\/p>\n

If this sounds like a lot of work, it is. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for people like me to confront the shoulders they\u2019re standing on. It\u2019s very uncomfortable, and it\u2019s very necessary,\u201d McGlashan says. \u201cThere are a lot of gray areas. If it was an easy question to have solved, we would have solved it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, consider that the outdoor industry contributes $373 billion<\/a> to the U.S. economy, and brands have been known to brainstorm very long lists<\/a> of potential product names <\/em><\/strong>for each jacket in their line. Why not put the same effort into making sure Native designs are properly used? Treating Native artists fairly isn\u2019t a simple process, <\/em><\/strong>but that doesn\u2019t mean that the line between right and wrong is blurry.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are things that somebody will consider egregious appropriation and others will think is fair artistic game,\u201d McGlashan says. \u201cWhen people say a product is \u2018inspired\u2019 by something, that\u2019s already a red flag that has my ears pricking up. One of the things that I will say in my work on this subject is that art absolutely exists to challenge and critique society. Outdoor retail, not so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indigenous artists like Kee are ready to make their voices heard\u2014with or without the support of larger brands and other potential allies. Toward this goal, NativesOutdoors partnered<\/a> with the Colorado Commission of Indian Affairs and the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office to gather 20 tribes\u2019 elected officials at this summer\u2019s Outdoor Retailer show to discuss their involvement with the outdoor industry and public land management. This gathering is the first of its kind and will create a bridge between the industry and the tribes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really wanted to make the industry aware that there are Native Americans here now\u2014at Outdoor Retailer, in the outdoor industry, and purchasing products as outdoor consumers,\u201d Kee\u00a0says. \u201cThese brands should just be aware of that. Things need to change a little bit around here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This uncredited adoption of imagery and symbols has a name: cultural appropriation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44696,"featured_media":2366086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"uuid":"6860811d671904aa6f39ffa7bbbc71a4","footnotes":""},"categories":[2577],"tags":[2649,2830],"byline":[2098,1883],"ad_cat":[],"legacy-category":[],"class_list":["post-2465848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-clothing-and-apparel","tag-outdoor-retailer","byline-len-necefer","byline-jill-sanford"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Op-Ed: Stop Buying “Native Inspired” Designs","url":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/culture\/opinion\/stop-buying-native-inspired-designs\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/culture\/opinion\/stop-buying-native-inspired-designs\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/12\/natives-outdoors-hat_h.jpg","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https:\/\/cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/11\/12\/natives-outdoors-hat_h.jpg"},"articleSection":"Opinion","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"jversteegh"}],"creator":["jversteegh"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"ºÚÁϳԹÏÍø Online","logo":"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/favicon-194x194-1.png"},"keywords":["clothing and apparel","outdoor retailer"],"dateCreated":"2018-07-25T00:00:00Z","datePublished":"2018-07-25T00:00:00Z","dateModified":"2022-05-12T18:54:07Z"},"rendered":"