Chief of Cherokee Nation Says 'It's Time' for Jeep to Stop Using Name

[Ohiogal]

For the first time, the Cherokee Nation is asking Jeep to change the name of its Cherokee and Grand Cherokee vehicles.

“I’m sure this comes from a place that is well-intended, but it does not honor us by having our name plastered on the side of a car," Chuck Hoskin, Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, told Car and Driver in a written statement responding to our request for comment on the issue. "The best way to honor us is to learn about our sovereign government, our role in this country, our history, culture, and language and have meaningful dialogue with federally recognized tribes on cultural appropriateness."

Jeep has been building cars that wear the Cherokee Nation's name for more than 45 years. In that time, the company has gone on the record several times defending its decision to use the name of a Native American nation on its cars. Over the past eight years, since the reintroduction of the Cherokee nameplate to the U.S. market in 2013, the Cherokee Nation has gone on the record, too, but it had never explicitly said that Jeep should change the cars' names.

(snip)

Both changes were a long time coming. The National Congress of American Indians began working to address issues of Native American imagery in 1968. In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association began prohibiting colleges and universities from displaying hostile or abusive nicknames, mascots, or imagery. Last spring, the dairy company Land O' Lakes removed the image of a Native American woman it has used on its packaging.

"I think we're in a day and age in this country where it’s time for both corporations and team sports to retire the use of Native American names, images and mascots from their products, team jerseys and sports in general," Chief Hoskin said in his statement.

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https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a35568468/cherokee-nation-jeep-stop-using-name/

[CTyankee]

1. In the Ivy League, Dartmouth no longer has Indians as their team name. I remember Ivy League

football games when they had a guy dressed as an Iroquois Indian as their mascot, like Yale's Bulldogs or Princeton's Tigers. The Dartmouth "mascot" would dance around doing his version of a war whoop.

[Ohiogal]

3. We had the same thing in high school

Our cross town rivals had a “mascot“ who dressed up in an outfit with feathers and danced onto the field too. We didn’t think anything of it back in those days. If any real Natives ever saw that I can’t imagine what they’d think.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

2. Bought this model last year and remarked this would probably be one of the last years that it

carried the name.

[Sneederbunk]

4. It's about time. The Cherokees owned black slaves.