Posted on 02/23/2021 1:29:45 PM PST by nickcarraway
Jeep has been using Cherokee as a model name since the mid-1970s, but its next generation of vehicles arrives during a heightened national discussion of racial and social justice issues.
Jeep sells vehicles named Cherokee and Grand Cherokee. It also uses Mojave, the name of a Native American people and a desert in the American Southwest, as a trim designator on the Gladiator. The Cherokee Nation has commented on the record several times since Jeep started using the name in North America in 2013 after a 12-year hiatus. A representative of Cherokee Nation said that until recently it had been several years since it had any communication from Jeep regarding the name. 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."
What If New Cars Had Old Names?
Who Wore It Better? These 10 Cars Share Names 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.
Now, as Jeep prepares to launch the next generation of the Grand Cherokee against the backdrop of high-profile name changes in the world of sports, that has changed.
In his statement, Chief Hoskin alluded to the mainstreaming of racial justice concepts following the Black Lives Matter protests last summer, as well as those sports stories. In December, Cleveland's Major League Baseball team made the decision to drop its nickname and mascot. Last July, Washington D.C.'s NFL team announced it would stop using a nickname long considered a racial slur. The team spent last season known only as the Washington Football Team.
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.
According to Amanda Cobb-Greetham, a professor at the University of Oklahoma and director of the school's Native Nations Center, the use of Native imagery in sports and popular culture started around the turn of the 20th century. At that time, there were fewer than 300,000 Native Americans living in the United States. "Because of the prevalence of the ideology that Native peoples would eventually disappear . . . Native Americans became part of the national mythology of the frontier and the west and the settlement of America," Cobb-Greetham said. "And that's when suddenly you have Native American mascots and products, cultural kitsch. Car names are a part of that."
Jeep first used the Cherokee name in a 1974 two-door wagon (one available trim was called Cherokee Chief). It has since built cars called Cherokee continuously, but from 2002 through 2013 the cars were known as the Liberty in the North American market. When Jeep brought the Cherokee name back to its U.S. in 2013, a Cherokee Nation representative told the New York Times, “We have encouraged and applauded schools and universities for dropping offensive mascots,” but that “institutionally, the tribe does not have a stance on this.”
That same story noted that the Cherokee Nation had not been consulted before Jeep brought the nameplate back to the U.S. The Grand Cherokee is Jeep's best-selling vehicle, and the Cherokee is its third-biggest-selling model. Together the vehicles made up more than 40 percent of Jeep's total sales in 2020. Since that same year, Jeep has used Mojave for certain Gladiator trucks. The Fort Mojave Indian Tribe's reservation covers parts of Arizona, California, and Nevada near the Mojave Desert.
Last June, as protests over the death of George Floyd spurred discussions about racial justice, Chief Hoskin told the Wall Street Journal, "We hope the movement away from using tribes’ names and depictions or selling products without our consent, continues. We much prefer a cooperative effort than an adversarial one.”
The most recognized example of that type of effort is probably the arrangement between Florida State University and the Seminole Tribe of Florida. It includes a scholarship program for students from the reservation. In 2005, the Seminole Tribe issued a resolution calling its relationship with the school a "historic partnership." The Cherokee Nation said it has no such relationship with Jeep.
Told of Chief Hoskin's call to end the use of the Cherokee name on its cars, Jeep said in a statement, "Our vehicle names have been carefully chosen and nurtured over the years to honor and celebrate Native American people for their nobility, prowess, and pride. We are, more than ever, committed to a respectful and open dialogue with Cherokee Nation Principal Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr."
But Cobb-Greetham, who is a member of Chickasaw Nation and stresses the Cherokee Nation's sovereignty in choosing how to respond to the use of its own name, takes a different view: "If you're going to honor somebody, give them an award. If you're going to name a product after them, you're selling."
An official with Cherokee Nation says representatives from Jeep reached out to Chief Hoskin via phone earlier this month, but the nation's stance on Jeep's use of the name has not changed.
Rename it after their enemies then: the Sioux or the Iroquois for example.
Similar to Asimov's Foundation stories where his characters implement Hari Seldon's plan that ushers in only a thousand years of decadence and decay instead of the thirty thousand years of dark ages as predicted by his "Psychohistory" that would occur naturally.
Or maybe just Biblical fulfillment?
Middle of last week, north Texas, driving down a small back road barely wide enough for two opposing vehicles to pass. I came across what I initially took to be some kind of economy car in the ditch. I got out to help because it was brutally cold and I didn’t want to leave anyone stranded.
I approached the vehicle and noticed, to my surprise, a 4WD emblem and the name Jeep on it. It turned out to be something called a Jeep Renegade.
I thought maybe I could get the tow strap and pull the guy out of the ditch. No can do. There was nothing to get hold of that wouldn’t have just ripped away from the vehicle. I offered to take him home. He told me he had called roadside assistance and would just wait. He said I didn’t need to hang around and thanked me for stopping.
I live only a quarter mile up the road, but he wanted to wait for roadside assistance. I went back an hour later to find the vehicle gone.
It’s time to get rid of the whole “reservation” thing.
“Actually, there is an Eastern Cherokee nation that is not affiliated with the Oklahoma Cherokee tribe. Their ancestors lived in the Smokey Mountains and were not rounded up and force marched to Oklahoma on “The Trail of Tears.””
I have ancestry from this group that stayed in Tennessee.
There are at least three Cherokee organizations.
I can understand why a Cherokee would be offended by the current model. Not a fan at all.
When I was a boy, my parents bought the older version of the Cherokee the last year they were made by AMC (1987?). I loved that car and was starting to learn to drive it when my parents needed the cash and had to sell it:( I’ve always wanted to collect a classic AMC/Rambler ever since.
As a grown up, the only car I’ve ever regretted selling was my Dodge Nitro (pretty much a Jeep Liberty or Cherokee outside of US). We have a Grand Cherokee, which my wife loves, but is Fiat Stellantis junk. I’ve had to replace the heating core twice and the power liftgate stopped working after only two years. Yes, the Cherokee Nation should be honored by the AMC version, but understandably offended by the one made by Stellantis.
They should replace the names with "butthurt". Butthurt, Alabama; Butthurt Junction, Colorado; Butthurt Freightliner; Butthurt, Oklahoma (there are going to be some problems with a state having several cities named after Indians so there will have to be First butthurt, second butthurt etc.) Pueblo will just have to be Butthurt for each state.
One day a white jeep Cherokee pulled into a parking space next to me. I almost said, "Oh I see you have the Elizabeh Warren model Jeep, but I decided to keep my mouth shut, as you never here in Mass. when a liberal is going to act crazy. -Tom
Chief Needabuck is just looking for a cash payout. My response would be: F—K YOU.
Some of my ancestors were butchered by indians in the early 1600s, in New England. They were on their way to church. I can call those savages anything I want, and I can use their name to describe dog poo.
The best thing that ever happened to the U.S.A. was when the indians sided with the Brits in the Revolutionary war, and afterwards, fled to Canada with all the loser “loyalists”. Almost every other country in this hemisphere is burdened by a high percentage of indigenous blood.
Sounds like a NAALCP style shakedown, give us money and we stop bugging you.
Good thing the PONTIAC is no longer made.
If this keeps up soon it will be illegal for paratroopers to yell “GERONEMO!” when leaping out of planes. Unless they are referring to St Jerome.
When players kneel to disrespect the Anthem and Flag turn your back on them to disrespect them.
How much $$$ do they want ?
(I had to look that one up! I found some videos out there on youtube about "Eugene the Jeep", including this one: "Popeye The Sailor # 91 Popeye Presents Eugene the Jeep".)
Why has “Chief Hoskins” appropriated a White surname? Why do some “native Americans” misappropriate animal names, such as Red Deer, Sitting Bull or Running Bear? They must cease and desist and change their names.
Seems like a lot of cars have Indian names. If they have trademark or similar, pay them royalties. Make a deal.
And all of the counties in the South called “Cherokee County”?
wasnt there a comanche truck built by someone?
this crap is so sickening, it all just needs to end
america is not and never was a place free from being offended
they dont own the word cherokee
everyone on the planet can use the word cherokee
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