{"id":342,"date":"2009-07-06T09:29:00","date_gmt":"2009-07-06T09:29:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/wordpress\/?p=342"},"modified":"2009-07-06T09:29:00","modified_gmt":"2009-07-06T09:29:00","slug":"winnebago-cherokee-acadia-touareg-et-a","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/2009\/07\/06\/winnebago-cherokee-acadia-touareg-et-a\/","title":{"rendered":"Winnebago, Cherokee, Acadia, Touareg, et al."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/photos\/blog5\/peoplecars.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>This has always bothered me: corporations who take existing proper names and trademark them. Today, I&#8217;ve chosen the transportation industry to be my whipping boy.<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>More than 40 years ago a recreational vehicle was made that really defined RVs for years to come. It decided to take the name from the midwestern Ho-Chunk Native Americans who were at one time called the Winnebago (also where we get the name for Winnipeg).<\/li>\n<li>In 1974, Jeep decided to name their new SUV after another North American Tribe called the Cherokee.<\/li>\n<li>Two years ago, GMC rolled out their new SUV adopting the name of the oldest French Canadian colony: Acadia.<\/li>\n<li>Volkswagon used the same method in choosing the name for their 2003 SUV, this time going to the north African Tuareg people for the Touareg.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>You may think that I&#8217;m being too sensitive. My reason for offense is that these corporations really have no right to copyright a people group&#8217;s name and heritage. Names are important. If the first thing you think of when you hear the word &#8220;Cherokee&#8221; is a Jeep SUV, then the Cherokee have lost a part of their distinction as a culture.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>You may be in the minority in knowing who the Tuareg or Winnebago are and think I&#8217;m off my rocker. What if you were Tuareg and whenever someone asked you who you were they would say &#8220;Oh, like the VW?&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>I, being of Acadian descent, feel wronged that GMC has taken a word that makes up a part of my identity and has no connection to the General Motors Corporation in order to make a familiar sounding product name that will forever be associated with Acadia.\u00a0<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>A search of &#8220;Acadia&#8221; in Google yields the following results today:<\/div>\n<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Acadia University (an anglophone university in Nova Scotia)<\/li>\n<li>an entry in Wikipedia on the colony of Acadia<\/li>\n<li>GMC Acadia<\/li>\n<li>Association for Computer Aided Design In Architecture<\/li>\n<li>History of Champlain in Acadia<\/li>\n<li>an entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia<\/li>\n<li>an association of five First Nation reserves in Nova Scotia<\/li>\n<li>and finally Acadia Pharmaceuticals<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My issues are these: How long before the original meaning of Acadia makes it to the bottom of the list and corporations dominate? Will it take very long for most identifying people groups&#8217; names to be incorporated as trademark names for multinational corporations? What say should people have over the use of their corporate proper name by corporations?* \u00a0How can minority cultures maintain their identity in this current climate dominated financially by large corporations (bailouts with tax money for big business, Wal*Marts swallowing local businesses, multinational oil companies (war), etc.) let alone maintain their name.<\/p><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>*we know that individuals&#8217; names are protected &#8211; Ford can&#8217;t call their next vehicle the &#8220;Michael Jackson&#8221; or the &#8220;Barack Obama&#8221;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This has always bothered me: corporations who take existing proper names and trademark them. Today, I&#8217;ve chosen the transportation industry to be my whipping boy. More than 40 years ago a recreational vehicle was made that really defined RVs for years to come. It decided to take the name from the midwestern Ho-Chunk Native Americans &#8230; <span class=\"more\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/2009\/07\/06\/winnebago-cherokee-acadia-touareg-et-a\/\">[Read more&#8230;]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1408,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,22,30],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"entry","1":"post","2":"publish","3":"author-admin","4":"post-342","6":"format-standard","7":"has-post-thumbnail","8":"category-finance","9":"category-politics","10":"category-zr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1408"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/zaakistan.com\/dir\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}