Native American Fast Research

Urban Outfitters, a store popular worldwide, violated the federal law, trademark infringement, and insulted the Navajo Indians back in 2011. In October, a Native American woman walked into the store and was, "deeply distressed by your company’s mass marketed collection of distasteful and racially demeaning apparel and décor." (Sasha Houston Brown) Sasha Houston Brown is a Native American woman who stopped in Urban Outfitters and was outraged by what she saw, she openly addressed Urban Outfitters on her blog back in 2011 and published the post on Colombus Day to get attention worldwide. Urban Outfitters had been selling clothing marked as "tribal" or "Navajo" simply because there was a faux Indian pattern on the clothing. The clothing featured tribal beads, feathers, fringe, and suede on clothing to make it fit the name of "Navajo clothing." Many were offended by the blatant racist clothing and the store was ordered to stop all shipping and selling of the racial clothing after, "The Attorney General of Navajo Nation sent Urban Outfitters a cease-and-desist letter several months ago with regard to the offending products, but it is not clear what, if any, response it received." (Allison Berry) Urban Outfitters had offended the Navajo tribe and didn't even bother to send an apology letter. In an interview of a man who called Urban Outfitters and asked about the Navajo line of items they had this to say about pulling it off the shelves, "they said they weren't doing anything wrong. They had a right to use that name and they were not insensitive to the Navajo Nation." (Donovan/Michel Martin) Not only had they offended members of the Navajo Indians, they had also broken the law. "The company’s actions violate the Federal Indian Arts and Crafts act of 1990 and the Federal Trade Commission Act. According to the Department of the Interior." (Sasha Houston Brown) The law prohibits companies from using Indian arts and crafts or saying products were made as tribal clothing or by Navajo Indians, and any prosecutors face a large fine. Urban Outfitters greatly surprised it's clientele and, "trivialized and sexualized" (Sasha Houston Brown) the Navajo Indians when they had no right to, which only further shows that Native Americans aren't treated with the respect they deserve. I believe that Urban Outfitters should have taken their racial clothing line out of stores immediately after the complaint was filed by Sasha. Urban Outfitters insulted the Native American community and they should have written an apology to the strongly worded blog post four years ago when it came out. This is not the first offense that the company has made against other races, and Navajo Indians just add to the long list. I frequently buy clothing from Urban Outfitters and had no idea that they had ever offended groups, so it was really eye-opening for me to see all the racist and segregational clothing they've made. I hope they don't offend any more ethnicities and/or races and if they do I will not continue to shop there. 

The racial and offensive clothing is pictured above and was claimed to be "Navajo" when it was really just cheap patterns and unauthentic Navajo clothing which insulted many people, including Sasha Houston Brown.