Minnetonka Moccasin apologizes to Native
Americans for not acknowledging its reliance
on them
Star Tribune [Minneapolis, MN],
by
Gita Sitaramiah
Original Article
Posted By: Ribicon,
10/11/2021 3:06:18 PM
Minnetonka Moccasin Co., the Minneapolis company that over 75 years popularized Native American-styled footwear across the country, issued a formal apology Monday for adopting Native American culture without acknowledgment. The company, which dropped "moccasin" from its logo in 2008, has now removed the word from much of its corporate messaging and is calling itself simply Minnetonka.
"Minnetonka deeply and meaningfully apologizes for having benefited from selling Native-inspired designs without directly honoring Native culture or communities," the company said in a statement.
The company said it would work more closely with Native American artists and businesses and continue to contribute to Native American causes. "While our history with appropriation
Reply 1 - Posted by:
SilkCity 10/11/2021 3:11:54 PM (No. 942165)
Article chock full of woke goodies, with the George Floyd mention icing on the cake.
8 people like this.
Not good enough. Minnetonka is also an Indian word, so this is completely unacceptable. You must change your name name to something inoffensive such as 'Flaccid' or 'Jellyfish'.
13 people like this.
Reply 3 - Posted by:
downnout 10/11/2021 3:19:13 PM (No. 942174)
As a little girl I loved my moccasins with beads on them. No one had to explain to me that they were inspired by Indians (am I still allowed to say Indians). These snowflakes need something serious to worry about. Clearly, they don’t have enough to do.
22 people like this.
Reply 4 - Posted by:
formerNYer 10/11/2021 3:19:52 PM (No. 942175)
Boo-Freaken-Hoo!!! The death or journalism is almost complete!
7 people like this.
Reply 5 - Posted by:
Lawsy0 10/11/2021 3:27:58 PM (No. 942186)
NO, no, no. This won't do at all! First you've got to open your own chest cavity on TV with a live audience. Then grab your still beating heart. Pull it out, slam it to the floor, then stomp that sucker flat. Then I'll accept your culture theft! Start over.
12 people like this.
Reply 6 - Posted by:
skacmar 10/11/2021 3:29:03 PM (No. 942188)
Please stop the whiny apologies already. The Minnetonka Indians are honored by having moccasins named after them and copying designs. While they may be white man's knock offs, I bet the Minnetonka moccasins would have died off a long time ago if not for this company. Maybe in the name of "cultural appropriation", anyone who is not culturally appropriate should not be allowed to carry on any cultural tradition they are not associated with and that culture be allowed to die. Would the Minnetonka's be happy then. Would any other cultural group be happy because they were too selfish to let others enjoy what they had to offer?
6 people like this.
Reply 7 - Posted by:
bad-hair 10/11/2021 3:29:52 PM (No. 942190)
They gave some thought to the name change. Somehow Somali Moccasin just didn't cut it.
10 people like this.
Reply 8 - Posted by:
BarryNo 10/11/2021 3:33:04 PM (No. 942195)
I assume that style of shoe is called a 'moccasin'.
This is cancel culture on Native Americans.
Should we demand they find native American alternatives to our european derived, "automobile", "computers" and "smart phones" after all, cultural appropriation is a "bad" thing, isnt it?
Let's go Brandon!!
11 people like this.
Reply 9 - Posted by:
Toby Ten Bears 10/11/2021 3:43:11 PM (No. 942207)
You should have fought a little harder to save your lands... Selling Manhattan for 40 bucks probably was a bad idea,
7 people like this.
Reply 10 - Posted by:
stablemoney 10/11/2021 3:43:42 PM (No. 942208)
I think we have overthanked and overpaid native Americans already. It is time for them to do their own lifting.
10 people like this.
Reply 11 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2021 3:44:50 PM (No. 942209)
What #1 said.
4 people like this.
Reply 12 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2021 3:47:24 PM (No. 942213)
(Meanwhile, we are watching the Brewers vs. Braves and Atlanta fans still persist in doing that Indian chant. No one has been able to stop them…)
6 people like this.
Reply 13 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2021 3:48:13 PM (No. 942215)
I still persist in calling them Indians. The other kind are East Indians. So sue me.
5 people like this.
Reply 14 - Posted by:
TLCary 10/11/2021 3:50:09 PM (No. 942217)
Native American cultural appropriation? Look Up The Kets - Siberia. Take a good look at their tee-pees, their clothing, listen to their language... and then take a look at their footwear. They need to acknowledge where they borrowed their culture, and then give their name back to the people of the Asian sub-continent, the REAL Indians.
6 people like this.
Reply 15 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2021 3:56:12 PM (No. 942223)
Factoid about our American Indians aka Amerindians:
According to an autosomal genetic study from 2012, Native Americans descend from at least three main migrant waves from East Asia. Most of it is traced back to a single ancestral population, called 'First Americans’.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_history_of_Indigenous_peoples_of_the_Americas
Moccasins, schmoccasins. Let’s talk history, gang. Siberia was the source...
6 people like this.
Reply 16 - Posted by:
volksford 10/11/2021 4:01:18 PM (No. 942233)
I think the whole state of MINN is nuts. You might want to change your slogan to Minnesota Neurotic
9 people like this.
Reply 17 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2021 4:04:28 PM (No. 942236)
To dig a little deeper, America is named for Amerigo Vespucci (even I remember that from grade school), an Italian explorer:
America is named after Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer who set forth the then revolutionary concept that the lands that Christopher Columbus sailed to in 1492 were part of a separate continent. A map created in 1507 by Martin Waldseemüller was the first to depict this new continent with the name "America," a Latinized version of "Amerigo.”
https://www.loc.gov/wiseguide/aug03/america.html
Try as I may, I cannot come up with any reason to honor the Amerindians, they are not “indigenous people”, and they’d be extinct if the Europeans hadn’t found this amazing place, settled it (while trying to avoid being murdered by said Amerindians, savages, and set these losers up with sovereignty (wth does that mean?) and welfare and wealth from casinos) Why didn’t they set up their own moccasin business decades ago? We know the answer. The Amerindians I knew decades ago were workers at the Marine base, rode the bus to work with me every day, never seemed to bathe, and regularly got themselves dead drunk on Barstow’s main street on Saturday night, and had to be scraped up by the local police.
Nothing impressive.
4 people like this.
Reply 18 - Posted by:
bad-hair 10/11/2021 4:06:47 PM (No. 942240)
DITTO 13
Indians ... dot or feather
3 people like this.
Reply 19 - Posted by:
Muguy 10/11/2021 4:15:27 PM (No. 942247)
I have been a fan of their moccasins for decades since I was a kid, even though they are now made in the Carribean.
Go woke, go broke???
2 people like this.
Reply 20 - Posted by:
Hermit_Crab 10/11/2021 4:18:59 PM (No. 942253)
Well, OK,...
But I don't want to see any of the local Tribal Members wearing regular shoes or boots, because that would be cultural appropriation too.
3 people like this.
Reply 21 - Posted by:
red1066 10/11/2021 4:52:53 PM (No. 942286)
How many Native Americans have even heard of this company? How many know the company apologized and for what? How many care, and even more important, how many don't give a dump because they have more important things to do in their lives?
2 people like this.
Reply 22 - Posted by:
Daisymay 10/11/2021 5:00:40 PM (No. 942298)
Oh Good Grief. I used to get a new Pair of Moccasins every summer when we went to the Wisconsin Dells. I loved them and wore them everywhere! I truly believed they were made by Indians. Why did the Native Americans wait so long if they were upset? I mean, I wore the Moccasins 70 years ago! They had a long time to demand a piece of the Pie from Minnetonka!
3 people like this.
Reply 23 - Posted by:
WhamDBambam 10/11/2021 5:12:02 PM (No. 942307)
I sure hope these people aren’t in charge of anything important.
2 people like this.
Reply 24 - Posted by:
Illinois Mom 10/11/2021 5:13:32 PM (No. 942310)
A trip to the Minnetoka store in Hayward WI. Is still an annual trip. My sister's and I, my girls and my grand-girls still get a new pair every year. I love the driving Moc's. As a kid I would have given my right arm to be an Ojibwa/Chippewa Indian.
Maybe it's time for all the Black girls to put down the wigs and extension's, the straightener, and the Clairol and stop appropriating "Caucasian culture?" I come by my red wavy lock's naturally. It would be great to see Michelle and Oprah leading the way groveling, apologizing while going au natural?
0 people like this.
Reply 25 - Posted by:
Venturer 10/11/2021 5:54:59 PM (No. 942353)
gee, I never knew that Moccasins were a part of Indian Culture.
I guess no one else did either as they are apologizing for not mentioning it.
1 person likes this.
Reply 26 - Posted by:
volksford 10/11/2021 6:16:58 PM (No. 942384)
Holy Crap ! Down here in the south we will have to rename Water Moccasins ....how about indigenous vipers ?
1 person likes this.
Reply 27 - Posted by:
ramona 10/11/2021 6:30:46 PM (No. 942402)
I went to the MN state fair in early Sept. Best T-shirt I saw read "Keeping Minnesota Passive-
Agressive."
Ramona (The Pest)
1 person likes this.
Reply 28 - Posted by:
MickTurn 10/11/2021 6:36:33 PM (No. 942407)
Really? Leather coverings for feet likely go back long before 'Indians' occupied the Americas...
Think about it...you need something to cover your feet to walk on sharp rocks and various sticker burrs.
What would you use? It likely started with woven grass but that wouldn't last long...they were skinning the animals they killed for food and someone, likely a lot of someone's got the Leather idea from dried hides...Viola, SHOES!
We seem to forget (likely due to arrogance) that people of many thousands of years ago were as smart as we are today...
How much would YOU know if it weren't for books and other ways of passing on knowledge?
Most people today couldn't survive in the wild, as soon as their phone battery went dead they might as well commit suicide!
2 people like this.
Reply 29 - Posted by:
pearlyjo 10/11/2021 7:55:38 PM (No. 942463)
The American Indian invented leather shoes with decorations on them? Who knew?
2 people like this.
Reply 30 - Posted by:
NorthernDog 10/11/2021 8:20:54 PM (No. 942488)
The state is drenched in Indian names - towns, counties, lakes, rivers, etc... Maybe they should be forced to change them all if they want to got 'all in' on political correctness.
1 person likes this.
Reply 31 - Posted by:
Heil Liberals 10/11/2021 11:29:10 PM (No. 942633)
Bwahahahahahaha!
Damn! It’s hard to have ever drawn a breath or uttered a syllable.
0 people like this.
Reply 32 - Posted by:
earlybird 10/11/2021 11:31:14 PM (No. 942635)
Has anybody told Gucci? Ugg?
0 people like this.
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They make-um heap big apology, but regrets not big enough to hand the company over to the red man.