Colorado Mountain Bike Company Will No Longer Use ‘Tribe” Term In Its Marketing
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
A company in Golden, Colorado outside Denver that makes mountain bikes has stopped using the term “tribe” in its marketing strategies and will cease using the phrase, “Yeti Tribe Gatherings,’ for its annual mountain bike sessions and instead call them, “Yeti Gatherings.”
In an email to media Tuesday, Yeti Cycles said, “Recently, we’ve learned our use of the term ‘Tribe’ can be offensive to indigenous people, due to the violent history they have endured in the United States. The word ‘Tribe’ is a colonial construct that was used to marginalize Native Americans and its continued use by non-indigenous people fails to accurately recognize their history and unique status as Tribal Nations. After discussion with members of the indigenous community, studying accurate representations of our shared history, and reflecting on our values as a company, Yeti Cycles has decided we will no longer use the term ‘Tribe’ in our marketing.”
The mountain bike company’s statement comes a day after the NFL Washington Redskins said it will no use the Redskins name and logo for their team.
And, a bicycle maker in Chattanooga, Tennessee said in June that it will no longer use the “Ocoee” name for a mountain bike model after American Bicycle Group was advised that Ocoee was the city in Florida where a black man was lynched and a black community in Ocoee, Florida was burned in 1920.
Yeti, which has made mountain bikes for 35 years, supplied LVSportsBiz.com with its complete statement:
It’s curious to see how long the Cleveland Indians name will last, especially because many baseball fans refer to the MLB team as the “Tribe.”
The country is coming to terms with its sports team names, references and logos with racial equality issues coming into sharp focus.
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