sentiment

by Steven Symes from https://www.msn.com/ Should they bow to the pressure? Whether you love or hate Indian Motorcycle, it’s likely you have an opinion about the brand’s name and logo. Actually, a lot of people who’ve never ridden a motorcycle in their life have hot takes on what should be done with Indian Motorcycle. It’s a topic which was dealt with back in the 90s before anyone had even heard of cancel culture, but that’s how long these types of sentiments have existed in society. For now this issue has sat on the backburner, relegated to smaller media outlets and not the big corporate broadcasters and newspapers. That could change in a flash as we’ve seen a thing not previously in the spotlight suddenly become public enemy number one. Some argue Indian Motorcycle is profiting off the name and imagery of indigenous people, which they say is exactly like when different tribes were forcibly kicked off their land by white settlers. That’s a huge logical leap, but it’s the argument being levied with a lot of emotion mixed in so you don’t pay too much attention to the lack of logic or the fact some Native Americans don’t agree with the sentiment. As mentioned before, there’s some turbulent history with the Indian Motorcycle brand, most notably a lawsuit in the 1990s after a deal to have a Native American tribe make the bikes fell apart. It’s a complicated legal case, but there was understandably a lot of bad blood from that deal gone sour. More recently, a few voices in the motorcycle world have decided the time is now for Indian to change its name and logo. I’ll let them explain in their own words. Canada MotoGuide ran an op-ed in March of this year where the author states, “As […]