this isn’t the first time I’ve heard this and I would like to address it.
There is a fine line between appreciation and appropriation, and I think the difference is that one is as respectful and understanding as possible of the culture the material is being taken from, and one is not.
For example, if the brand was called Vishnu, used imagery of the Hindu deity in question and the logo was a cow (sacred symbol) that would be flagrantly disrespectful of the culture being borrowed from.
I never have, and won’t, represent the brand that way. I appreciate what the god Vishnu represents in the Hindu religion (from the research I have done) and still think it represents the brand’s vision seven years later. There is something inherently powerful about religious words and imagery, regardless of which religion I choose to take from. And I take from multiple, regularly.
Believe it or not, I have spoken to a fair amount of Hindu people about their thoughts on the matter in my time as an Uber driver in Salt Lake and all of them have expressed similar opinions: as long as the imagery/material used doesn’t promote something forbidden in the culture, none of the people I talked to (anecdotal data) thought the name of the brand was inappropriate or disrespectful. A couple of them mentioned a beer brand called Brahma (general term for god) that they aren’t down with because alcohol is strictly forbidden in most (all?) Hindu cultures.
I realize my last paragraph is the near equivalent to someone who is accused of being racist saying “I have black friends” but in this case I think the point stands. I have talked to real life Hindu people about appropriation concerns and thus far none have seemed bothered by it. To the contrary, most of them thought it was cool that a random white bro in Utah knew about their culture.
When you add the fact that Vishnu is a common first name in India, along the same lines as Jesús or Maria José in Latin countries, I think I can dodge cancellation this time.
I’ll save my thoughts on Child Labor for another post if needed but suffice to say, people have no problem wearing Nikes made by modern indentured slaves in Vietnam or using their iPhone manufactured at Foxconn where people jump out of the windows mid shift. I think the name Child Labor reminds people of the world we really live in and that’s a good thing overall, despite the admitted edginess.
