WHAT WERE THEY THINKING

Posted on 02/02/2016

Last week Alaska Airlines unveiled what it describes on its website as “the most substantial updates to its brand in a quarter century.” Part of the upgrades included a new paint job on its fleet, a refreshed website and mobile app and new signage at the airport. The signage included the image of a hooded Inupiaq and a slogan, “Meet our Eskimo.” The response from a group of Inupiaq was immediate, “We’re nobody’s Eskimo.”

Three days after the launch the airline issued an apology to its clients and rewrote the slogan to read, “Meet The Eskimo.” “We sincerely apologise and have updated our website,” the airline wrote on its Facebook page. “Thanks to everyone who voiced their concern on this issue.” Alaska Airlines said all its signage would be replaced to reflect the correction. Canada’s northern people eliminated the use of the word Eskimo in the seventies when they began negotiating their land claim. In November Natan Obed, president of Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (which represents 60,000 Inuit) requested that the Canadian Football League change the name of the Edmonton Eskimos. “It isn’t right for any team to be named after an ethnic group,” he stated. The US Inuit continue to use the word Eskimo. But said Obed, “If anyone was to call me an Eskimo, I would be offended by that.” Eskimo is a Cree word that means “eaters of raw meat.”