Originally Posted by
sfozrhfco
The better question would be whether appropriating the image to make money is actually benefiting the people it is depicting. Are any Native American people reflected in AS's leadership team or board and are their economic benefits going to the group of people represented on the tail? If yes, then there is not much of an issue. If no, then AS has a bigger issue as they are only using the image as a token to benefit AS's bottom line.
There is not a great history in the US of Native Americans benefiting from much anything the government and corporations have done to them over the centuries.
This is absolutely it - to me it's less about the image itself (certainly iconic, very much representative of their namesake, and obviously seems to be supported by their customers for the most part), and more about AS' overall support for the native communities from which it is leveraging for their own gain (and that of shareholders). Unless the community that is represented by this image has problems with it, there's probably not a good reason they need to rebrand the entire fleet and redesign their logos/branding, etc. They may want to take a close look at the community investments they've made since they adopted this logo and commit to doing even more, though.