Fedora and the Cherokee logo

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Offensive imagery is, at least partly, in the eye of the beholder. But there are classes of imagery that have come under increasing fire over the years for depicting groups of people (races, genders, religions, etc.) using stereotypes, which is often seen as demeaning and insulting to those groups. A long-simmering Fedora bug regarding images used by the Cherokee web server package flared up recently—and was escalated to the Fedora Engineering Steering Committee (FESCo) for a verdict.

At first blush, the image in question (a running, smiling "Cherokee" boy) seems fairly tame and not particularly offensive. To some, clearly it isn't offensive. But the US (in particular) has seen a dramatic shift in acceptable depictions of American Indians (or Native Americans, depending on who you ask). The stereotypical look and actions of Indians from the "Westerns" movie genre are typically frowned upon. Caricatures based on those stereotypes can be offensive as well. There has also been substantial controversy over the use of Indians and related imagery for sports teams. It is a touchy subject in many quarters, but one that is difficult for some people to grasp.

Back in 2011, Richard Fontana filed a bug contending that the Cherokee imagery violated the Fedora packaging guidelines. Specifically, the "Code Vs Content" section says: "Content should not be offensive, discriminatory, or derogatory. If you're not sure if a piece of content is one of these things, it probably is." He asked that the content be replaced in the Fedora package with content that did meet the guidelines.

Lead Cherokee developer Alvaro Lopez Ortega replied, noting that the project had discussed the issue on its mailing list:

[Not] a single person who participated on the thread understood how a little, happy, smiling kid could be offensive *in any way*. I'm talking about people from all over the world, including North America, South America, Europe and Asia. [...] Do not take me wrong though. I'd be all for removing an offensive logo. If the logo were demeaning or tried to make fun of a collective it should be [removed]. However, quite honestly, Cherokee's logo is not the case. It is a completely respectful logo of a happy kid without any remote sign of negativeness at all.

But Fontana (along with Zachary Krebs, who started the mailing list thread and was involved in the bug report as well) is not convinced that a "happy smiling kid" is as benign as Lopez has described:

The fact that the Cherokee logo is a depiction of "a perfectly happy kid" is actually pertinent here. There is some historical tendency in US culture, if not elsewhere, to use infantilized (and, indeed, in many cases happy) depictions of subjugated minority groups. I believe that calls for special scrutiny of the acceptability of the logo. The Cherokee project developer community seems quite international in scope and I have no doubt that the choice of this logo was not intended or understood to offend. Nevertheless, the Fedora standard (as I read it) does not rest on the intent of the upstream project.

Another Indian-named web server project, Hiawatha, has a somewhat similar logo (seen on the About page) that is likely even more offensive, according to Krebs and others. That project was mentioned in both threads, but it is not packaged for Fedora. But, in an effort to try to defuse the problem, Máirín Duffy offered to create new logos for both projects.

There was more back and forth, where Fontana, Krebs, and Duffy tried to help Lopez understand the problem, while he and Fedora Cherokee package maintainer Pavel Lisý were, seemingly, unable to see any problem. Lopez declared that the logo would not be changing, though he did add some text (it has apparently since disappeared) to the Cherokee web site pointing out "that we don't intend to be disrespectful *by any [means]*".

That's where things stood until the end of 2013, when Fontana noted the lack of action on the bug and asked Lisý about his plan for addressing it. There was no immediate response to the query, but it did rekindle the discussion about the logo. Current Cherokee maintainer Stefan de Konink joined in and expressed concern that the existing logo was being censored by Fedora.

But censorship is not the issue. No one is calling for laws to restrict the distribution of the logo or to have it removed from the project (though several have suggested that it would be a good idea for the project to do so). As Fontana put it in reply to De Konink:

I respect your artistic and free speech right to distribute a logo I find offensive, but you have no particular right to have the Fedora project or its sponsors distribute the logo. Fedora isn't a state or a public utility.

Once again, the conversation went back and forth over the existing points, without any minds being changed. Hiawatha author Hugo Leisink added a comment that, unsurprisingly, agreed with the Cherokee folks. Meanwhile Lisý responded, but had little interest in addressing Fontana's complaint as he disagreed with its basis.

Soon thereafter, Fontana filed another bug, this time in his capacity as a member of the Red Hat legal team (his earlier efforts were simply as a member of the Fedora community). The bug also requested the removal of specific images from the Cherokee package. It led to a rather bizarre thread where De Konink asked for personnel action against Fontana. That supposed "threat" led Fontana to request removal of the entire Cherokee package from Fedora. Things were clearly spinning out of control.

Emotions on both sides were running high, but the question remained: is the logo in violation of Fedora packaging guidelines or not? That's the kind of decision that FESCo makes, and the committee took it up at its February 12 meeting. The FESCo ticket contains many of the same arguments that had been made three years earlier (and then rehashed earlier this year), but Lisý (pali) is participating more than he did in other forums.

In the end, the FESCo vote wasn't even close, with all eight members voting to ask Lisý to remove or replace the offensive images within two weeks. If that doesn't happen, the Cherokee package will be forcibly retired from Fedora. As of this writing, the logos have yet to be changed.

It is clear that there is a disconnect between the Cherokee/Hiawatha developers (and maintainers) and some in the Fedora project (including, unanimously, FESCo). It is tempting to attribute that largely to a cultural divide (as several in the thread did)—that European and US attitudes toward the depictions of Indians differ. That may be too simplistic in this case, however. There also seem to be some heels that were dug in quite early, and no amount of discourse (or information, for example, about what some people of Cherokee descent think) was going to change those minds. Given that there is an offer on the table to design new logos (at least if the Cherokee developers stop "harassing" Fontana), it would seem prudent for the projects to at least explore that option.

There is also, undoubtedly, a feeling of "political correctness run amok" about this incident. It is not a fair assessment, but these types of conflicts tend to bring out that feeling in some. People get attached to things like logos, and "attacks" on them feel personal, particularly when the offense given is not obvious (and it isn't, at least in the Cherokee case). We may well see this play out again someday; there aren't easy answers about where the lines are, which will make it all that much more difficult.