Trayvon Trademark? An ATL Debate

A Trayvon trademark? Your Above the Law editors debate.

ELIE MYSTAL

Danzig says: “And, even if unintentionally, Fulton’s filing automatically raises questions about her motivation, regardless of whether she’s actually trying to profit from the trademarks.” For my part, I’m getting really freaking sick of people “automatically” being suspicious about this family whenever they avail themselves of rights enjoyed by everybody else in society.

Black people get to put trademarks on their stuff, too. Intellectual property law is there for people who don’t want to be exploited. It’s okay for musicians to have intellectual property rights in their songs, or artists to have intellectual property rights in their paintings, but it’s not okay for a mother to seek intellectual property protection for her dead son whose name, image, and likeness is becoming a pop-culture rallying cry? How many times is someone going to stand up and tell this woman that she should just shut up and take what society is doing in the aftermath of her son’s death?

Danzig’s implication is not subtle. He says: “But more importantly, by trying to preserve his memory with the trademark, Trayvon’s mother is actually tarnishing it by implicitly tying it to finances.” With that he joins a long line of white people, mainly white liberals, who hate it when their minority rights cause célèbre is made less “pure” by a financial concern.

And while we’re here, I don’t really care if trademarking Trayvon allows people like Rush Limbaugh to say whatever racist crap he’s going to say. In case you haven’t noticed, people like that don’t need a reason to start trashing black people.

Oh, but Danzig has ordained an “acceptable” way for the Trayvon’s mom to make money. He says she should file a civil suit.

Right… because if people are just concerned about money, we want them gumming up the court system with civil lawsuits instead of filing a simple trademark application.

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Oh, but, sorry, she might not even be able to fulfill Danzig’s rules of how grieving black mothers are allowed to make money. As I’ve linked to previously, depending on how the investigation proceeds, Trayvon’s mom might not even be allowed to file a wrongful death suit in Florida.

But really, this isn’t about money. This is about a black woman trying to use the law to keep some measure of control over how her son and his memory are used. Her choice there doesn’t need to pass muster with Chris Danzig. The Patent and Trademark Office doesn’t tarnish anything.

Trayvon Martin’s mom looks to trademark slogans [Central Florida news 13]
P**** A** CRACKER: Shocking Trayvon t-shirt bearing rapper’s crude lyrics go on sale [The Daily Mail]

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