In 2004, Chip Wilson, the Canadian-American billionaire founder of Lululemon, explained in an interview to National Post Business Magazine:

“The reason the Japanese liked [my former skateboard brand, ‘Homeless’] was because it had an L in it and a Japanese marketing firm wouldn’t come up with a brand name with an L in it. L is not in their vocabulary. It’s a tough pronunciation for them. So I thought, next time I have a company, I’ll make a name with three Ls and see if I can get three times the money. It’s kind of exotic for them. I was playing with Ls and I came up with Lululemon. It’s funny to watch them try to say it.”

Even though Wilson stepped down from the board of directors in 2015 and has since sold much of his stock, Lululemon still bears the anti-Asian slur Wilson created.

Whenever I hear Lululemon, I’m reminded of the anti-Asian racism I’ve experienced. I’m brought back to my first day in the first grade, when my classmates pulled up the corner of their eyes to make slits, and called me chink and ching chong wong. The boys who taunted me with those slurs did it for the same reason Wilson named his brand anti-Asian slur- because they thought it was funny. My grade school classmates, and later, the young men who scrawled “Chink Sucks Fuck You” and defecated on my college dorm room door,  learned it was okay to treat Asian Americans that way from people like Chip Wilson. 

My wife and I are raising a bi-racial daughter. We want to raise her in a world where racist brand names are a relic of the past. We can’t do that as long as Lululemon refuses to change their name and even acknowledge its origin.

Running industrial complex brands like Lululemon won’t do the right thing simply because it’s the right thing- especially if it means acknowledging past and current transgressions. So I’m calling for a boycott of Lululemon.  As gross as it seems to me, perhaps Lululemon will change their anti-Asian name if they start losing money because of their continued embrace of this racist relic that they should have already abandoned.

This is the last thing I want to do. I have a full-time job at a NYC-based non-profit that provides legal and social work services to indigent parents in family court. I have a weekend job. I’m raising a 10-month old baby. I’m tired. I don’t have time to do this, to be up at midnight recording a video that most people might ignore. Honestly- I think I’m going to fail at convincing enough people to care about this, to sign the petition, and to boycott Lululemon. (This isn't first time Asian Americans have petitioned Lululemon.) But I still have to try because if I don’t do everything that I can to educate people and right this wrong, I’m going to have a very hard time looking my daughter in the eye when I’m teaching her to do the right thing, even when it’s going to cost you.

Please, boycott Lululemon, sign the petition demanding they change their name, and spread the word. Post this on your social media walls (not just stories) using the hashtag #LululemonIsAntiAsian, and talk to people about this.

Thank you.