JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A Jacksonville man filed a trademark Class 28 for the name “Alligator Alcatraz.”
A Class 28 trademark means, if approved, Eric Battle would have the rights to that name for games, toys and novelty items.
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This comes after Battle said he felt helpless when he saw the controversial immigration detention center, dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz,” opened at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades earlier this month.
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State and federal officials have touted the detention center on social media and conservative airwaves, sharing a meme of a compound ringed with barbed wire and “guarded” by alligators wearing hats labeled “ICE” for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Republican Party of Florida has taken to fundraising off the detention center, selling branded T-shirts and beer koozies emblazoned with the facility’s name.
Battle said his trademark filing is a way to fight against “hate merch” by trademarking the name and not allowing companies to use the name to make merchandise for “hateful” things.
“We want to make toys. That’s what we’re going to start with. Toys that inform children and adults about the destruction of the Everglades,” Battle said. “We want to tell a story through the toys for children eventually, like to have stories that the Miccosukee tribe could tell through these toys to children. These proceeds would go back to the Miccosukee for land, buying all sorts of stuff like that.”
He said his effort is equivalent to “good trouble.”
“We’re not going to allow you to use toys to mock human beings. I don’t care if you believe that they shouldn’t be here. They’re here illegally. I don’t care what your politics is. We should not be using imagery to mock this stuff,” Battle said.
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Battle said he hopes more activists try to buy trademarks for names that could be harmful and turn it into something positive.
He is asking for donations through GoFundMe to help “scale the movement.”
News4JAX reached out to the governor’s office for comment on this story. At the time of this publication, we hadn’t heard back.
