No, worries. For the rest of your days.

Not content with owning Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar and the State of Florida, the Disney company is currently fighting the Swahili language over, get this, Hakuna Matata.

"Lower your shields and surrender your ships. Your trademarks and
intellectual properties will be added to our own. Resistance is futile."

-Disney spokesdrone Four of Six

It's a beloved film that teaches kids not to
question hereditary authority and to accept
that their leaders will one day eat them.

A petition on Change.org calls on Disney to abandon its trademark on hakuna matata, which it secured in 2003. It's a Swahili phrase meaning something like 'no worries, for the rest of your days.' You see, it's a problem-free philosophy, hakuna mata-goddamnit Disney! Yeah, in America we all know hakuna matata from that song in The Lion King and if you're anything like me you're hearing Nathan Lane in your head right now, which is exactly Shelton Mpala's beef. Wai-wai-wait. "Whose beef" you might reasonably ask?

Pictured: Europeans using their guns
and whiteness as a legal basis for
claiming the entire continent of Africa.

Shelton Mpala, that's whose. Mpala and fifty-five thousand petition signers, have taken issue with the fact that Disney trademarked a phrase that they not only didn't invent, but one that's common among the people of Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Mozambique, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Which, if you're a geography wiz like me, you might notice are all in Africa, a continent famous both for being the cradle of humanity and also the victim of centuries of colonialism. That is, white people moving in and appropriating things like resources and culture. 

Droid droid droid droid droid.
Come at me Lucas, come at me.

You might remember that George Lucas once trademarked the term 'droid,' despite it having been coined by a sci-fi writer called Mari Wolf in 1952. And now, every time someone says the word droid, Lucas gets a cut of that sweet droid pie. Bullshit, right? Yes. But hakuna matata is a cultural concept and not a made up contraction. Or a phone I guess. The point is that cultural appropriation by a company that already seems to own everything, I mean everything, isn't a good look. Look, I'm not an intellectual property lawyer (surprised?), but it seems like maybe we need to rethink this whole idea that someone can own a phrase.

Could you imagine if someone trademarked some common phrase like 'how's it going?' or 'no problem,' or 'hey, isn't 'The Lion King just a rip-off of Kimba the White Lion?' I mean, is that the kind of world we want to live in?

I mean Disney probably should have just called
their movie Schmimba the Schwhite Schmlion.