This happened yesterday
So after watching the Cleveland Indians and their fans for two consecutive rounds of the MLB playoffs, I have come to the conclusion, that, yeah, the whole thing is kind of racist. Well, I shouldn't say that I "came to the conclusion": I've thought that for a while, it's just that the Indians (and their fans) have been out of sight, out of mind for a long time prior to this year, and while I was fretting over the Mets' season-ending self-immolation jag, I really didn't have a lot of time to think about what a horrendously racist caricature the Chief Wahoo logo is, or how mind-blowingly inappropriate it is for middle-aged white guys to paint their faces red, put on headdresses, and engage in mocking facsimiles of stereotyped Native American rituals culled from equally racist 1950's western serials.
Lately, in college athletics, there has been a renewed push to eradicate mascots offensive to Native Americans; the NCAA has even threatened to ban schools with such nicknames and logos from postseason competition. In some instances, such as the University of Illinois' decision to drop Chief Illinewek, a clear-cut good has been accomplished. In other cases, such as Florida State University's successful bid to retain its 'Seminoles' nickname, the issue is a bit more complicated: the Seminole Tribe of Florida has officially endorsed the University's use of the nickname; however student rituals such as the "tomahawk chop" and stereotypical chanting (also employed by fans of the Atlanta Braves baseball team) are definitely of questionable taste. The overall trend, however - one that has been duplicated at the secondary and primary school levels throughout America - is that more and more Native American mascots have been consigned to the dustbin of history, so that our ancestors can look at them in textbooks generations hence and wonder what the fuck we were thinking.
Lately, in college athletics, there has been a renewed push to eradicate mascots offensive to Native Americans; the NCAA has even threatened to ban schools with such nicknames and logos from postseason competition. In some instances, such as the University of Illinois' decision to drop Chief Illinewek, a clear-cut good has been accomplished. In other cases, such as Florida State University's successful bid to retain its 'Seminoles' nickname, the issue is a bit more complicated: the Seminole Tribe of Florida has officially endorsed the University's use of the nickname; however student rituals such as the "tomahawk chop" and stereotypical chanting (also employed by fans of the Atlanta Braves baseball team) are definitely of questionable taste. The overall trend, however - one that has been duplicated at the secondary and primary school levels throughout America - is that more and more Native American mascots have been consigned to the dustbin of history, so that our ancestors can look at them in textbooks generations hence and wonder what the fuck we were thinking.
In professional sports, there has been no comparable campaign to eliminate offensive Native American team names - the Cleveland Indians, Atlanta Braves, Chicago Blackhawks, and Washington Redskins all remain in circulation. In fairness, there have been minimal attempts to mop up the image around the edges a little bit - the Braves eliminated Chief Nokahoma (say it out loud) and the Indians have adopted this bizarro furry purple thing named Slider as their mascot, instead of, say, the guys in the photo at the top of this post. Indians' owner Larry Dolan has even made noises about dropping Wahoo occasionally, and the Indians have pointedly introduced an alternate cap replacing the offending image with a letter 'I' (though it has been entirely absent throughout these playoffs). However, all four of these franchises have long, storied histories, and as such have fanbases steeped in their traditions for generations - traditions with which the offensive nicknames and logos are inextricably bound up. Such brand loyalty is enormously difficult to overcome (imagine if someone floated the idea of changing the Yankees to the Devil Rays or something equally stupid), and doubtlessly a primary factor in ownership's continued unwillingness to make a change.
In a bizarre way, I kind of feel bad for Cleveland's fans - a) they probably grew up rooting for the team because their father did, and his father did, so on and so forth, b) they didn't pick the name or the logo, and c) I imagine that a lot of them are pretty embarrassed to have to sit next to the guys in the picture at the top of the post. I can afford to feel superior because I root for the Mets (wait, did I just say I could feel superior to fans of a team up three games to one in the ALCS because I root for the Mets?), and so far no people with giant baseballs for heads have come out of the woodwork screaming bloody murder; if I was born in Cleveland, who knows what I would think?
Yet, even tradition can serve as only so much of a fig leaf, and a pretty flimsy one at that. I'm not going to take you on a walk down memory lane, but we've also got quite the long and storied tradition in this country of pulling fucked-up racist shit, from slavery, to Native American genocide, to the Chinese Exclusion Act, to segregation and Jim Crow laws, so on and so forth; Chief Wahoo remains a direct and obvious link to that lineage of shame. I'm sorry that changing it would mean that Cleveland fans would have to go and buy new caps and jerseys (Larry Dolan I hear $$$); however I'm not sorry that it would put an end to Fox cameras panning to a couple of jerkoffs in redface mid-inning while Joe "I can't believe Randy Moss just faked-mooned some drunk Packers fans - THAT'S DISGUSTING!" Buck continues blathering on with Tim McCarver like "ain't nothin' wrong with that!"
