Local Chief Wahoo supporters of a non-alt-right stripe might be uncomfortable to learn that the racist caricature they hold so dear, the image that they say is inextricable from Cleveland’s civic identity and soul, has been co-opted by the likes of InfoWars. That’s the Alex Jones website and radio outfit known principally for conspiratorial hate-mongering and repeated claims that the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax.
‘Kent State Gun Girl’ Kaitlin Bennett is a correspondent for the show, to give you an idea of its seriousness. Wednesday, armed with InfoWars mic and what she called “facts,” Bennett prowled the perimeter of Progressive Field to interview Cleveland Indians fans about Chief Wahoo on the occasion of its official retirement.
As local fans know, reports of Chief Wahoo’s death have been greatly exaggerated. MLB commissioner Rob Manfred made Cleveland’s 2019 All-Star Game bid contingent on the logo’s removal from team caps and jerseys. But Wahoo gear is still sold in the team shop and it smiles from team Tweets, Fox Sports Ohio commercials and private signage across town. Among other things, a “Keep the Chief” campaign has been merchandised by a local t-shirt company, (whose apparel is “not meant to offend anyone.”) The logo is everywhere, year round, and many fans revel in what they like to interpret as its defiant display. This defiance is sometimes expressly linked to the anti-political correctness of Donald Trump.
Bennett’s “facts” pointed in this direction, too. To her, this year’s Wahoo development signified the conquest of lefty millennials over “white, God-fearing Caucasians.”
The above interviews contain little of value. But they do expose, quite by accident, the partisan vapidity and racism of Chief Wahoo support. Those interested in examining their support honestly are likely to discover that the very same logic they use to defend the logo — or at least some of the logic evidenced above, which is typical — is identical to the logic used by defenders of the Confederate Flag. For Wahoo supporters, just like Confederate Flag supporters, it’s about “heritage, not hate.”
“We’re at Progressive Field,” Bennett says, setting the stage, “where ironically, progressives have chased Chief Wahoo out of the stadium, out of the Cleveland Indians baseball team.”
She proceeds to accost anyone she can find. Unlike Monday’s sold-out home opener, the Wednesday afternoon crowd is sparse, and a few folks have no interest in speaking to her on the subject. But the interviews she does conduct illustrate various ways in which Wahoo can be, and has been, weaponized.
Asking unprepared Northeast Ohioans to expound upon themes like “tradition” and “political correctness” in this context is an easy way to foment antipathy. Some folks express disagreement with the decision to remove the logo, but resignation at the prevailing sensitivities of the world. One guy is asked whether the taking down of Confederate statues is okay with him — taking down statues is also a gross infringement on “tradition” in Bennett’s view — and he says no, but recognizes that he “[doesn’t] exactly have the say-so” about whether they come down.
That’s a step in the right direction. But Bennett routinely goads her subjects, asking humdingers on the order of: “What’s going on in today’s society where millennials can go out and scream in the streets, and then a whole entire baseball team just changes tradition?”
When and if this segment is ever broadcast to InfoWars’ huge national audience — the site was attracting 10 million unique visitors per month in 2017 — Chief Wahoo will become (or continue to function as) a wedge issue, the sole purpose of which is to rile up a constituency known to be socially and politically rabid, one whose perceived victimization at the hands of women, minorities and young people is central to their worldview. (FWIW, this pernicious imperative to rile up is also one of the dominant legislative forces at the Ohio statehouse.)
It’s no surprise that Bennett and her ilk view Chief Wahoo’s demise as a thread in the grander fabric of an impending race war. And while it’s crucial to discuss issues like this with those who disagree with us, it’s dicey to do so with someone like Bennett — it’s honestly not even worth mocking her — because she’s so gleeful in her stupidity and so thirsty for meaningless confrontation.
In her one interview with a Native woman, she doesn’t even listen to the sincerely expressed ambivalence about the logo. For Bennett, it’s all about scoring cheap points. The woman, who identifies herself as Native, says, “I get that [Chief Wahoo] is honoring [Sockalexis]. I get it. The first Native baseball player. I get it. But there are ways of honoring people without offending people. My skin is not red. I am not red. I’m brown.” And Bennett responds to this generous explanation with scripted mindless glibness: “Well, I’m so sorry that your feelings are hurt.”
Yuck.
(That Chief Wahoo “honors Sockalexis,” incidentally, is a total myth propagated by the team.)
It’s difficult to discuss issues like Chief Wahoo with InfoWars zealots too, because they’re on such a lunatic fringe. But to reiterate: the Venn Diagram of Chief Wahoo supporters and unhinged Alex Jones zealots (or even garden variety Trump supporters!) is not even close to a circle. And it’s important to keep hashing out this issue and the implications of Chief Wahoo support for those skeptical of casting their lot with these unsavory characters.
This is not just beating a dead horse. Despite Manfred’s mandate and Wahoo’s official departure, the logo is still everywhere. The issue is not dead.
My hunch, then, is that there are a whole lot of Wahoo supporters out there who would deeply object to the Confederate Flag comparison here being explored. Clevelanders tend to have a blind spot for Wahoo because so many of us have personal attachments to the team and its imagery. We associate Wahoo with fond family memories as seen in our treasured photo albums; with our favorite local bars and restaurants, where Wahoo humongously presides; with gifts and heirlooms from parents and grandparents, many of whom might have passed away. These are all positive things. Beautiful things! They couldn’t possibly be associated with racism, which is a horrible thing. This is our local team! Our local tradition! (i.e. “heritage, not hate.”)
This is the standard Confederate Flag defense. It’s a conflation of systemic racism with individual racism. To deny the latter is not to dismantle the former. Bennett hammers this point home repeatedly by asking all of her subjects whether or not they, personally, have any hatred for Native Americans.
Of course not! they all reply. “Hell no!” one shouts, confident that she is now fully absolved. Some claim even to be especially sensitive to the plight of Natives.
“I use to live in an area that was highly populated by Native Americans,” one woman says, “and I treasure their history.”
Much in the way, no doubt, that some wavers of the Confederate Flag treasure the history of African-Americans, or have black friends.
It’s important to be clear about the distinctions. While the defenses of these two “traditions” are in some cases indistinguishable, there is one major difference between the traditions themselves: One of them (Chief Wahoo) is an explicitly racist image, while the other (the Confederate Flag) is a racist symbol. Someone unfamiliar with American history or current white supremacist symbology would not, by looking at the Confederate Flag, immediately recognize that the flag is racist. It stands for something racist.
Chief Wahoo, on the other hand, was meant to be a symbol of joy. It doesn’t stand for hate. It stands for a baseball team. But the image itself is strikingly racist, created during a time when “white supremacy was just pop-culture in the U.S.” and modified over the years. That local fans refuse to acknowledge this history is the height of self-absorption, though sadly consistent with American treatment of indigenous peoples.
Indeed, when local fans talk about “honoring history,” they’re talking about honoring the history and legacy of the team, not the atrocious American history that included the slaughter and forced relocation of millions of human beings. Part of what I mean when I say “partisan vapidity” is that beyond personal emotional attachment, there is no justification for Chief Wahoo support. None. But supporters have chosen their side — this is a fiercely partisan issue — and now cling to it with defenses that make one’s head spin.
“[Chief Wahoo] is the mascot of the Indians,” one fan tells Bennett, “and that’s why he should be here.”
These tautologies don’t mean anything, other than: I like the cartoon that’s on the products I’ve purchased over many years. And I don’t like feeling bad about owning them and wearing them.
Counterpoint: Chief Wahoo is racist, pure and simple. That doesn’t mean your dad is a racist, or that your grandma is burning in hell because she was wearing a Wahoo broach in the casket, or that you personally hate Native Americans.
What it does mean — this is not complicated — is that the image is a grotesque caricature of a race of people, a race that, because of their virtual extermination, now has almost zero political or economic power to defend themselves from their ongoing dehumanization. Local Native American organizations and their allies have nevertheless been protesting Chief Wahoo and the Cleveland Indians organization for more than 40 years on opening day, enduring verbal abuse from fans every year.
Meanwhile, local fans elevate their individual histories and associations with the team. Look at this comment from an article about Chief Wahoo in 2014, which is emblematic.
I’m so tired of these critics who are offended by just about everything that does not conform to what they think is acceptable. I grew up in Canton, Ohio loving that baseball team win or lose. My father played pro ball and passed away last year at his home in Massillon. History is tied to this team and those who lived and died with each season. Indians are warriors. They have fought for their very lives throughout American history. Perhaps then some may resent the adaption of their bravery as an insult, to them I apologize but ask no forgiveness. We mean no disrespect but honor for a franchise that has entertained us for decades. Changing a name when only a few object is foolish. Honoring history is much more important. (Emphasis added)
This is a wholly sincere, wholly barbaric, comment. And sentiments like this are still the norm in Northeast Ohio. They must be called out.
Imagine this exact same paragraph describing black people, about “adapting” the courage and fleet-footedness of escaping slaves, for example. “To them I apologize but ask no forgiveness.”
This is not adaptation, but appropriation, (an overused word that nevertheless describes, perhaps more accurately than any other single word, the Native American experience.) It is outrageous that this sort of rhetoric isn’t decried by all thinking people, in the same way that we would decry language defending the exploitation and appropriation of former slaves or descendants of Holocaust victims.
Conveniently unmentioned in this comment, by the way, is what and whom Indians were fighting as they fought for their lives. The answer, of course, is American settlers, who nearly wiped them from the continent as they ruthlessly colonized an ever-expanding frontier.
It’s precisely because so few object — because so few are left — that those who remain must be defended and supported at all costs. The appropriation of Native imagery and culture, to say nothing of the appropriation of Native lands, must be strenuously opposed until there is broader recognition of the damage wrought.
This heritage must not be honored. In the first place, it must be understood. And then it must be atoned for.
This article appears in Apr 3-9, 2019.
The logo has been dropped from the team this year. The Indians only continue to sell it in the team shop to retain the copyright. What other steps are there to take except for banning it from being shown or worn in public? Anyone who wears the old logo will be detained and charged? Now you’re approaching Nazi Germany levels of censorship.
My take is I understand why the team had to move on in today’s environment but I also see the logo as just a character. He doesn’t represent every Native American who has ever lived. It is simply a cartoon character. Soon the only logos and mascots depicting humans allowed will be white men. Take for example the Patriots, Vikings, Raiders, Sir CC of the Cavs, and countless others. All of whom have done their fair share of killing and crimes against humanity if you want to represent all of their people and history on a singular character.
Allard surely creamed his jeans at an opportunity to bash wahoo fans and Kaitlin Bennett at the same time. Not surprising. Very disappointing. This guy has got to go.
Great historical and local analysis by Sam. Chief Wahoo is entirely analogous with the confederate flag and it’s supporters, although probably even more historically ugly.
It’s sad to see the Sockalexis myth repeated even by the indigenous activists, i suppose the post-hoc apologia is still hammered into reality for too many people.
Also, a lot of people are talking about how kaitlyn bennet used to poop her pants at kent state all the time.
As was explained before, indigenous people is not an accurate description. The inhabitants of this continent were part of the Tartarian Emprire which included Russia and the Americas. Khazars (Jewish converts that make up nearly all modern Jews) took over the Tartarian Empire and destroyed it’s history.
Give it a rest already, Sam. Do you really expect most people to wade through the excess verbiage of this 2,000-word diaTRIBE that equates keeping the Chief with ewingnuts and fascism? Most readers are going to sigh and say, “Oh, Christ, not again…when the hell is he going to get off his goddam horse and give this tghing a rest already?”
YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED, MAN! They took the loog off the uni and it’s being downplayed. Now you want it made illegal and banned. Even the Confederate flag and the swastika, as abhorrent and repulsive and hateful as they are, have not been made against the law. Do you REALLY think Wahoo will disappear from the streets of Cleveland anytime soon? It will still be here when you’re as old as I am, and that’s a LONG time in the future.
Equating a baseball logo with right-wingers is really reaching and stretching, Sam. You are getting more shrill and more desperate for a cause. You’ve beaten the dead horse into dog food and glue, but you insist on keeping your cause going. To what end?
Heads-up, Sam: The Cubs are owned by the Ricketts family, who contribute millions to the Republicans and other right-wing causes. Next week will you equate the Cub logo with being a fascist? Is that next on your agenda? Cub fans take their team more than seriously…they live and die with the Cubs. I would not recommend you saying that to any Cub fan’s face. They might not laugh you off.
Wahoo has been around far longer than any of these wingnuts have, including that little Kent bitch who has used up her fifteen minutes a long time ago. If they want to co-opt it, let them. Most sane adults can easily see through their bullshit, and it isn’t going to work for them for very long. They will still be laughed out of town…or carried out if they get too rambunctious and feisty.
Bottom line: I have been a left-winger all my life, but the more these Millennial crybabies whine about Wahoo, the tighter I will cling to it. And i didn’t even grow up here! I came here as an adult! So what do you do about ME, Sam?
If Wahoo is actually banned from the ballpark, I may have to rethink my allegiance to the Tribe, or at least rethink attending games in person. As for wearing it on the streets, you will have to physically tear it from my body, if you think you can. If not, then you will have to make it a crime and have your law enforcement people put me in handcuffs and take me to jail.
And for every Wahoo wearer you see dragged away, a hundred more will rise up to take his place. Even hordes of screaming millennials can’t tear The Chief off people that fast.
The Chief is not going away any time soon. Deal with it. Get used to it. Get over it.
I was in South Dakota, and I explicitly asked some Native Americans that I was with about this issue. One said that they liked it, and they themselves on a baseball cap with Chief Wahoo. The other could care less, indicating the Native Americans have so much bigger problems than that. Personally, I’m of Greek descent, and when I see a Spartan, or a Trojan, or any other depiction of a Greek, even as cartoonish as Sparty the Spartan, I kind of like it.
Lighten up.
I think perfect solution would be to have 3 Native American designers come up with another mascot, and let the fans vote on it.
It was never going to disappear overnight. You have already won the war, Sam. You expect instant perfection in all things or declare total failure. Try just letting things play out sometimes. It’s been six games, for goodness’ sake. A gradual phase-out was always the plan, and the best way to minimize backlash.
Oh Sam. Pathetic as ever. A lifetime of lies and twisted history. Look in the mirror bud and see what a fraud looks like.
Allard deleted so many comments because he didn’t like them. This site and mag is a f**cking joke.
If it’s such a f’king joke, then why are you here? To troll. That makes YOU the f’king joke, pal.
The off-topic comments and spam get whacked. Keep on doing it, and you’ll keep getting deleted.
The simple fact is that the world is quickly changing and that makes people like her feel scared and helpless. Clinging to the past isn’t going to save you, you’re all going to have to adapt or die.
We all have one thing in common: Whether we adapt or not, we’re all going to die. Some of us sooner than others.
The ones who live the longest will see the most changes…the changes that those who die the soonest will not be here to see. Will the living or the dead be the better-off ones?
Those who don’t adapt, and die off sooner, will be out of their misery. Those who live longer, and fail to adapt, might just wish they were among the dead. Thirty years from now, Wahoo will probably be history, but I don’t really care, because I won’t be around.
Most of you will, though, and best of luck to you. You’ll be needing it.
the wahoo debate could be settled by a very simple lesson everyone learns in kindergarten:
if you are doing something that hurts someone else, then you should stop doing it, even if you like doing it. because that’s the right thing to do.
5-year olds understand this. adults on the other hand let their politics, arrogance, and stubbornness influence behavior. and baseless clowns like this bennett chick lap it up for clicks and likes, the stock-in-trade of people who try to make money with an incendiary twitter account instead of getting a real job. these twitter tirades, in turn, perpetuate the division among people on the issue. and the beat goes on…
White people doing white people things. Blaming millennials and cry baby natives for being offended about a mascot that was designed to be offensive. And to the one guy saying come rip the shirt off me “if you think you can, I can. It’s just really sad that people are more worried about “owning the libs” than being decent human beings. You can keep your memories and also have the memory of telling your kids you were a part of the movement that changed the organization for the better, but no, you’ll keep crying that political correctness is killing your ability to be openly racists without repercussion. The truth is white america values it’s racist past more than progress it has made or could be making as long as they can spin it as “heritage not hate” they will continue to do so and some are looking for a reason to fight you over it.
Whiskey Drunkard, in case you don’t know it, or lack reading comprehension, we’re basically on the same team. The Blue team. Read it again, pal…it clearly says: “I have been a left-winger all my life,”…and was probably decades before you existed. I’m so old, my wife refuses to talk about May Fourth. Why? Because…SHE WAS THERE ( I was living in another state).
But it also reads “…the more these Millennial crybabies whine about Wahoo, the tighter I will cling to it.” The harder the winter wind blows, the more clothing I will wrap around me.
Which means we’re either going to have to agree to disagree about The Chief, or you’re going to have to try and take it. So either deal with it…or bring it on. Your call.
Or we can take it up a notch or two, from the macho a-hole level…and use our brains instead of splattering them. I don’t know where the following came from, but I will post it here anyway, for your edification and enlightment:
“If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that what I want is wrong. Or ,if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view. Try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly. Or if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design, let me be. I do not ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you. “
And to be blunt, our side has far more important ( and literally life-and-death) issues to contend with, over the next two years, than the validity of some goddam cartoon logo of a professional sports team . Try to stay focused on the big picture, and on what really matters. Save your energy and your anger for 2020, and the most important fight of our lives.
KKKaitlin Bennett is just a racist, hateful bully who should be in a mental institution somewhere, so she can’t annoy anyone. She thrives on hate, which is clear when you observe her for any length of time. If your stomach is that strong! Ignore her and she’ll move in with her orange leader.
That was a great article, well done. It makes me sad that people are so insensitive and many are mean on purpose. This would not stand if it were any other group besides Native Americans, who are just such a small minority, because of the genocide perpetrated by our European ancestors. It takes courage to write an article for justice when you know so many people will sound off with ignorance and hate.
“What it does mean this is not complicated is that the image is a grotesque caricature of a race of people, a race that, because of their virtual extermination, now has almost zero political or economic power to defend themselves from their ongoing dehumanization.” – Anyone who can read and comprehend that statement should understand Chief Wahoo needs to go!
I will not purchase any tickets or merchandise until they totally retire Chief Wahoo. The Cleveland baseball team is already behind the eight ball because their GM sucks and the owner can’t afford a hockey team let alone a MLB team (either that or he is stupid and cheap). This is one more thing that will continue to haunt them and hold them back from winning a championship. We don’t deserve a championship if we are going to continue to use this hateful and racist image.
Chief Wahoo is a racist relic of the past that, like the article said, is defended by good people with more sentiment than sense on the matter because they like Chief Wahoo and associate him with good things. I think the one thing that best represent the absurdity of Wahoo are the illustrations that parody him as a variety of races and show how outrageous it would be if any other race were the mascot of a team, and then on top of that it was then represented by an insensitive cartoon. Having natives as a mascot is touchy anyway, and kind of strange when you stop and realize it’s the only race you see as a mascot in sports, but there’s a reason people are at least not this upset by the Blackhawks, Chiefs, or Seminoles logos (at least in their current forms), and that’s because they aren’t the Native American equivalent of a 1940’s black face trying to sell you a watermelon. The Redskins are their own case because their logo is generally pretty good and a respectful representation of a native man, but the name itself is wack. I saw the first comment saying getting rid of Native mascots will only leave the other people mascots whom are all white, but that’s because the other people mascots, Vikings, Raiders, Patriots, Pirates, and Spartans are different historical ways of saying warrior or soldier, and are not an apples to apples when being compared to specifically using a race as a mascot. And it also would help if a single one of these teams were originally founded by people of Native heritage who wanted to use the name to celebrate Native culture rather than a 1900s white guy who used it as a way to represent the idea that their team was an intimidating force full of scalping savages out for blood.
In regards to the video, Gun Girl “apologizing” to the Native American woman who finds Wahoo’s offensiveness offensive made me feel like I needed a shower. It was just so tone deaf and it’s clear that she might have been talking to that woman, but she was not hearing what the woman was saying.