Lawyers for local Native Americans have drafted a petition asking for the immediate cancellation of the Cleveland Indians’ Chief Wahoo trademark. The petition, they say, will be filed with the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board as soon as funds for filing fees become available.
“The [Chief Wahoo] logo is a crude caricature of a proud and abused race of people that was and is a pejorative, derogatory, denigrating, offensive, scandalous, contemptuous, disreputable, disparaging, and racist designation of Native American people,” reads the drafted petition, provided exclusively to Scene.
The petition additionally asks for an estimated $9 billion in damages. Native Americans say they are owed this money by the Indians’ organization, based on profits generated by Chief Wahoo over the course of “nearly 100 years of racism, discrimination and cultural perversion.” Petitioners acknowledge, however, that monetary recovery is not part of a trademark cancellation.
The language of the petition is consciously very similar to the Washington Redskins’ trademark filing in 2014 (Blackhorse v. Pro-Football Inc.), in which the TTAB ruled that the name “Redskins” was disparaging to Native Americans.
“Chief Wahoo is the caricature of an Indian, incorporating a completely red skin tone,” reads the Cleveland petition. “This is the non-verbal communication of the racial slur, “redskins,” which the TTAB has ruled to lack federal trademark protection.”
The petition will be filed on behalf of People Not Mascots, Inc.; Robert Roche, the Director of the American Indian Education Center (AIEC); and others. Attorney Lisa Mach, who drafted the petition and serves on the AIEC’s Executive Board, said there would be a total of five petitioners (just like in Blackhorse) and that filing fees would be $300 per petitioner.
Much like in the 2014 case, if the Wahoo trademark were to be canceled, the Cleveland Indians would not be required to change their name (or even stop using the Chief Wahoo logo). It simply would mean that the baseball team could no longer claim exclusive ownership. Anyone could sell Chief Wahoo memorabilia. Customs and Border Patrol, for example, would no longer be required to block the importation of counterfeit goods bearing Wahoo’s likeness.
The Penobscot Nation, from which Indians’ outfielder Louis Sockalexis hailed, contacted the Cleveland Indians via a resolution in 2000. It called for the cancellation of Chief Wahoo and asked the team to advocate “for the elimination of racist images of Indians.” (Sockalexis is the putative inspiration for the Indians’ team name). But the Indians’ organization never responded.
Roche now says that a trademark cancellation petition feels like their only recourse.
“With these people, [Indians’ baseball executives], if you don’t go after their pocketbooks, they don’t care at all,” Roche told Scene in 2014,
At the AIEC’s Annual Christmas party Sunday afternoon, lawyers announced the forthcoming petition to the the gathered families.
“We don’t want to eliminate Chief Wahoo,” said Joseph Meissner, one of the attorneys. “We just want to retire him. He has served long enough. The poor guy has been used by the Cleveland Indians baseball team, probably to earn billions of dollars. That’s blood money from Native Americans.”
Bob Begin, attorney and former pastor at St. Colman’s Parish, said in a brief statement that he remained “unbelieving” that so many people still supported Chief Wahoo.
“This is obviously offensive,” he said. “Once people tell me, ‘this offends me,’ I’d never continue using it.”
Tim Russo, a research assistant in Meissner’s office (and former candidate for County Executive), is conducting international jurisdictional research on behalf of the petitioners. Prominent local attorneys James Levin and Terry Gilbert, who were not present Sunday, are also members of the legal team.
This article appears in Dec 16-22, 2015.
B.S. So when are the Indian run casinos going to pay taxes ? They rack in hundreds of millions and don’t pay taxes.
Indians had their land stolen from them by Europeans, and millions of them were slaughtered. You’re complaining that they don’t pay taxes? They should be complaining that you don’t pay taxes to them.
Taxes have precisely dick to do with this issue, Ricky.
As noted on Twitter, nevermind
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/201…
ummmm, we dont have much of any Indian run anything in Ohio, except maybe those from India
Why don’t the Dolans just do the right thing and dump Wahoo already? The block C logo is perfectly good.
The trip wire in major pro sports is Dan Snyder — with other team owners meekly walking underneath the massive shadow of the NFL. Paul Dolan does not have the backbone to take a decisive stance and permanently retire the logo/nickname.
Total B.S. Nothing racist about the logo, for over a100 years it was fine, now in this P.C Bullshit world we live in , it’s racist. Why don’t they expend their energy helping with problems directly affecting Indian people, like alcoholism , poverty and educational opportunities????
Yeah Charlie I hear ya! Slavery went on for years… why fix it? The redskin is a racial slur but why fix it? P. C. just means you can’t be an insensitive a**hole to people who aren’t like you.. am i right? Rather than deal with this simple problem we can easily fix, old Charlie here says we should move onto something bigger like starvation and world peace. Can’t wait to see your plan on that one Charlie.
Much like confederate flags and blackface… these symbols of a insensitive and ignorant time need to be retired. If only these sports types would fight so hard for real issues our communities would be a lot better off. Retire chief wahoo and move on… in a few years you won’t even care and our sports team will look less shameful as well.
Remember that old fable about the North Wind and how he tried to rip the traveler’s jacket off his body?The stronger the wind blew, the tighter he wrapped that coat around himself. It was probably a 1954 Cleveland jacket with the Chief on it.
The more the P.C. wind blows, the tighter the jackets are wrapped. You will have to literally rip them off the backs of the die-hards or make it illegal to wear it to the park…or even on the streets.
Some people get more stubborn when their choices are challenged–and dig their heels in all the harder. I guess I’m one of them. I am not going to stop wearing him any time soon.
To be quite blunt, I don’t particularly care for Wahoo anymore, but I hate the block C even more…how original…how many other teams have it right now? Two? Three? Four?
Know this: You will still see Wahoo on the streets of Cleveland twenty years from now, whether he is retired or not. He will not disappear until every old geezer TRIBE fan is too feeble to wear their gear, so you’ll be dealing with Wahoo for a LONG time to come. Get used to it.
Chuckles the Clown
Well Chuckles (apt name…) you can cling to your jacket all you want pal. You can wrap it in a confederate flag and parade down main street, that’s in your rights. However that does not make you right… just ignorant. Instead of P.C. just say” treating people with respect’ and we can all agree this is a case of “treating people with respect” gone mad! Certainly wouldn’t want you coming up with a better symbol rather than bashing the “c”.
Doubling down on being wrong doesn’t make it better. The George Wallace’s of the world like these gentleman typing above me will always stand in the way of progress. They will always put their own selfish feelings over what is decent and kind. It doesn’t affect them so why change it? It’s only a few people so why make it right?
Thankfully the world is slowly (sometime too slowly) becoming a better place. Once this old fearful bigoted generation finally dies out we may be able to make some meaningful change to this state (and nation). Then these embarrassing symbols of our city will slowly start to fade…
Old fearful generation? You mean Boomers? Seriously? You’ve gotta be kidding. Wanting to keep the Chief automatically makes one a supporter of the Confederacy or a George Wallace? Again, you gotta be yanking my chain here, right?
Go do a little homework and read a little history. That “old fearful generation” (you sure you’re talking about Boomers here?) put its ass on the line a whole bunch of times and in a whole lot of places order to “make this world (and state) a better place” and bring about “progress”…whatever the hell that means to you…probably not what it means to me.
I’m thinking of a hick college town about forty miles southeast of the Jake, where some members of “this old fearful generation” had their lives taken from them for what they believed in. WTF have YOU done lately, pal?
Chuckles the Clown
A federal court ruled this week that the government cannot deny a patent or trademark based on speech or art that the government does not like. Easy 1st amendment case, only difficult for liberals to understand.
Indians as they existed in those days are extinct. Ancestors of people who lived as Indians survive, but they are not Indians, anymore than Italians are Romans, and as Greeks are not Spartans or Athenians. Indians as a race and a way of life with Chiefs and war councils etc are gone. All that remains are the blood lines of current ancestors and …..Chief Wahoo. Most died from European diseases.