“I‘m here for my grandchildren — for their self-esteem,” says Marjorie Villafane, a Sioux from North Dakota who has lived in Cleveland for more than 40 years and has participated in the annual Opening Day protest of Chief Wahoo for the last 20.
“I’m here so my grandchildren can be proud of their heritage. People act like we’re trying to take their baseball away from them, but we’re not. It’s just, why do they have to turn us into Chief Wahoo?”
Jim Farrar, a member of the Cherokee Nation who drove from Michigan to join this year’s demonstration, speaks of re-education camps and smallpox-infested blankets — painful memories associated with the displacement of indigenous North Americans by European colonists. To Farrar and many protesters, Wahoo’s exaggerated features and toothsome grin trivialize and mock their history.
“It isn’t guilt that we want you to feel,” he says. “Just understand what our opposition comes from.”
In 1991, the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance was formed in response to the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Western Hemisphere. Its purpose was to educate the public on “the truth about Columbus” from the perspective of Native Americans. Today, the Cleveland-based organization’s focus is decidedly more narrow: They’re committed to seeing Cleveland’s Major League Baseball club drop the use of Chief Wahoo and its 97-year-old nickname.
It’s not the most visible of movements, and it seeps into the public consciousness only for one afternoon each year. This time, a group of about 20 took part in the protest, marching outside Progressive Field and bellowing slogans like “Enjoy the Game, Change the Logo.” Some placed pieces of Easter candy where arriving fans could find them; attached to each marshmallow Peep was one in a series of fortune-cookie messages: “Would Jesus Wear Wahoo?” “People, Not Mascots.” “The Louis Sockalexis Myth Is a Lie.”
The ballclub — and most of its fans — is not hearing any of it.
“I love Chief Wahoo,” Diane McMaster-Murphy exclaims, smacking a Peep off the post where a protester had placed it. “I’m an American,” adds the 57-year old white lady from Akron, adding a twist of patriotism to an otherwise indiscernible molecule of logic.
Six and a half decades after its creation, the Chief remains the only professional sports logo in the Western world that caricaturizes a race of people. But in the land of Wahoo, no reason is still reason enough.
***
To many if not most Clevelanders, Chief Wahoo has never represented a race of people at all, but a benevolent symbol of the magic of those first trips to the ballpark: a smiling, slugging alien angel of joy. Given these positive associations, many find it especially easy to ignore that Wahoo was created in an era when popular attitudes toward minorities were quite different than they are today.
The symbol first appeared in 1947, the creation of Walter Goldbach, a 17-year-old draftsman hired by Indians owner Bill Veeck to design a mascot that “would convey a spirit of pure joy and unbridled enthusiasm.” Goldbach’s version had yellow skin and a phallically prominent nose. By 1951, the figure made its debut on Indians uniforms, updated with fire-engine-red skin and a more giddy, less imbecilic grin. Sportswriters provided the name “Chief Wahoo.”
Goldbach has said that he had a hard time “figuring out how to make an Indian look like a cartoon.
“It was the last thing on my mind that I would offend someone,” he added.
But to Dr. David Pilgrim, an expert in racial imagery, the symbol is a “red Sambo” that hardly differs from the caricatures of blacks popular in the Jim Crow era in which Wahoo was created — a time when such depictions of minority races were popularly used to inflame prejudice and justify discriminatory laws and behavior.
A sociology professor at Ferris State University in Michigan, Pilgrim is also the founder and curator of the school’s Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. There, an astonishing 7,000 piece (and growing) collection of artifacts depicts the history of racist portrayals of minorities in American popular culture.
“These were caricatures with a purpose: to legitimize patterns of prejudice, discrimination, and segregation,” says Pilgrim. “These caricatures don’t just exist to exist; they both reflect and shape attitudes toward a group.”
Pilgrim explains how the exaggerated features serve their discriminatory purpose by emphasizing the differences of the depicted race, thereby reinforcing the idea that the caricaturized race is inferior. He cites a passage from renowned author Julius Lester that gets right to the point, underscoring Wahoo protester Villafane’s concern for her grandchildren:
“When I read Little Black Sambo as a child,” Lester wrote, “I had no choice but to identify with him because I am black and so was he … [With this image], society had made it clear to me [that the exaggerated features] represented my racial inferiority — the black, black skin, the eyes shining white, the red protruding lips. I did not feel good about myself as a black child looking at those pictures.”
Pilgrim has made Chief Wahoo a centerpiece of the Jim Crow Museum’s traveling exhibit on racist Native American imagery.
“You don’t have to have spent your life analyzing these images to know that it’s a harsh caricature,” he says. “It either belongs in the garbage can, or some setting where it can be used to make us better — not on a baseball cap. If images don’t matter, we should just shut our eyes.”
***
For more than three decades, Bob DiBiasio has faced much of the criticism directed at the Indians over Chief Wahoo. The Tribe’s VP of Public Relations sides with the countless fans who equate their mascot with unqualified passion for the game.
“When people look at Chief Wahoo, they think baseball,” says DiBiasio. He calls the issue “one of individual perception” and explains that the franchise’s “acknowledgment to the sensitivities involved” is evidenced by the fact that it “does not animate nor humanize the logo.”
But the questions raised by the organization’s stance on the symbol are as glaring as Wahoo’s skin tone. If it’s a matter of individual perception, why would the perception of those who “think of baseball” when they see the logo matter more than the perception of those who see a demeaning vestige of America’s racist past? If the Indians recognize that it would be wrong to animate the logo, why keep it around at all?
The only substantive attempt the team makes to explain why its preferred perception is the correct one refers to the notion that the symbol is intended to honor the legacy of Native Americans.
“[The ballclub’s view on Wahoo] is based on … the historical significance as to how and why the Cleveland baseball team became the Indians,” DiBiasio says. “The organization is proud to acknowledge and foster the legacy of Louis Francis Sockalexis, a star performer and first Native American to play professional baseball.”
The only problem with the Tribe’s singular stance is that it happens to be a load of crap.
When the Cleveland baseball club was renamed the Indians from the Naps in 1915, the Civil Rights Act was still 49 years from reality. Women could not vote, and racism against all minorities raged across America. It hadn’t yet been three full decades since Custer’s Last Stand, and the bloody Indian Wars continued in the American West into the 1920s.
“Why exactly would people in Cleveland — this in a time when Native Americans were generally viewed as subhuman in America — name their team after a relatively minor and certainly troubled outfielder?” asks Joe Posnanski, an award-winning sportswriter originally from Cleveland, now with USA Today.
Indeed, the man for whom the team is purportedly named played in only 96 games over three seasons, compiling just 367 at bats in his career — about half a season’s worth for a typical ballplayer. But spotty performance wasn’t the half of it.
“In all versions of the story, Sockalexis had to deal with horrendous racism, terrible taunts, whoops from the crowd, and so on,” Posnanski wrote on his blog. Among those who cling to the feel-good story, “nobody ever mentions that Sockalexis may have ruined his career by jumping from the second-story window of a whorehouse. Or that he was an alcoholic.”
In fact, according to NYU history professor Jonathan Zimmerman, “when alcoholism ended [Sockalexis’] brief major-league career, sportswriters reported that he had succumbed to an inherent ‘Indian weakness.'”
Like Posnanski, Zimmerman calls the franchise’s Sockalexis story “simply not true.” He presents evidence that the franchise was renamed the Indians by sportswriters — not to honor Sockalexis, but to recall the sensational “fun” that he would inspire in crowds some 15 years earlier, when newspapermen would jokingly refer to the club as the “Cleveland Indians,” even though it was formally named the Spiders.
Of course, it didn’t hurt that the new name also happened to reinforce the image of Natives as anachronistic savages, the ballclub a fearsome force to be reckoned with. “In place of the Naps, we’ll have the Indians, on the warpath all the time, and eager for scalps to dangle at their belts,” wrote the Cleveland Leader in announcing the name change on January 17, 1915. In fact, none of the reports from the four daily Cleveland newspapers even mentions Sockalexis, but each is replete with negative stereotypes.
The Plain Dealer of the same day included a cartoon titled “Ki Yi Waugh Woop! They’re Indians.” The panel depicts, among other things, a frowning umpire scolding a Native American who says to him, “WUKWOG-O.”
“When you talk to me, talk English, you wukoig,” the ump replies. (The cartoon helpfully explains of “wukoig”: “That last word is in Indian.”)
There’s also a section highlighting “New Rooting Lingo for the Fans,” picturing a crowd of white men shouting noises like “WAHOO ZOEA-ERK!” and “SLKRO-WOW WAHOOOOOOO!”
When sociologist Ellen Staurowsky combed through the organization’s promotional material from the time before the name change, she found no mention of Sockalexis until 1968, which was after Native Americans who had come to Cleveland under the federal relocation program began to protest the name and logo. “There is a vast difference between speculating the Indians were named after Sockalexis and making the claim the franchise now makes, that there was an intentional decision to honor him,” Staurowsky told the Associated Press in 1999.
A close reading of the franchise’s public statements on Wahoo seems to reveal its own awareness of the impossibility of denying the symbol’s demeaning roots. DiBiasio never says outright that the franchise was named to “honor” Sockalexis, but rather just that the organization is “proud to acknowledge and foster [his] legacy.” Even the bronze plaque of Sockalexis that hangs in the Indians Hall of Fame at Progressive Field carefully states that he “inspired the nickname used to this very day,” glossing over the fact that this inspiration was the result of sportswriters’ enjoyment of the sensation created by the vicious taunting he endured.
***
From the Stanford Indians (now Cardinal) in 1972 to the Miami University Redskins (now the Redhawks) in 1996 to the removal of the University of Illinois’ Chief Illiniwek in 2007, activists have had remarkable success over the last 40 years in eradicating Native American symbolism from athletic departments nationwide. In 2010, Wisconsin legislators enacted a statewide ban on race-based nicknames, logos, and mascots, so that they may only be kept with the permission of the local Native tribe. Other states have joined Wisconsin in considering similar laws, and the list of high schools and colleges that have banned Native names and mascots numbers in the hundreds.
So why no traction with Wahoo, a symbol arguably much more offensive than any of the rest? Call it a unique inertia, created by a combination of Native Americans’ status as a tiny, relatively invisible minority; the traditional “cowboys and Indians” view of Natives’ status as an enemy of American civilization; the innocent, if ignorant, elements of Cleveland’s attachment to Wahoo as a symbol of a beloved baseball team; and a relative lack of awareness of the symbol’s racist origins. Of course, there’s also the fact that professional teams, unlike colleges and high schools, are owned by private individuals, most of whom happen to be white.
David Currie, a 73-year-old Euclid resident who identifies himself as “a WASP through and through,” joins the Wahoo protesters every year because he believes the symbol is an embarrassment to his hometown. You’d never see a team called the Cleveland Negros or the Cleveland Jews, accompanied by a caricature of the race, he says. “There’s no difference between blackface and redface. One is just as wrong as the other. It’s just that here there’s nobody to beat you up for wearing the redface.”
Wahoo, incidentally, is all but nonexistent in the Indians’ spring-training home of Goodyear, Arizona, where the Native American population is significantly higher than it is on the modern-day shores of Lake Erie.
Indeed, Ohio is home to zero Native reservations, compared to 11 in neighboring Michigan. Nationwide, full-blooded Native Americans make up slightly less than 1 percent of the U.S. population — not exactly the groundswell of numbers needed to shake up a nation’s way of thinking.
“We’re the minority of minorities,” says Jim Farrar, the Cherokee from Michigan who co-founded that state’s Coalition Against Racism in Sports and Media. Each year, he supports Wahoo protesters on Opening Day, and each year he finds few locals of similar heritage. “They’re not physically here,” he says. “You’re not looking at them face-to-face. It’s easy to pretend that they don’t exist.”
But it wasn’t always that way. The call for Chief Wahoo’s head reached its peak in the mid-1990s, as the Indians prepared their move to brand-new Jacobs Field and renewed enthusiasm for the team was paying off with constant sellouts and a long-overdue return to postseason glory.
Local activists including Juanita Helphrey, a native of the Hidatsa Nation and a leading voice for racial justice for the United Church of Christ, capitalized on the momentum. They ensured that the 35-foot-tall Chief Wahoo that for decades had been perched atop Municipal Stadium would not be moved to the new park. (The statue, since refurbished, now serves as an exhibit at the Western Reserve Historical Society, where guests are encouraged to write their feelings about Wahoo on Post-It notes.)
In 1997, Helphrey and five others were arrested for burning a Wahoo effigy outside the gates of the World Series. The charges were eventually dropped, and Helphrey has since retired.
“When Juanita was leading the efforts, we had some leverage,” recalls Charlene Higginbotham, a fellow UCC member from Cleveland Heights. “We would get more time on TV and in the newspapers. It’s much harder for them to ignore you when you have a Native American sitting across the table saying, ‘This does not honor me or my people.'”
At one point, then-Tribe owner Dick Jacobs agreed to talks about Wahoo. A local artist even presented the organization with proposals for a non-caricaturized representation to replace Wahoo.
“There was a new stadium, a new owner, a new name for the facility, so we figured it would be an especially good time for a new image,” says Reverend Marvin McMickle, a prominent local pastor and a member of the Gateway board of directors at the time. In 2000, the office of then-Mayor Michael White issued a statement decrying Wahoo as an “offensive, racist symbol,” and discussed a proposal to ban the logo from all city-owned property. But the anti-Wahoo fire quickly cooled off without explanation.
“We eventually received the same general blasé response [from the organization] about how beloved an image — or at least how popular an image — it is with baseball fans,” McMickle remembers. “But why should that matter? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong.”
***
Those who love Wahoo often point to the anti-Wahoo movement’s lack of success as justification for the Chief’s continued survival.
Many, including outspoken sports talker Chuck Booms of 92.3-FM WFAN, cite a controversial 2002 poll by Sports Illustrated, which concluded that five out of six Native American respondents believe teams “should not stop using Indian nicknames, mascots, characters and symbols.”
“Eighty-three percent of Indians on reservations said leave it alone, so leave it alone!” Booms shouted during a recent radio debate on the issue. To Booms, opposition to Chief Wahoo is “liberal nonsense.”
Yet others are less convinced by the SI poll. “If you’re going to trust a Sports Illustrated report on Native American issues, you might as well have Redbook report on the logging industry,” says Farrar.
A group of 34 sociologists who organized to immediately challenge the survey pointed to other studies that reached opposite results. They also note that SI never disclosed how the poll was conducted, how participants were recruited, or what questions were asked. And more pertinent to Wahoo: There’s nothing contained in the SI report to suggest its poll results distinguished between team names and symbols, nor between caricatures like Wahoo and more realistic representations. In fact, the report’s penultimate paragraph concludes by noting that “many Native Americans find the mascots and imagery more offensive than the names.”
Many anti-Wahoo activists are loath to engage any evidence of Native support for symbols like Wahoo. Andy Baskin, a morning personality at 92.3 and sports director at Cleveland’s NewsNet5, recently spoke on his radio show about visiting a reservation in the Southwest and seeing children wearing Chief Wahoo hats.
“There were African Americans who were OK with sitting on the back of the bus too,” Farrar responds.
“No minority is a monolithic group,” adds Higginbotham. “It’s hard enough to assimilate without taking on these battles.” (Baskin, incidentally, has concluded that the Wahoo tradition is not one worth holding on to.)
Ferris State’s David Pilgrim points out that the U.S. Constitution provides for a Bill of Rights and an independent judiciary precisely because of the problems with leaving certain issues to majorities, expressing his frustration with this fundamental element of protest dynamics. “There’s only so much energy for these things when you’re a member of the oppressed race,” he says. “The dominant culture has all the advantages. The force we’re fighting doesn’t have to do anything but the same thing that it’s always been doing.”
Which makes these issues especially easy for politicians to ignore. When reached for comment, Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson’s office vaguely referred to an “indirect” role played by the mayor in the controversy over Chief Wahoo.
“We recognize there is a debate,” says Ken Silliman, Jackson’s chief of staff. “Whatever role we’ve played indirectly, I’m not in a position to comment on. But we are aware of the discussions throughout the community on this issue. There are many different ways to participate in a community dialogue. Our community relations office has participated and has played a role.”
“There is no dialogue with the mayor’s office,” counters Ferne Clements of Cleveland’s Kamm’s Corners neighborhood, a white woman who coordinates the annual Opening Day protest in Cleveland. “And there won’t be until the rest of us join in speaking out against this thing.”
***
If Cleveland sports fans can count on anything, it is this: For the duration of Chief Wahoo’s tenure with the Indians in the post-Civil Rights era, the city’s teams have unequivocally sucked. Not just the Indians, but all of the major professional teams, including the Browns and Cavaliers.
Without recounting all the grisly details here, it’s enough to note that these beloved franchises have not just lost badly, but in the most embarrassing and excruciating ways. And not just games, but homegrown superstars and entire teams, which were stolen away by greed and greener pastures.
Those troubled by the persistence of Wahoo can take heart that, even if the powers-that-be are consistently unresponsive, the team’s lack of fortune during the Chief’s tenure fosters hope that at least one higher power is on their side.
Superstition has played a prominent role throughout sports lore, from Boston’s finally vanquished “Curse of the Bambino” to the Chicago Cubs’ ongoing “Curse of the Billy Goat,” which legions of fans blame for a collective 150-plus years of star-crossed baseball. Is a “Curse of Chief Wahoo” beyond the realm of possibility?
Here on the banks of the Cuyahoga (Iroquois translation: “Crooked River”), in the state of Ohio (“It is beautiful”), perched on what was sacred ground to Native Americans for thousands of years, the populace clings to the only sports logo in the Western world that caricaturizes an entire race of people, even amid cries that it dehumanizes them and trivializes their plight.
“It certainly flies in the face of ‘love your neighbor as you love yourself,'” says McMickle.
But even if one doesn’t buy into the basic principle of “do unto others” that underpins every major world religion, or even the concept of karma, everybody likes a good ghost story. And what’s happened with Cleveland’s sports teams over Wahoo’s tenure could fairly be viewed as some of the best evidence there is of some kind of benevolent metaphysical order.
“It was white people who made Wahoo,” explains Clements, “so it’s up to us to get rid of it.”
But in the end, there might be just one white person who matters.
“I can’t believe that one rich man could make this thing go away and chooses not to,” says Marjorie Villafane. She’s referring to the Indians’ current owner, Larry Dolan.
Dolan spoke in some detail on Wahoo during a 2006 interview with Dan Hanson of greatlakesgeek.com, in which he strongly suggested that the logo isn’t going anywhere soon. He was responding to questions about whether the advent of the script “I” that’s become increasingly prevalent on Indians uniforms signals a gradual phasing out of Wahoo.
“It’s not true,” said Dolan. “It’s another marketing tool.”
It does seem the Indians could use some more tools in their belt: Though Major League Baseball closely guards its revenue figures, on its 2010 list of the top 10 clubs “based on sales of all licensed products,” the Indians were nowhere to be found.
“Around the country, places we go, I come in contact with Indian groups particularly at Indian casinos, and ask them about it,” Dolan told Hanson. “No, they just don’t have the problem.”
No word on whether he has conferred on the issue with Natives who aren’t casino owners entertaining an extremely wealthy guest who also happens to own the baseball team that wears Chief Wahoo on its uniforms. Through a spokesman, Dolan declined to be interviewed for this story.
***
Look at page A3 of today’s PD,” Euclid’s David Currie wrote in an e-mail the day after taking part in the Progressive Field protest.
He was referring to a full-color, half-page advertisement placed by the Indians to drum up excitement for the new season. It features a young white boy wearing a Wahoo cap and holding a sign over his head containing a drawing of the logo inscribed with the words “Be a Believer!”
As slogans go, it serves as an apt reminder: Since 1964, the Curse of Chief Wahoo has given a championship-starved city as much to believe in as the Indians, Browns, and Cavaliers have.
“How can you argue with a religious icon?” Currie says. “Wahoo isn’t going anywhere.”
Peter Pattakos is a Cleveland attorney and author of the website clevelandfrowns.com.
This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2012.
Long live the Chief.
I was interested until your blatant lack of research hit me in the face! QUOTE: “remains the only professional sports logo in the Western world that caricaturizes a race of people”????? not sure what this means….but the Chicago Blackhawks logo certainly caricaturizes a race….The Atlanta Braves have Tomahawk….The Washington Redskins…is, well, a “redskin”
Kubicki: Look up what the word “caricature” means and go back and read the rest.
Years ago, at the old Stadium, I asked a Wahoo demonstrator to sell me his CHICAGO JEWS shirt. I told him, truthfully, that I am not only from Chicago, but also Jewish. He refused. I told him he needed to grow a thicker skin and walked away. Twenty years later, I still feel the same way.
I told my wife about the shirt. Bless her, she had one custom-made for my birthday. I have worn it to Tribe games and gotten a few strange looks (“Is he protesting, or what?”), but no problems. I have not yet been told to cover it or turn it inside out. In fact, a guy sitting next to me admired it. And he was also Jewish, too. What are the odds?
Must be a slow news cycle. With all the MANY and worsening problems Cleveland is facing daily and yearly, this has to be dragged out and revived again? Dimora is toast, Demanjuk is dead, but SCENE always has The Chief. Wahoo for your persistence, kids.
Chuckles the Clown
Displaying Wahoo next to what the equivalent would be for an African American is really all that needs to be said on the subject.
A picture is worth a thousand words indeed.
That was a very informative piece.
I never liked the rationalization to keep Wahoo. I think it’s pretty terrible for a person to look at Chief Wahoo and not think that it’s sick.
This is probably the most well-researched article I’ve ever read in Scene!
Racism will end only when people can get a life and get over something as trivial as Chief Wahoo. If and only then. It’s harmless. Unfortunately weak minds in this country will likely prevent that. The point about the Indians not being top ten merchandise is a stupid misuse of statistics. Being a middle-low market, the likelihood of the Indians being top ten with any logo is slim, especially with their lack of success. Also, the idea of a curse is ludicrous as if supernatural powers are worried about baseball.
Wow. Even after reading the article, people don’t get it.
We have a fairly large number of Scandinavians here in town. How ’bout the Cleveland Vikings….oh yeah, that’s taken. Or Irish with the largest St Paddy’s Day parade….The Cleveland Leprechaun’s like the fighting Irish of Notre Dame. Give me a break.
Its the old “Oh poor me!!! I know of many Indians that really like Chief Wahoo, like us, especially when we win.
My Friend Ruthy was full blooded Chero. a daughter of a high ranking Chief, i asked her was she offended or a solution..she said..we have so many other problems that deserve attention, lets move on..i added It was ment as fun not as a rub..there was no intent..just an ball club..a way to identify so now we have dogs ? woof woof, can they make something out of that now too..gee wiz im irish im catholic im short im a white woman who got no minority help in business, i was a CEO CFO im retired..& im tired.. get over it..
Look at the many depictions of Chief Wahoo. Then look at the photo of the original American Indian that it is fashioned after, which hangs at the ballfield. And you don’t see the insult…the racism. When it is part of your culture it becomes part of ones self. And we perpetuate it.
@Kubicki and @Frowns, definition of caricature provided so nobody has to go look it up:
“A representation, especially pictorial or literary, in which the subject’s distinctive features or peculiarities are deliberately exaggerated to produce a comic or grotesque effect”
This may be getting into semantics, but the difference between a caricature and a realistic representation/drawing is important in this discussion. The Blackhawk and Washington Redskins logos are not caricatures. Wahoo is.
Chief Wahoo was never a symbol of anything else to me other than baseball and the enduring hope that our beloved Tribe would someday win a World Series. In fact, before these misguided perceptions of a few activists determined that the caricature was somehow demeaning, I hardly thought of Chief Wahoo as even being an Indian. I have always supported native Americans, but could not support this drive to change our Cleveland baseball traditions more. Plus, it seems to me, considering all of the problems that American Indians face today, including alcoholism, poverty, and challenges in education, you would think that they would have more important causes to invest their time!
Peter:
I do appreciate where you are coming from, I disagree however. That said, please explain the caption below the 6th picture from your St. Paddy’s Day picture article on March 30th. What I would like to know is the following: If you are so dead against the Wahoo logo and claim to know, not think, that the logo is racist inherently, then how can this lady not be a racist given her tattoo displayed for the world to see of the Chief??
You cannot have it both ways Peter. Either everyone that likes the logo is a racist, or they are not. Not one person can be in “the group of people that can pull it off” or otherwise not be a racist given this and your numerous other articles on the topic. Racism is racism, regardless of the color of your skin or your sex.
Again, please explain your duplicity. Thank you.
Hey, P Gayle Gaydos, didja actually read the article? Did any of the people who are dismissing it *actually* *read* it? It wasn’t “ment as fun”, and it WAS meant “as a rub”. That’s actually explained in the article.
And Lindy8018 – the Fighting Irish logo is also a problem. (The Vikings logo really isn’t, though, because a) vikings, like knights, don’t actually exist any longer, and b) it’s a respectful logo, not a mocking one.)
Ultimately, though, it’s an impossible task to “prove” racism to people who are want to be blind to it, so I realize that I’m wasting my time. (Maybe empathy is required? Perhaps you’d understand if someone made a comical Indignant Crackers mascot?)
Neil:
The fact you used the word “crackers”….aw forget it. White people are immune to being the subject of racism by virtue of the color of their skin…wait a minute, that doesn’t seem right…..
Living in the land of Chief Wahoo (and having to listen to comments like so many above) is a daily shameful reminder of how so many white people rationalize away our racist history and deep subconscious biases. We COULD choose to do the honorable thing–apologize, change, create a new mascot–and then we could be proud of ourselves. But no…and before someone accuses me of being “ashamed” of the color of my skin, I’m not ashamed of the color of my skin or the many gifts passed on to me by my ancestors, but I AM ashamed to be associated with so many people who say things like “long live Wahoo”. All people make mistakes and people of all races do evil things and we white people have done plenty of both, but honorable, civilized people know how to say “I’m sorry” and set things right. Who is the savage here?
geez, what up w/ all the dumb comments? Dolan should just do the right thing and dump Wahoo.
and i especially dislike the comments that are like ‘indians have bigger problems, so why worry about this’. i mean, i had more important things to worry about than holding the elevator for some slow 90-year old women this morning, but i still managed to squeeze it into my schedule because it was the right thing to do the right thing.
Chuck:
How magnanimous of you. Your reward is people looking upon you as a nice person. Why not keep it to yourself, which is true altruism. Remind me to recommend to the Pope to Canonize you.
Deer Slayer:
1) Pretty obvious that Frown’s neck tattoo comment was a joke.
2) Pretty obvious my point was that a native can spend a few seconds to voice their dislike of racism while still tackling bigger problems in their life.
3) Pretty obvious you don’t follow pretty obvious things.
I loved the smiling alien of joy when I was a boy going to games.
But that was when I was younger. Now that I am a man, I realize there are things such as racism and stereotypes in today’s world. I understand that people do things without caring about right and wrong or whether someone is offended or not.
Chief Wahoo does remind of ball games with my father, memories that I cherish dearly. But I don’t need an offensive image to bring back those memories and the Cleveland Indians no longer ought to promote the symbol as a part of the organization.
This is crap. The Indians and other sports teams that use Indian names are not trying to be offensive. They’re actually glorifying Indians. Look at the Seminoles prople’s relationship with the United States, then tell me intelligent Indians are against Indian mascots. It’s BS. My dad always told me that if we take the Indians out of sports, a lot less people will learn about Indians in a positive way. I’ve repeated that for 15 years.
Chief Wahoo is hands down the best logo in baseball.
Go Tribe
Also, although Cleveland doesn’t have much to go on since, the Tribe won in 1948, after the Chief was introduced. So technically that’s not a curse. Neither was Babe Ruth being sold to the Yankees, that’s just a deal. But the Cubs curse? An old man turned away from the park with his lucky goat with the C on its side? Who knows what powers that man had. Now that’s a curse.
Deer Slayer:
Too late, pal…my “shiksa” wife already treats me like a saint. And in return, she’s now Jewish by injection.
I happen to prefer the 1947 version of Wahoo, even with its Semitic features (especially the nose), over the “red” version…but I’m like a lot of people in this town…the more somebody doesn’t like something that they like, the more they dig their heels in and like it.
I can tell you this much…I know for a fact, as a former employee, that the organization was giving serious thought to changing both the name and the logo in the mid-Nineties…but the louder the protests, the more Wahoo “merch” the fans bought at the team shops, especially when the move to the “Jake” was made. The the fans saw “red” over the uproar, but the Tribe saw “green”…consequently, the ideas about a change were dropped. And the team dug in its moccasins. So forget about a change.
And what name did they have in mind? Ever heard of a WNBA team called the Rockers, complete with guitar logo? Just in time for the opening of the Rock Hall, that organization snapped it up.
It would have worked. But the effigy-burners and Opening Day marchers killed it.
Thanks, guys…if it weren’t for you, you’d be cheering for the Rockers today. And SCENE would have to find something else to bitch about every few springs.
Chuckles the Clown
Sevin Cook Gallo:
The factual errors aside, this is moreorless what people outside of Ohio call “journalism.” If you find it novel, I’m sorry.
It’s a shame that a “news feature” injects such a hard rhetorical line not just in how the issue is framed but in open criticism and mocking of those with whom the author disagrees. If the author’s opinion was as widely accepted as gospel as he believes it to be, he might have avoided the snarky one-liners and let the facts convince the reader.
Once again, this debate fails to mention the Cleveland Indians organization as one of the leaders in de-segregating baseball. Though I admit that the Sockealixis reference is a stretch, Cleveland was still the first to have a native american player. Chief Wahoo sat on the jersey of Larry Doby, the first American league black ball player. And the 35ft. tall Chief Wahoo observed Frank Robinson become the first black manager in baseball. If it’s such a rascist symbol, then why has the organization been involved in so many non-rascist, pro-minority events over the years? But, hey, when you run out of things to write about, you can always count on Chief Wahoo to wrangle in a few extra readers. I fell for it:) Your slant on this was to heavy. Your research on the side of the protesting group was much more researched then the side of the organization. It was obvious that you were more intent on gaining readers & causing a “stir”, than actually getting all the facts on both sides. If this is what you & your magazine were going for, bravo for you. I can’t believe that you actually helped the protesting sides call at all. If anything, you probably made it harder for them. Good job…
I just want to know where I can buy the NY Jews hat shown in the story. I can’t even find one on ebay.
Hey, John…will you settle for a jersey? I could find out who had the Chicago one that was custom-made (see above) for my wife, so she could surprise me on my birthday.
She said they’ll make anything to order…so maybe they could make you a New York version. It would look pretty good on that Number 7 train to Queens.
Not sure if they make hats, though. I remember seeing a guy wearing a “Kansas City Negroes” jersey outside one opener…wonder if he ever heard of the Negro Leagues…or the K.C. Monarchs? Ernie Banks began his career with them in 1950.
That orange San Francisco hat looks pretty sharp, too…ya think?
Chuckles the Clown
It all boils down to this folks: In all honesty, would it be acceptable for Cleveland’s Major League Baseball franchise to adopt a “Sambo” caricature as part of its logo package and rebrand itself as the “Cleveland Negroes”? Would it be appropriate for said team to adopt a caricature of a buck-toothed, slant-eyed, queue-wearing Asian character as its logo and rebrand itself as the “Cleveland Chinks”? Would it be appropriate for the team’s logo to be a caricature of a hook-nosed, fedora or shtreimel-wearing, payot-sporting rebbe, accompanied by the name “Cleveland Hebes” or “Cleveland Jews”?
So, if said team identities would be out of line, why is it that using “Chief Wahoo” to symbolize the “Cleveland Indians” is considered okay?
I can call myself a Pollack Bitch but if someone else called me that I’d be offended.
My friend can call himself a ni**er but it would obviously be offensive for me to do that.
The Cleveland Indians (BTW, Indians are from India) are neither Indian nor Native American/First Peoples so they ought to find something that reflects who they are today.
WOW I’m sorry, but I am part native American as well, I see no reason for us to sacrafice our team’s logo. . . what are we gonna be called, every other ‘non-racial’ slur has been taken, as Matt K wrote, atlanta braves, the red skins, black hawks. . . I mean come on! should we call them the Cleveland Native American’s and just have a headress run out on the field?! people need to get over their constant “I feel abused, or I feel like I’m being profiled” look-out on life. this is getting so old. what’s next fast-food menus have to be politically correct?! I mean come on America, this is supposed to be a melting pot not a pick-apart every meaning to everything said whiney bowl of WHINERS!
Hey, Chuckles, please set aside a Jews jersey for me, provided, of course, that it has the official mascot “Rabbi Cheap-ass” patch on the sleeve. I want to be sure I have it when the Atlanta Peckerwoods come to town. Always a good series.
It’s so entertaining when the Peckerwood mascot, “Zeke, the toothless meth addict”, hilariously combs the stands, looking for a first cousin he hasn’t already knocked up. A classic routine.
If they changed the logo to a old fat white woman (me) I’d be thrilled. I honestly do not get it!!
Racism is a slippery topic so let’s slide for a bit.
One of the first arguments I want to address is the ‘Get Thicker Skin’ argument. First, telling one to get thicker skin is not a denial of the implicit racism of Chief Wahoo. In fact, it’s an admission of guilt. It IS a racist emblem (it characterizes an entire group of people in a demeaning way). I understand there’s some super rich history that associated with the club and the game it plays but I still stand unimpressed. The association with the logo is racism—and everything associated with it. It doesn’t take a liberal to see that. It takes one with eyes and a very basic understanding of our shared history in the United States.
The next argument is in regard to the anecdotes: “My friend Mary is the daughter of a Native American Chief and she said that this is just a blip on the radar and says we should keep it.,” or even better, “I’m half Sioux! I don’t’ care about this!” That’s nice. Once again though, this is a denial of the evidence that stands before you, crystal clear. I understand that it’s hard to change and your good hearted intentions are being misconstrued but the logo is racist. The only way to eliminate the problem of racism from the logo is through it being dropped. Quite frankly, it doesn’t matter that your friend Mary is the daughter of a Native American chief. What matters in the principle behind the logo. And once again, seeing if it’s “clear” from a minority buddy does not wipe the racism away from the logo. It only further smears the stain of it.
And quick note: just because the organization decided to desegregate does not mean the logo can’t be racist. That’s a strange tie in and quite frankly doesn’t hold water.
Being white myself, I understand why one might want to try and just ignore the overt racism. It’s kind of hard knowing that my forefathers perpetuated the hate and ignorance that led to such symbols. Leaving them intact and branding them as innocent is a convenient way of glossing over it. But what’s right is not always what’s convenient. In fact, it’s typically what’s most difficult. The people that I come from clearly did not care for certain sections of the population as demonstrated through negative caricatures describing entire groups of people.
Calling one a “pussy” or a “whiner” is not conducive to the conversation. What it shows is an apparent lack of maturity for this type of conversation.
The broader topic is how habitual our thought gets. Think—for many, the logo is an innocent display of the club’s history and many of the popular associations are not even linked to the emblem itself (based off several comments and quotes). We’ve habituated a way of thinking about the emblem as something innocent, symbolic and stand-alone. Yet, it isn’t. The direct representation is racist. We’ve moved from something that’s a negative caricature of an entire section of the population to something that’s representative of good, simple, light-hearted fun. Many have used mental gymnastics in order to justify its existence at the ballpark.
Taking a moment to observe the obvious is something that’s needed when it comes to Chief Wahoo. Reducing the pain of Native Americans is not needed—and, once more—we shouldn’t tell a group that’s sustained and survived despite the attempted eradication and relocation to get thicker skin when in all reality, it’s probably you who should get thicker skin. You, who can’t stand the dissent of a population that doesn’t want to be represented as a wide-eyed, red faced, goofy-looking cartoon character.
Well, mathematical, you actually wrote better than the columnist. Even though I respectfully disagree with you on most points listed above, at least your argument had some backbone behind it. Yes, many of the above comments here were down right childish. I was most disappointed in the articles lack of facts and badly researched argument. That can’t be denied. If your going to write an article of this nature, get your facts straight and don’t leave so many holes.
Now, if Chief Wahoo was completely removed, what do you think would happen?? And this is not an excuse to keep him, but…..he wouldn’t go away. Many Clevelanders have an attachment to the caricature. And it’s not a hateful one. There’s been a long, bad history with America and the Natives who lived here first. It’s not pretty. But I’ve never met anyone who wears Chief Wahoo because he/she it trying to demean a race of people. That’s where the problem lies. Where do we stop?? Animals have feelings too, it’s been proven. Will we have to change all those logos?? The fact is that it is a matter of perception, which most people on this thread don’t like. If you see him as rascist, that is fine…..but most people don’t. And no one is using Chief Wahoo to hurt anyone…anywhere…on purpose. If it offends some, well….I’m not sure what can be done about it. Cause you know that Clevelanders would, rebeliously, wear the logo if it were removed. I think the situation would get worse, not better. And I say this out of truth, not out of wanting to necisserily keep the logo.
Lastly, I’ve got 2 question to anyone on here who can answer them…and I’ve been to a fair amount of Indians games both here and on the road. Why, if it’s such a horrible symbol, don’t they protest at ALL the games both here and away?? They seem to only show up at the Home Opener and when the team makes the playoffs. And why do I never see any Native Americans protesting here….or when the team is at any of the other parks around the country???
Anyone out there want a couple of Tribe jerseys and a 7 and 5/8 hat? After reading this article I don’t want anything to do with this baseball team!
FIGHT CENSORSHIP
KEEP THE CHIEF!!
So… Are The Simpsons racist charactitures of white people? Do people watch the Simpsons and conclude that white people have buggy eyes, yellow skin, and massive overbites?
Didn’t know Cleveland had so many racially insensitive people…
P.S. Hovespian, your Dad was apparently a jackass
Apparently people are forgetting the lesson in elementary school pertaining to using the term “Native Americans” instead of “Indians.” There is this country far away called “India.” … I’m an American.
Wow. I agree with Willie. Cleveland is full of bigots and idiots.
I disagree with the story line. This is NOT the last racist symbol, the worse one is the Washington Redskins. That is blatant. Although I love Chief Wahoo and will always have a copy on my computer. Maybe we should retire the emblem? I have a lot of American Indian friends and Cleveland always has a Native American Get Together at Edgewater park. One time I wasn’t thinking about it and I had my Cleveland Indians shirt on although it didn’t have Chief Wahoo on it I still felt bad. I don’t think American Indians hate the name but I do know they hate the Logo.
We really do need to change the name of the Washington Racists.
I have to say this again, the title of this article is INCORRECT. This is NOT the LAST racist Symbol, the Washtingon Racists is the worst one.
I do know the remaining relative of Louis Sockalexis was honored that we recognize his uncle. Although now some articles are disputing the team got it’s name because of him.
Isn’t it funny a lot of the people calling each other racists are afraid to post their real names. I always use my real name. I am proud of me and my opinions. Yes I like the Cleveland Indians and No I am not racist.
Some of my American Indian friends don’t mind Chief Wahoo but a lot of them do hate the logo. But none of them have a problem with the name. Although all of them have a problem with the Washington Racists I mean Redskins.
To the persona who said You can’t have it both ways. You stole the line from George W Bush, did you support him or are you one of those clueless Liberals that like to bash him and then you do the same things?
Although George W Bush is one of my favorite presidents. There is a middle but to those of you clueless, George W didn’t mean his comment in the way you took it. He was refering to Terrorists and the countries that support them.
Is it surprising to anyone that a war had take place for slavery to be abolished? Some will say that chief Wahoo and slavery are completely different. They are not. What’s in common is the mindset of the people that get it and those that don’t. It is as simple as right and wrong. I’m not saying that chief Wahoo is the equivalent of slavery. That’s not my point. I’m speaking of the mindset and capacity for people to ignore something that is wrong and are willing to fight in order to keep it. Keeping chief Wahoo is wrong. Slavery is wrong. People can try to make it grey, but it isn’t. Saying, “ Chief Wahoo doesn’t represent racism to me”, does not make the caricature of Chief Wahoo any less racist. It’s not about what you think or how it makes you feel, good or bad. It’s about right and wrong. It’s like saying, “I wouldn’t own a slave, but if somebody wants to own a slave, that’s their business.” Does that make slavery right? Is slavery right if you wouldn’t do it or that it doesn’t offend you?
Am I saying that if you support chief Wahoo, then you also support slavery? Maybe. I know that you have the same mindset. Is it an unreasonable to assume that people who support chief Wahoo, also would support slavery? Maybe. But both slavery and racism are unreasonable. People that justify the racism of chief Wahoo are susceptible to any number of things that are consistent with those thoughts.
Here’s a short true-story (not HIS-story) lesson for you. The only reason slavery was abolished was because the U. S. of A. was feeling pressure and losing respect among other nations for their continued use of slavery. For the rest of the world, slavery was frowned upon. It never was about helping the Black folks. The USA could not have become or be the “leader of the free world” if their own house was not indeed free. Taking that true-story lesson to Cleveland’s current existence. If you think that chief Wahoo doesn’t play a significant role in Cleveland’s presence and perception, then you are in denial. Like it or not, Chief Wahoo perpetuates a racist undercurrent for the city of Cleveland to other cities and this nation, period. If you support Chief Wahoo, then you are an active participant (willingly or not) of the racist undercurrent of the city.
This article is incorrect… Washington Redskins anyone?
People Not Mascots’ Logo
Acrylic on Canvas
22″ x 28″
1992
David Jakupca
Signed Lower Right corner
The ‘People Not Mascots’ Logo is meant to be a Native American protest caricature of the Cleveland Indians Baseball team. It was originally painted by David Jakupca, it has drawn criticism from some sportswriters, fans and local businessmen, but gained immediate acceptance among humanitarian, religious groups and Native Americans. It gained international popular attention when it was it exhibited by ICEA at the 1993 UN World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, Austria and has become one of the most recognized anti-racists logo’s in existence. It also caused repercussions for the groups connected with the logo and this has been documented in the Internecine Matrix.
Google; “INTERNECINE MATRIX”
It is Karma that is the bottom of the Curse of Chief Wahoo,
because the Chief Wahoo Logo attracts bad Karma like a lighting rod.
You see at the beginning of every baseball season,
all fans and players all across the nation hope and pray that their team has a winning tyear.
Towards the end of the regular season some teams hopes and prayers are answered and they advance to the play offs.
If the Cleveland baseball team is lucky and makes the play offs,
most fans and players from other teams from all across the nation who did not make the play offs wish the Cleveland team would lose. Some people living on reservations, who don’t know where Cleveland is or have never been to a baseball game in their lives also hope Cleveland will lose. Karma responds and Cleveland loses. This collective National Negative Karma is why Cleveland can’t advance in any play offs – This is the ‘Curse of Chief Wahoo’.
Why are the other Cleveland pro teams losing? It could be that bad Karma is rubbing off on them, that or just plain bad management.
I think they should get rid of Wahoo, but there can’t be a “curse” associated with it if the Indians won the World Series the year after it was designed. That would be like claiming the Red Sox were cursed if they won a World Series the year after Ruth was traded. Unless you want to argue that the original version of somehow more appropriate.
Everyone is complaining about a caricature it’s been used for many years for many sports teams why is nobody complaining how the United States government screwed over the indigenous people of the United States of America slaughtered them enslaved them took their land gave them nothing yet you people spend hours crying about a logo that bears no resemblance to an American Indian in actuality. If you are actually all really concerned about the plight of the American Indian the actual indigenous tribe of America go spend some time helping those people out they certainly need it
Chief Wahoo isnt racist theres a lot more teams named after white people with logos of white guys and you dont here us complaining about it so mind your own business and stop trying to ruin everything for everyone #keepthechief #thechiefwillneverdie #chiefwahoonotrascist #snowflakealert
A note: The original “Little Black Sambo” by Helen Bannerman is Indian not African. It is still racist.
Long live the CHIEF