Wahoo is racist and needs to go, but part of me will still be sad when it finally happens. When I see Wahoo, I don’t consciously make a connection to any ethnic group…I just think of Indians baseball.

Doc,

We’re not talking about removing the name “Indians”, just the racist logo.  I think the Redskins removed the steriotypical warrior figure from their franchise some years ago.

Jason—if it’a on this blog, it is, by definition, a minor thing as compared to the great big world, so your qualification is implied.

the crybabies should shut up and get over themselves. Wahoo is a beloved icon and doesn’t hurt anyone in any legally definable way. No one is injured physically or financially. No one is being denied of any legal rights by the use of Wahoo. if seeing Wahoo hurts your feelings, then go see a doctor and get this self-imposed mental problem fixed. no one says you have to like or enjoy this character, but that doesn’t mean that those who do shouldn’t be able to and they certainly shouldn’t be smeared for doing so. Wahoo is great. The only ones who see Wahoo and think bad things about Indians are the ones who don’t like Wahoo. They’re the real bigots here. Wahoo fans aren’t the racists here. I hope the Indians do the right thing and keep him around forever.

My question for the Craigs of the world (and I ask this sincerely): let’s say they gradually toned down the more caricaturesque aspects of the Chief Wahoo icon and turned him into a more sober looking indian? Would that make any difference? Or are all depictions of American Indians racist?

Because the choice needn’t be necessarily to keep it or to completely eliminate all traces of it.  Maybe they could do something like the Orioles did, turning the cartoon bird, into just a plain (and better) looking bird straight out of the Audobon society’s bird watching guide. Similarly, if the Indians just had a plain-looking Indian, not smiles, no enhanced features, no warrior get-ups, would that be a problem? I’m thinking of the Chicago Blackhawks, or the Seminoles, for example.  Maybe its because its an NHL team, and they would normally pass under the radar, but I don’t think there’s controversy over the ‘Hawks’ icon (although maybe there is, I’m not from Chicago).  The Blackhawks don’t play up the indian side of it, they don’t have an indian mascot, or anything.  Maybe that’s a direction the Indians could go in so as not to completely eliminate their heritage.

I would be interested to hear other how other people feel about this.

Holy apples and oranges.  The Notre Dame nickname was created in the 1920s by members of the schools’ alumni.  The mascot is a fictional creature (like the magical animal that makes bacon, pork chops, and ham) that hides pots-o-gold at the end of the rainbow and appears in hilariously bad movies with Jennifer Anniston.

http://www.the-common-man.com

one more thing - are all the people who do the tomahawk chop at braves and fsu games racist?

Go zips - Just because an image has been in existence for a long time does not mean that it’s existence is acceptable.  As you stated the image was one of several racist images used by the Tribe and other sports teams that harbor back to a day when overt racism was the norm in this country.  The continued usage of such images never lets the wounds of our past fully heal as they do evoke painful memories for many folks. 

Some of those memories are associated with baseball and I have been blessed to meet several men who played in the Negro Leagues and while I suspect none of them were capable of playing in the majors, they were never given the opportunity because of the racist past of baseball.  While the Indians were one of the first teams to integrate, I suspect that it pained Larry Doby to put on a jersey or cap that depicted a racist image especially before he had to go out and be insulted by teammates, opponents and many of the fans at the game.  I would also suspect that like many African Americans (my wife included) that his family heritage includes one or two indigenous people. 

As Craig has stated images such as Chief Wahoo, blackface Sambo, and the slant-eyed Asian harken back to a era in our history that overtly racist and xenophobic images were the norm as our society was inherently racist.  While a great deal of progress has been made and Barack Obama is our first non-white president there is still a great deal of work to do.  For example, white supremacist web sites crashed after the election and membership have tripled in the last months.  While I doubt that Chief Wahoo has resulted in the recruitment one new member, the mere existence of overtly racist images supports the notion that one group of people is lessor than another group. 

Also - many of these images or other logos are used as coded images for support of, or membership in, hate groups.  For example, while many folks wear sports jerseys with numbers such as 33 (Larry Bird) or 88 (Lynn Swann, Michael Irvin) other wear them to express their belief in white supremacy as 33 is code for the KKK (k is the 11 letter of the alphabet so 33 is 3xK) or 88 as code for heil hitler (h is the 8th letter of the alphabet).  The NHRA logo for many represents the ‘ni**er hating redneck association’ and can be worn, especially with another coded item, to publically express their association with white supremacist ideas and groups. 

While I do not know of any Chief Wahoo codes I suspect that it may be used, or could be used, and while eliminating such images will not change people’s hearts the removal of such images may let some wounds heal over as such images continually pick at the scabs of our racist past.  While these wounds may not seem real to you they are to many people and I suspect that you have some scabs that you do not want continually picked at because doing so never lets you have peace with a pain of your past. 

For example, one of my closest friends grew up outside of Cleveland and is a huge baseball fan and continually has his scab pick as he follows the Tribe.  Removing the logo would allow him and others to go to a baseball game and not be reminded of the pains of the past and I am sure he’d appreciate that greatly.

I wonder if this is more an Arizona thing.  I’m sure there are many more Native Americans near their spring traing park than by Cleveland.  So maybe they just figure they should tread lightly in that state.

Ultimately they are a private company and are free to use whatever logo they want, understanding that a certain part of the population will not like it.

Actual Indians fan here. I think what the Indians are doing is dialing Chief Wahoo back to a sub-alternate logo, kind of where the Brewers are with the old mb/glove logo. Keep it on the home alternate uniform, license a few caps on the side. You diminish the Chief’s significance without turning it into a crusade, one way or the other, and I think that’s the responsible way to do it. I appreciate Craig’s take.

I’m a big fan of the block-C, by the way—it actually dates back to the start of the franchise. The script-I is anemic and stupid and reminds me of Jody Gerut.