I like option 1.  If the teenagers today cared about anything except teh Facebook and teh IPod, they’d be up there this weekend.  That’s actually a great idea:

Option 1a) Party up at the Moon Tower.  Full kegs.  Paint and brushes supplied.  Slogan:  We only came to do two things, drink some beer and paint some water towers.  Looks like we’re all out of beer.

Ron—we’ve been over this before, but my issue with Wahoo (and maybe others’; I’m not sure) is not the feathers or, more generally, the use of Inidans as mascots, which I really don’t get worked up about.

It’s the red skin, the exaggerated nose, and the giant teeth, all of which have long been used in the same way as blackface and white lips for blacks and yellow skin and slanted eyes for Asians.

The Indians have the freedom to continue to use Chief Wahoo if they wish, but they are only going to get a minimal amount of support from me as long as they do.

chief wahoo reminds me so much of toothpaste they sell in some asian countries.

http://depthwish.com/public/General/darkie.jpg

and i love how colgate owns the company that makes it..and boy did they do a half-assed job of fixing the racism.

Craig, fair enough as always. I guess my thinking is, why is this even an issue?

Isn’t ignoring it the best way to consign it to irrelevance. People bring it up to advance some agenda of their own, in most cases, not because they personally have an issue with it.

I just wonder why shows like ‘My Name Is Earl’, that mock and ridicule white people are considered perfectly acceptable, but no other group of people in the country can be depicted as a sterotype?

That being said, it probably should be overpainted, but not as a publiciy stunt. Just because it’s past its time.

Just in case anyone thinks I’m insensitive, I’m not. My great grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. Read this book for more.

http://www.amazon.com/Bury-My-Heart-Wounded-Knee/dp/0805066691

Ron:

I’m struggling to think of how Native Americans performing a dance for tourists is anything like Chief Wahoo.  Did you read what Craig wrote?

There have always been separate standards defining what is acceptable for how a group refers to itself and how it is referred to by others. 

Native Americans still struggle with staggering levels of poverty and limited education. Without engaging in an extended sociological debate about the nature of their current woes, I will propose that images of Native Americans that are used in an effort to co-opt their cultural values (“brave warriors”...fat lot of good it did them, huh?) are insensitive.  Images that do so in such a manner as to caricature Native Americans for entertainment value are particularly offensive.

I have noticed that we tend to accept jokes about groups who are percieved to have more power. As a young student, I had to learn to cope with images of “geeks” that were belittling, and part of that acceptance was understanding that the jokes sprung from a feeling of insecurity. It was a way for people to “get even” with a group who is, well, smarter than them.  I think the same applies to jokes minority groups make about Euro-Americans. It is simply a different set of rules when the group with more power classifies the group with less power.

This may strike individuals as unfair - I didn’t ask to be white or smart, and I am not responsible for the disparities that exist in our society - but we do have a different set of rules.  Wahoo must go. 

And the “Tomahawk Chop.”  Blech.

Thanks, Chris.  There are no really satisfying or simple answers about minority relations and getting rid of Chief Wahoo is a drop in the bucket, but it seems too easy and too obvious a gesture to pass on. 

By the way, my post could be read as meaning that EuroAmericans are smarter than minority groups, which of course is not what I meant. My point is about how groups with less power are enabled, to some degree, to poke fun at groups with more power.  The poor can mock the rich, but the rich shouldn’t mock the poor, etc.

(Go Puerto Rico!!)

Free Tibet!*

*Of equal or lesser value with purchase of a regular price Tibet.

Wade, why isn’t it ok to talk about what kinds of mascots are appropriate for MLB teams?  It’s not as if there isn’t “100% pure” baseball content on the main page. 

And the BMW reference, really?  Can we put that in the bin along with the bloggers-in-their-mother’s-basements reference and agree never to use it again?

Wade - sorry my reply touched a nerve.

No, the talk was not about what an appropriate mascot would be, but about why some of us feel that Chief Wahoo is an inappropriate mascot.

I’m pretty sure you mean “politically correct” as a put-down.  I’m not sure what is so bad about wanting to avoid using images of a culture without considering the culture. 

I am not so sure what you mean by “you’ll never make everybody happy.” As it pertains to mascots, it seems to be fairly easy to make people happy.  There’s only one mascot in the MLB that anyone seems to have a problem with, and they’ve thought of several since Chief Wahoo was installed.

I agree that the topic is old. They should just change it, already! In the meantime, “letting it go means” agreeing that it’s ok. Can’t do it.

Glad you felt compelled to mention my “whit” and whimsy. I probably should use more folksy slang online. It would probably make me more tolerable. But darn it all, a gal’s gotta be what she is!

Peace out!