OT: Cleveland Indians to retire Chief Wahoo logo
It was just announced that Cleveland will be retiring the Chief Wahoo logo starting in 2019. Always an interesting topic of debate, especially with Dan Snyder seeming so unwilling to bend on a mascot/name that seems even more offensive than Cleveland's.
Since they're a division rival of Detroit's, we see them quite a bit each season, and it defintely seems that they've already been de-emphasizing Chief Wahoo in recent years, with the block 'C' logo becoming more prominent on their caps and uniforms.
Thought this might be of interest to some of the baseball fans on the board.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/29/sports/baseball/cleveland-indians-chief-wahoo-logo.html
January 29th, 2018 at 2:49 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:37 PM ^
This isn't even in the same league as the Indians. The Indians couldn't even come up with a tribe, except for being referred to as The Tribe. And you probably couldn't come up with a more over-the-top racist caricature than their mascot.
January 29th, 2018 at 11:28 PM ^
Hurons was one of the coolest and most unique names in sports. Really cool, and I'm part indian.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:20 PM ^
One of the best logos in sports, sad to see it go.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:31 PM ^
There's nothing "great" or "best" about a racist caricature. Chief Wahoo will go down in history with minstrelsy, blackface, and slanty-eyed gestures.
Good riddance.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:21 PM ^
Cowards.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:23 PM ^
I don't understand what the big deal is all about? Aren't these Native American team mascots just another way for us to celebrate the time these First Nations tribes made an agreement with us to give us their land, because they had too much and we needed some???
January 29th, 2018 at 2:26 PM ^
That is something.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:30 PM ^
An actual, factual Canadian textbook. Here's the snopes:
https://www.snopes.com/2017/11/01/did-a-childrens-textbook-say-canadas-first-nations-moved/
January 29th, 2018 at 2:39 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:43 PM ^
That textbook is...um...inaccurate.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:56 PM ^
Not at all! They "agreed" to move out (at the point of a gun - or several).
January 29th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:30 PM ^
Looks like a Canadian history textbook? Going to guess Canadian Texas, so Alberta?
January 29th, 2018 at 2:54 PM ^
It's accurate, it's just missing the words 'at gunpoint'.
January 29th, 2018 at 6:46 PM ^
Canada: Where even the forcibly removed indigenous people are still incredibly polite.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:23 PM ^
The logo is a cartoony caricature that offends people of Native American and non-Native American descent. I love when people say they're "honoring" a race of people by using an outdated, goofy and often stereotypical version of something to give a visual interpretation to masses of people.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:33 PM ^
and I always felt the Indians logo was an insult, and as you aptly put it "a cartoony caricature."
January 29th, 2018 at 2:48 PM ^
Right, there is the concept of honoring a local Native American tribe. In Michigan especially, there was a lot of interaction (some fine, some terrible) with Native American tribes, and some things like the name Washtenaw county sprang from those interactions. So there is at least a plausible good faith argument for wanting to honor a local tribe.
But simply put, the Cleveland logo is an embarrassment to our society because it is nothing more than a ridiculous inaccurate caricature. It's been around so long people just accept it as normal, and it has been, but it won't be.
January 29th, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:32 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:36 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:54 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 3:05 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 3:07 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 3:21 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 4:05 PM ^
Always heard that Billy Ocean was kind of a dick.
January 29th, 2018 at 3:16 PM ^
so you still have the intellect and emotional capacity of a child? nice
January 29th, 2018 at 3:35 PM ^
Yeah the guy whose poltiical praxis doesnt center around policing cartoons is the child
And the people who all "find Jesus" on whatever cartoon at the exact same time it becomes fashionable to do so are the free thinking "adults in the room"
I hate having politics here, but at some point I may have to start bursting child-like group think bubble that has pervaded my university(and thus my football message board)
January 29th, 2018 at 3:44 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^
My position is that I dont really give a shit about a cartoon one way or the other.
The vast majority of ACTUAL INDIANS dont give a shit either, so actually some people do agree with me.
Maybe you can civilize these "ignorant" ..native americans...about how offensive they are being...to themselves.....
I am sure the real Indians, who polling shows don't give a shit, will appreciate the Trickle Down Social Justice they will receive once you and your comrades win the Cartoon Wars.
January 29th, 2018 at 4:19 PM ^
in addition to "smart set" I like to include "empathetic and compassionate"
So just because a small gesture doesn't fix all the problems means it can't be done? Many solutions take a multiude of steps.
While many Native Americans don't take acute offense to the logo. There is a greater pshycological impact of the many caricatures of Native Americans on how society perceives them, which in turns affects the plight of many of their lives.
Also if you actually cared about what the majority of them think, I'm not so sure you would continue calling them Indians.
edit: ah he edited his rant, so my first sentence doesn't fit anymore
January 29th, 2018 at 4:53 PM ^
I think having peoples urge to help the less fortunate and the oppressed diverted to "taking on Big Cartoon" is not helpful, is infantiile, and distracts from real issues and standing up to actual power/structural problems.
I am sure your Cartoon War Victory will provide a great psychological boost to the Natives who you admit dont give a shit. I am told it will alter the collective psychology, and I look forward to you citing your sources or breaking that down a bit more because surely its a big win for Trickle Down Social Justice.
There are people who are well-intentioned who get sucked into this, usually very young and naive, and there are people like yourself who just use it to feel morally superior to people who don't read Tumblr everyday to find out the new language so they can avoid WrongSpeak
Which brings me again to how dumb you are. You attempt to feel superior to me because I used the term Indian to describe Indians.
The typical Cartoon Warrior starts with being offended with Redskins, but it quickly devolves into a race to see who can be most offended until someone like you chastises me for referring to Indians as...Indians..
Bad news though:
Why don't you checkout the literal first google result on the matter, courtesy of the Alt-Right Hate Site PBS.com:
Nor did the word Indian fall out of favor with the people it described. A 1995 Census Bureau survey that asked indigenous Americans their preferences for names (the last such survey done by the bureau) found that 49 percent preferred the term Indian, 37 percent Native American, and 3.6 percent "some other name." About 5 percent expressed no preference.
Moreover, a large number of Indians actually strongly object to the term Native American for political reasons. In his 1998 essay "I Am An American Indian, Not a Native American!", Russell Means, a Lakota activist and a founder of the American Indian Movement (AIM), stated unequivocally, "I abhor the term 'Native American.'"
Who is problematic now?
January 29th, 2018 at 4:54 PM ^
Mmm Thanksgiving and pilgrims and Indians and pumpkin pie. Those Indians sure knew how to put on a good feast for us. Here we said, please take these smallpox infected blankets as a token of our appreciation (wink wink) and in a couple hundred years, maybe we'll even name one of our baseball teams after you with a logo that makes us laugh when we think of you. If you're lucky, maybe we'll let you gamble our currency tax free.
- Uncle Sam
January 29th, 2018 at 5:10 PM ^
Save some tofurkey for me at the next Un-Thanksgiving (this is a real holiday, google it)
Your comment is somewhat non-responsive, but I will take it as an opportunity to condemn the entirely of human history for, tragically, being largely violent, warring, and tribalistic.
I would also like to condemn the present for its ... cartoons.
January 29th, 2018 at 5:11 PM ^
Re-read my comment and just try to think, from the viewpoint of someone other than yourself, why they could be offended by the logo.
There is nothing to defend in the case of the Cleveland Indians and Chief Wahoo. It's the laziest and most stereotypical combination of a team name and mascot that you could come up with. It only exists now because it existed before and that's not a good enough reason to keep it around.
January 29th, 2018 at 8:25 PM ^
If I care about those who are unjustly afflicted...I should conform to the cartoon preferences of priviliged upper middle class clods who don't belong to (and directly contradict the opinion of) the group in question. I see...
I would love to see our society evolve to provide opportunity for every child born into a tough situation, and I dont need to sift through millenia and adjudicate humanity's neverending string of tribalistic wars to do so.
I also don't think the best way to do so is to channel so-called activists energy into nitpicking cartoons and deluding themselves into thinking that matters, but youre the Genius at Work
January 29th, 2018 at 3:50 PM ^
I was only responding to him saying that because we all thought the logo was cool when we were kids that we should be ok with it now.
And yes, I don't mind being on the side that is "policing cartoons" when it comes to calling out a logo that mocks a group of people who have faced the injustice that they have for two centuries plius
January 29th, 2018 at 3:43 PM ^
What's funny is that you actually named the exact issue at stake, but you can't quite intellectually process it. It's absurd that kids grow up in America thinking it's a cool logo. I don't blame the kids of course, they're kids. But once you grow up, you realize what the logo actually is and what it represents. Or hopefully you do at least.
January 29th, 2018 at 5:46 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:34 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:37 PM ^
January 29th, 2018 at 2:42 PM ^
Do you have a link to that poll you can share? Not trying to start a fight. I am just genuinely curious about the poll and would like to know more. Thank you.
January 29th, 2018 at 3:05 PM ^
https://deadspin.com/washington-post-poll-9-in-10-native-americans-not-…
FWIW, it was the Redskins and not the Wahoo logo.
January 29th, 2018 at 3:10 PM ^
Redacted as it was a different poll.