Please Cleveland: go back to Indians?

[todeen]

Originally Posted by Seven

I think it's because of the negative connotation behind the word "Indians" and how the Native American people were portrayed by a cartoonish, chief like character. I'm going to leave it at that because I do not wish to discuss politics, here on the board. I will say that I think many people fail to realize that the name change was meant to honor Louis Sockalexis, the first Native American to play in the Major Leagues. He was from the Penobscot tribe, if they really wanted to change the name, I thought it would have been cool had they worked with the tribe to arrive at a new name, or simply gone back to the Spiders or Naps.

Agree with everything. Also wanted the Spiders.

Caricature/stereotypical figures are always racist. Think Lil Sambo, black face, or Shylock from the Merchant of Venice. Chief Wahoo was racist from his creation in 1949, and MLB allowed it to exist beyond what the normal public was comfortable with. I was only able to get a WS patch hat of Chief Wahoo, and my wife asks me to not wear it everytime I want to go out in public with it.

I think if MLB had acted a decade or two earlier, they could have saved the team name. A great example is MiLB team Spokane Indians who have worked very hard to create a respectful relationship with the local tribe. This relationship was built over many years while Cleveland did nothing similar. The team mascot is a salmon, and they have occasional jerseys written in the native language, plus other cool things.

If you want an interesting read, African American historian Henry Louis Gates writes about caricatures and black face in his historical book STONY THE ROAD, and explains how Southern Leaders used caricatures/black face/and stereotypes during post-Civil War Reconstruction to invalidate the right of African Americans to vote.

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