The Suddenly Disappearing Chief Wahoo
I’ve made clear my feelings on the Cleveland Indians’ logo, Chief Wahoo, before. It’s racist. It’s dumb. And it’s like rubbing salt into the considerable wounds of the many proud Native American cultures we white folks raped and pillaged on our way to building the wealthiest society in the history of the world. We’ve screwed over Native Americans enough, right? Do we really need to cling to a racist sports mascot? (For a far more eloquent take, visit the estimable JoePo’s archives.)
There have been some efforts by the Indians to tamp down Wahoo’s presence, but nothing as overt as this: Wahoo wasn’t anywhere to be seen at the Indians’ training facility in Arizona this spring. A large part of that is due to “sensitivity,” as team president Paul Dolan said, about offending Arizona’s Native American population. But could another part be an eventual phasing-out of all things Wahoo?
A city spokesperson said they followed the Indians’ marketing lead. Since the team used the script ‘I’ as its main “identifier” by putting it in front of the player development complex, the city followed suit at the ballpark . . . “We aren’t phasing Chief Wahoo out,” said Dolan. “We are introducing alternative trademarks - the script ‘I’, script ‘Indians’ and the block ‘C’. They may have had a diluting effect on Chief Wahoo, but we have no plans in place to eliminate Wahoo.”
As that Australian dude in Jurassic Park would say: Clever girl. Diluting Chief Wahoo by “introducing alternative trademarks” means you can both phase out Wahoo and not deal with sudden public backlash from people that are inexplicably emotionally tied to a racist caricature of an all-but-eradicated culture. Those people are just the worst in the world, aren’t they?
Yes. They are.
(HT: Shysterball)
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Wah racism. Let's cry about it all the time. Life is hard.
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