Sometimes tradition gives way to common sense and timely political correctness. Cleveland Indians fans have to really hop in their time travel machines and get up to speed and stop fighting the fact that the logo which many Native Americans and people of color outside of the Cleveland area especially, find offensive, will eventually be phased out and a new more contemporary and progressive logo will be instituted.
So instead of understanding where the organization is coming from, Indians fans taunt, mocked, and screamed obscenities at Native American protesters at the home opener.
Chief Wahoo fans hurl insults at Native Americans
Cleveland Indians fans hurled insults at Native Americans and others demonstrating against Chief Wahoo during the team’s home opener on April 6, 2018.
After years of social pressure, the Cleveland Indians have finally made the decision to at least scale back the use of the Chief Wahoo logo, starting next season, when the racist caricature will be removed from uniforms, mostly so that the Cleveland Indians will be allowed to host the 2019 MLB All-Star Game.
The issue picked up steam in 2016 when the World Series was played in Cleveland and during the American League Championship Series in Toronto when Douglas Cardinal, an indigenous Canadian activist, sought a last-minute court injunction to prevent the team from using uniforms depicting the Indians name or the Chief Wahoo logo while in Toronto.
Judge Tom McEwan declined the petition, but over the past year the commissioner of baseball, Rob Manfred, has pressured Paul Dolan, Clevelands chairman and chief executive, to make a change.
Cleveland Indians Among Team Names Under Fire
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While the behavior exhibited is exactlywhy the logo needs to be eliminated, its at least a start in ending a long-raging battle between those who feel the Chief Wahoo caricature is offensive to Native Americans and those stubborn traditional, throwback baseball fans who fail to realize that its not 1970 anymore. Even if the logo brings Indian fans some sense of sports pride and nostalgic connection to the team, Native American protesters are offended and feverishly at work trying to convince the franchise and MLB to fully eradicate the potentially racist logo.
Per a cleveland.com report:
As they have for 25 years, people gathered outside Progressive Field during opening day to protest the teams name and Chief Wahoo logo, which they say are racist and dishonor the heritage of indigenous people.
Led by the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance, demonstrators marched from West 25th Street to the Ontario Avenue side of Progressive Field, where they held signs and chanted at people entering the ballpark.
Millennial baseball fans could care less about the logo. Most would prefer it to be abolished if it’s causing such a huge social stir. As baseball becomes increasingly more foreign, these philosophical and cultural differences will occur.
Erick Fernandez on Twitter
Long, long, long overdue. https://t.co/H1UyGc9tlR
It has always been a hot choice among the urban community as the colors red, white and blue fit perfectly with any outfit. The logo is recognizable and pops off any shirt, hat or jacket, but a logo change wouldn’t damage the urban fashion industry at all.
The old fogies won’t like it but will eventually get over it as they have with every other culture shift and progressive change since America’s inception. For now, theyll just continue to embarrass their kids and community on TV until their objections and racist philosophies are as dead as the era that birthed them.
