Angels 9, Indians 3: Trout turns Tribe into dogs at Puppypalooza
June 18, 2014Cavalier NBA Draft Film Room: Andrew Wiggins
June 18, 2014
I’ve been keeping up with a lot of the news around the NFL and the Redskins team name because it’s all a part of the cultural shift that I’m positive will end up impacting the Cleveland Indians’ mascot, Chief Wahoo. Today, Dan Snyder’s football team seems to have lost a big battle in his efforts to keep the name. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has canceled six federal trademark registrations.
“The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board agreed with our clients that the team’s name and trademarks disparage Native Americans. The Board ruled that the Trademark Office should never have registered these trademarks in the first place,” Jesse Witten, the plaintiffs’ lead attorney, said in a press release. “We presented a wide variety of evidence – including dictionary definitions and other reference works, newspaper clippings, movie clips, scholarly articles, expert linguist testimony, and evidence of the historic opposition by Native American groups – to demonstrate that the word ‘redskin’ is an ethnic slur.”
I certainly would expect Dan Snyder and the Redskins to continue to fight and appeal and continue their quest to keep the name, but it’s really hard to see this ending in his favor.
It’s much more difficult to see this same tactic being applied to the Cleveland Indians. While some might find their use of “Indians” as offensive, it would be difficult to prove that it is a slur. There’s always been some grey area around the name Indians and how it might or might not be able to survive. Chief Wahoo on the other hand just can’t survive in a culture that seems pretty definitively settled that the name “Redskins” is a slur.
Chief Wahoo is a Cleveland Indians trademark and you have to think that a Native American group will follow the lead of this latest challenge and do the same with regard to the embattled Indians mascot.
[Related: It’s time to say goodbye to Chief Wahoo]
33 Comments
I’d like to see us get ahead of the curve on this and make a change before we are “forced” to do so.
Also, I was reminded the other day that ESPN is using the block C for our avatar instead of Chief Wahoo (an ad for Sunday night baseball or whatever). The very next ad was a sportscenter commercial (i think the one where the soccer players are walking the kids through the halls of ESPN) and I noticed in one scene there is a Redskins pennant prominently displayed on the wall. I don’t think that was an accident or coincidence. I find it laughable that ESPN tries to be the moral standard bearer and then features the Redskins logo prominently in a commercial.
To be fair, I’d consider Chief Wahoo to be a much more offensive caricature than the Redskins’ logo. I could see the Redskins’ changing the name but keeping the logo, while the Indians change the logo but keep the name.
Wow, I’m tired of the whole thing. Change it already. Players change, uniforms change- heck even stadiums change. When I’ve dealt with the loss of an entire franchise, this seems like small potatoes.
I get it- I’m a little embarrassed every time I see Cleveland fans in “redface” – and then say that it honors a race of people.
As long as “Cleveland” is still in the name- I could care less (well maybe not if it were the “Pelicans,” lol).
ok, well the banner had REDSKINS in all caps…better? And I don’t think people are going to be splitting hairs like that. if (when) either changes, its going to be something completely different (I’m guessing)
My main point with that is that ESPN sucks
Seems Snyder’s smartest pure business move would be to get out in front of this thing, to the extent he still can.
Dude – “red,” “skin.” What part of that physical descriptive masquerading as a name isn’t transparently offensive? That level of offensive trumps any thumb-sucking about your name tradition. Because that tradition (like the Wahoo caricature tradition) started at a time when people were woefully ignorant about other cultures.
Dude – make some money. Change the name, change the logo, and do it proudly with a mea culpa. Sophomore sociology coeds who loath NFL violence will buy the new jerseys and caps to celebrate your awakening. For a few months you’ll be the Andrew Cuomo of sports. Cha-ching, dude, cha-ching.
Which six of the Redskins trademarks were canceled? If they all had the phrase “Redskins” on them, I don’t think Chief Wahoo’s trademark will be fought…
Which six of the Redskins trademarks were canceled? If they all had the phrase “Redskins” on them, I don’t think Chief Wahoo’s trademark will be fought…
Time to put on my Frowns hat: the Washington logo really isn’t a caricature as a caricature, by definition, attempts to make a person look silly by accentuating physical features. For Wahoo, it’s the nose, grin, red skin, etc. The Redskins logo is more a portrait (I’m not sure if it’s of a real or fictitious person).
Time to put on my Frowns hat: the Washington logo really isn’t a caricature as a caricature, by definition, attempts to make a person look silly by accentuating physical features. For Wahoo, it’s the nose, grin, red skin, etc. The Redskins logo is more a portrait (I’m not sure if it’s of a real or fictitious person).
“Seems Snyder’s smartest pure business move would be to…”
lol, Dan Snyder and smart pure business moves
“Seems Snyder’s smartest pure business move would be to…”
lol, Dan Snyder and smart pure business moves
I think he’s still cutting checks for Albert Haynesworth’s weekly ice cream deliveries
I think he’s still cutting checks for Albert Haynesworth’s weekly ice cream deliveries
it is amazing how so many modern self-made gazillionaires totally forget their business acumen when they buy a sports team. Makes me appreciate the old school hard-asses like Dick and Dave Jacobs all the more.
Word. But it’s hard when there are two competing internal forces at war. The first faction of inner Dan, ego, seems to be winning over the money-thirst/business acumen. That type of ego in sports owners (Sterling!) will undoubtedly make us pry the Redskins name from his cold dead hands.
As much as I cannot stand the 4 letter network I have to defend them here. The Tribe’s official logo is the block C, so in your example ESPN was using the official logo for each team. They were being consistent here.
Forbes numbers, and all the issues with them, but the Redskins are third in team value and revenue. For all his flaws on the team building front, he’s still a very successfull businessman.
And in response to Max and Harv about getting out in front of the movement, I think Washington and Cleveland have come to the conclusion that the best business decision is not to be the one to take away the mascot, alienating large percentages of the fanbase that buy team gear. If it’s the librul gubmint who forces them to change, then the team can pretend it’s on the same side as the fans.
that’s probably it. The team is their reward for past success. Their business trophy they spoil like their trophy wife and the Bentley which gets serviced bi-monthly.
Don’t necessarily disagree. Though not sure the fanbases of Washington and Cleveland are so close in those attitudes.
Maybe not, but I still think they’ve come to the conclusion, which I agree with, that there will be more customers lost than gained by being proactive, as frustrating as it is to say that. Those sophomore sociology coeds are never going to be big revenue generators for the team. Rich old white dudes are, and they are much more likely to share the opinion that theres not a damn thing wrong with the names/logos.
a ‘successful business man’ (who, by the way, their to put WCP out of business following this piece): http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40063/the-cranky-redskins-fans-guide-to-dan-snyder
No doubt he’s an absolutely scummy dude who has serious issues building a football team, which most of those complaints seem to be about. I won’t argue with that. But he does know how to make money hand over fist.
The “redskins” name and the chief logo are embarrassing slurs, but I’m not so sure I like the idea of a panel of patent office bureaucrats having the power to decide what does/does not “deserve” trademark protection based on some nebulous notion of whether it’s “disparaging” to others.
There’s some interesting articles about how actual Native Americans feel about various logos. The Redskins and Blackhawks logos are generally well-regarded as being good representations of their culture (Seminoles too, I believe). So if the Redskins decide to change their name to something like the Warriors or Algonquins, they can actually keep the logo without much controversy.
Wahoo, not so much though.
Who do you think should decide? Patent and Trademark examiners are trained attorneys. They’re not just making arbitrary decisions. They come to decisions the same way judges do, by looking at the facts and precedent.
As the article notes, “We presented a wide variety of evidence – including dictionary definitions and other reference works, newspaper clippings, movie clips, scholarly articles, expert linguist testimony, and evidence of the historic opposition by Native American groups – to demonstrate that the word ‘redskin’ is an ethnic slur.”
You yourself referred to the name and logo as slurs above, so I’m unclear as to why you then referred to a “nebulous notion” of disparagement.
The grant of a trademark confers an exclusive monopoly for use in trade. It affords the holder a great deal of protection, and scrutiny should be strict. The Lanham act decided more than 70 years ago that protection would not be accorded to disparaging language, so canceling a mark that in their determination should never have been awarded in the first place is entirely appropriate.
Cleveland Spiders… Make it happen
I guess I feel that trademark and patent protection should be content-neutral, and find the idea of a value-judgement component off-putting. It also seems like a process that could be abused to undermine a competitor or squelch controversial speech. Obviously, I’m not as well versed in patent and trademark law as I should be.
What’s ESPN?
sigh…I know. I fell dirty
Ok you are 100% correct about that. mea culpa. However, taking the Tribe out of this, they have plenty of “analysts” on displaying their indignity that the Redskins are still a thing, and yet, they have a commercial where they could have picked any one of 31 other teams’ names and logos to show and picked the Redskins. Much adoo about nothing, but I hate hypocrisy like that when I have nothing better to do.
Having know several people who have been or still are patent examiners, they are not (all) trained attorneys. They are instead degree’d people with knowledge in the field they review. For instance, the 3 people who I know were all engineers or computer science majors.
However, I agree that the USPTO should be making the call on what is trademarked and what is not. They have a legal mandate to control trademarks in the country.
“Value-judgment” is an essential task of government. The judgment at issue here is merely a decades overdue decision by the government to remove its protection of a racist trademark. There is no slippery slope here.
I love Wahoo because he was my childhood, but he’s pretty freaking awful. Has to go. And I agree with max: Tribe should be proactive here, not reactive.
Cleveland Spiders in 2015!