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July 1, 2015No, the United Church of Christ isn’t concerned about the Cleveland Indians’ lack of hitting or their occasional bullpen woes. The UCC, conversely, has sent a stack of petitions signed by more than 1,000 people to the offices on the corner of Carnegie and Ontario this past Tuesday, calling for the team to not only remove its Chief Wahoo logo, but change its name as well.
“For decades, we have spoken out in opposition to the usage of negative stereotypes, and been active in protests against such misuse,” said the Rev. Linda Jaramillo, a UCC national officer, in a press release to the Akron-Beacon Journal. “We will continue to journey in solidarity with our brothers and sisters until this part of our body of humanity is honored and respected.”
At the denomination’s biennial General Synod gathering, which took place earlier this week at the Cleveland Convention Center, the UCC also called for the Washington Redskins NFL team to make similar changes to its team name and logo.
Headquartered in Downtown Cleveland, the UCC represents 1 million members and more than 5,000 congregations nationwide. Since 1991, the UCC has been vocal opponent of the use of Native American imagery for sports team, and has been among the groups protesting the Indians’ name and logo at each year’s home opener.
Chief Wahoo has been an Indians’ logo since 1947, but was replaced by the “Block-C” as the team’s primary mark in 2014.
10 Comments
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Note to the UCC,
The Cleveland Indians move to limit the use of Chief Wahoo has been underway for years despite their faux denials. Eventually he’ll be barely visible. As for the name Indians while I’m not sure what exactly is wrong with it considering the history of the area but we all need our crusades.
Funny. Just this morning I was in a hardware store, and when I walked in the owner was talking to a customer (who I believe is Native American) about Chief Wahoo, and it made me think back to the previous discussions on WFNY on the subject.
The customer was agreeing with the owner’s point that he didn’t feel the symbol was offensive, bringing various personal stories of having visited the Seneca population and having worked with them and them wearing Indians’ gear. He had been surprised, asked if they found it offensive, and they said that they loved it. He told another story of meeting someone in another city wearing Indians’ gear, asked if he was from CLE, and was told that in fact the person was Native American and loved Indians and Blackhawks and (more surprisingly) Redskins gear. Finally, he told of going to the house of a lawyer who represented various Native American tribes and being surprised to see he had hung up jerseys with names on them, but not names he recognized. The lawyer explained that they were jerseys given to him by various tribes with the names of the chiefs of the tribe on them. (In my own experience, one of my first time meeting a group of Native American teens they were all wearing Tribe gear.)
On the flip side, after the customer left, the owner continued on, noting that to him, when he sees the logo all he thinks is baseball, but he would imagine that we (apparently he is Jewish) would likely find it offensive if someone made a logo with sidecurls and an elongated nose for a “Jewish” team – but that he simply doesn’t believe that Wahoo was meant to be offensive and that he thinks almost anyone thinks baseball when they see the logo, not offensive stereotypes of Native Americans.
The most interesting line was as the customer was leaving, he finished the comment to him with “I believe this whole issue is pushed mostly by tree-hugging Caucasians, not Native Americans.” The customer (who again, I believe is Native American) agreed.
Publicity stunt by the UCC.
Your final-point has always been my opinion as well. However, just as there are native americans who embrace Wahoo there are also, I am sure, native americans who are offended by it.
Cue Frowns galloping in on his high horse in 3…2…1…
Chief Wahoo is culturally incorrect anyway.
I submit this as the the new logo…
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I am not a part of the culture so I cannot speak to it being incorrect or not. That is for Native Americans to determine.
THE SURPRISING CONNECTION BETWEEN THE CONFEDERATE FLAG AND CHIEF WAHOO
Native Americans also noticed the resemblance between the Confederate Flag controversy and the debate over the “Indians” name of the Cleveland Baseball Team, with Tara Houska, a tribal rights attorney, writing, “Proud tradition does not negate the racism of a flag associated with the enslavement of a people, nor does it negate the racism of a moniker that dehumanizes and slurs a people who underwent attempted eradication.”
If you’re a baseball fan who isn’t cool with state capitols proudly hoisting a banner synonymous with slavery, segregation, lynchings and hate, you shouldn’t be cool with the Indians racist logo Chief Wahoo – No matter how much you love the team.
David Jakupca of the International Center for Environmental Arts (ICEA) is the artist who designed the famous ‘People Not Mascots’ Logo in 1992
Infamous Sports Trivia:
People Not Mascots’ Logo
Artist : David Jakupca
Acrylic on Canvas 22″ x 28″ 1992 Signed Lower Right
Current Owner Lake Erie Native American Council
The ‘People Not Mascots’ Logo is meant to be a Native American protest caricature of the racists Chief Wahoo logo of the Cleveland Indians Baseball team. It was originally painted in 1992 by David Jakupca at the historic ARK in Berea for the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance along with the Lake Erie Native American Council (LENAC) incorporating elements of the Theory of Iceality on Environmental Arts.
The ‘People not Mascots’ Logo has drawn criticism from some sportswriters, fans and local businessmen, but received immediate acceptance among humanitarian, religious groups and Native Americans. The Cleveland ‘People not Mascots’ Logo gained international popular attention when it was it exhibited by ICEA at the 1993 United Nations World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna, Austria.
The Cleveland ‘People not Mascots’ Logo and has become one of the most recognized anti-racists logo in existence CHANGING FOREVER THE WAY
PEOPLE VIEW THE WORLD’S TRILLION DOLLAR SPORTS INDUSTRIES!
It also caused repercussions for the groups connected with using the logo in protest demonstrations and this has been documented in the INTERNECINE MATRIX which Cleveland City Council needs to address before The 2016 Republican Convention convenes in Cleveland.
Reference Links: INTERNECINE MATRIX http://theicea.com/page21