Opinion: Is Chief Wahoo, of the Cleveland Indians, racist?
Travis Willman, Assistant Editor
Courtesy of Unsplash.com.
The views and opinions expressed on in this article are solely those of the original author. These views and opinions do not necessarily represent those of The Vision NGU or North Greenville University.
America’s passime has been baseball for decades, drawing over 30,000 people per game since 2009, according to Statista.
Baseball has been a place for the average American to hang out with friends and families and enjoy the simpler ideas in life. During the baseball season, friends and family gather around the grill to cook hotdogs, burgers and other meals, while enjoying life and making friends.
Over the years, baseball has been largely unaffected by the growing negative political climate of America. However, that is not true anymore. Breaking, what some would say a political free sport, the Cleveland Indians have announced that they are removing Chief Wahoo from all of their uniforms starting in 2019. The reason behind this is the growing political racial climate of the country and protests from local Native American’s in the Cleveland area.
Other sports teams such as the Atlanta Braves and Washington Redskins (NFL) have come under similar scrutiny for using racial logo’s and names. But are these teams really being racist or being true to America’s history?
I believe these teams are being true to America’s history and helping make sure that this history does not get lost. Whether a person is being racist or not, all depends on their intentions.
I do not think for one second that these teams would have been allowed to have American Indian names if they were trying to be racist. This issue would have come up a long time ago and other signs of racism would be present.
“Tribes such as the Seminole tribe, which has a strong connection to the University of Florida State Seminoles, think of the names as respectful and reverent as long as the name is being used to promote their culture,” according to the Washington Post. The Seminole Tribe has agreed to let the University use their name as long as the tribe can promote their culture during campus events. Even though the Cleveland Indians may not be promoting the culture of the local Indian tribes, they are far from disgracing them.
Can everything really be racist? If we all look hard enough, we can find something that might be taken as racist. Does this mean we protest and get upset over this? No. If that was the case then no one could work or have normal lives.
The problem with labeling everything as racist is that everyone cannot be happy. If everything is racist, then we lose a major portion of American history. Political correctness has taken over American with dire consequences. If we forget history, then we are bound to repeat it and forget about the Native Americans all together.
A 2016 Washington Post poll that surveyed a random national sample of 504 Native American adults found that nine in 10 respondents were “not bothered” by the Washington Redskins football team’s name. There is a small minority that has a loud voice because of the silence of the majority. The majority is silent because they have families to feed, work to be done and more important things to do then worry about a logo on a sports team that they might have never heard of.
Do not get me wrong, racism is an issue in America today, but the way to fix it is not by taking the rights away from the American people. The way to fix it is to allow the American people to learn about Native American culture, the African-American culture and other cultures that make up America. To do this we must allow ourselves to be surrounded by names such as “The Braves”, “the Wahoo’s”, “The Seminoles”, and “The Redskins”.
