Cleveland Indians Removing Logo By 2020. Good Idea?

For many years the Cleaveland Indians have been the preeminent example of negative Native American stereotypes in regards to sports teams. This is primarily due to the logo which is an obvious caricature of a stereotypical Native American warrior. The mascot logo is named Chief Wahoo. The Indians have worn the simple C shown below on thier caps for a few years now in anticipation of the inevitable phase out of Chief Wahoo.

Similar to the Redskins controversy the Indians logo has its supporters as well as detractors. Not to say money makes it OK but many of these teams have given large amounts of money to Native American charities and groups to assist Native Americans. Also various polls and studies have been done that conclude that non-native people see more offended by these names and logos than native people. The logo below was the old Cleveland Indians logo, which seemed even more offensive than the current one.

The good news is that as time goes on we as a culture are trying to root out negativity and try to understand why we must always strive to have more positive depictions of all people. I’ll write more on this subject in the coming days. I think that to better understand this issue we should look at other Native team names in the larger context.