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The Curse of Chief Wahoo: Enabling Racist Imagery

By Roy Peter Clark

I received a compliment from a group of journalists who attended the first Unity conference in Atlanta.  One of them told me that they looked through the program, examined all the titles, and voted on the ones they thought were best. "You came in second," he said.  For the record, my title was "What I Learned about Writing from Listening to Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin."

RELATED

"Rejecting Racism: The Native Factor," by Fanua J. Borodzicz. "At Loggerheads over a Logo," by Elbert Aull, Portland Press Herald. "American Indian Sports Team Mascots." ESPN article about NCAA American Indian Mascot Ban, February 2005.

"Who came in first?" I asked.

"'What It Feels Like to Be a Mascot."

I do not know what it feels like to be a mascot because there is no sports team called "The Thundering Middle Class Catholic Boys from Long Island." We'll have to settle for The Fighting Irish, The Fightin' Whities, and the defunct Fighting Christians of Elon University (now called The Phoenix).

We all know by now of the efforts to eliminate Indian or Native American names and symbols from sports teams.  Such offensive names and images have been removed at places like Stanford, Illinois, and St. John's in New York. But we still have The Fighting Sioux of North Dakota, the Seminoles of Florida State, the Braves of Atlanta, the Blackhawks of Chicago, the Redskins of Washington, and, of course, the Cleveland Indians.

As a Yankee fan, I was rooting for the Indians to beat the Red Sox. A few days ago, it looked like a sure thing. But the Red Sox won three in a row to preserve for Cleveland a run of futility that goes back to 1948, the last time the Tribe won a World Series.

In 2004 the Red Sox came back from a 3-0 deficit, beat the Yankees four in a row and then defeated the Cardinals to win their first World Series since 1918, dispelling the famous Curse of the Bambino. [For the sports impaired, the Bambino was the great Babe Ruth. The Sox traded Ruth to the Yankees in 1918, and never won another series until 2004.]

AP

If I were a Cleveland fan, I would take one action to change the team's fortunes: I would kill Chief Wahoo, the most obnoxious icon in the history of sports. Lest you think that the PC in my initials RPC stand for Political Correctness, you should know that until now I've been a moderate on this issue. I see nothing wrong with the Florida State Seminoles (my daughter Alison graduated from there) if the name and imagery is OK with the leaders of the Seminole tribe.  And I'll stand with the Sioux in whatever they think should happen at the University of North Dakota.

[It is ironic that the earliest version of the chief was attached to Cleveland uniforms in 1947, the year before they won the Series, but also the year that Jackie Robinson broke the color line in baseball.]

So don't get me wrong. I don't think that Cleveland has to change its name to the Rockers or the Gnats. But the cartoonish caricature of a group of human beings -- signified by Chief Wahoo's red skin and big white teeth -- is the absolute equivalent of the blackface Sambo images that polluted American culture in the first half of the 20th century, and Nazi propaganda portrayals of Jews with big noses and wicked sneers.

As I watched the games televised from Cleveland, I was sickened by the video images of fans in the stands dressed up like Wahoo, childish feathers on their heads, their skin painted red, their mouths painted white, cups of beer in their hands. Even worse, was a large image of Wahoo in the grandstands, with the chief's face replaced with a photo of Cleveland veteran Kenny Lofton, who is African-American. The shills in the announcing booth praised all this as an expression of the fans' passionate support for their team.

I don't think that journalists have to wait for protests outside a stadium before they act. There is a story to be told, and it's as relevant the day after a Cleveland loss as it would be if they had gone to the series. The columnists can have their say, of course. But here's what makes Chief Wahoo news:  the so-called American pastime -- and the industries that support it -- are broadcasting and printing images that travel around the world. These images offer vicious portrayals of a race of people -- iconic representations that become associated not with shame but with triumph and joy.

Cleveland has lost again. Maybe that failure and humiliation should become known as the Curse of Chief Wahoo.

[Please offer your ideas on this puzzle: How do we make sense of a community that embraces its team even though a sign of that enthusiasm is deemed offensive? Are Washington Redskin or Cleveland Indian fans enablers of a corporate marketing tradition that ignores certain racial sensibilities in order to grow a brand and build profits?]

Add your comments here.

Full post as published by Writing Tools on October 24, 2007 (boomark / email).