Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Indians *scalp* Red Sox

I'm not a big stickler for political correctness, but if Native American coalitions can get Chief Illiniwek banned, couldn't they do something about this?


Tony Dejak/AP

That was on ESPN's frontpage all morning. I'm surprised there hasn't been more brouhaha over the Cleveland baseball club's mascot, especially considering the ruckus raised in 1991 over Atlanta's use of the tomahawk chop. Also, evidence suggests the Indians are not named after Louis Sockalexis, which means they've been propagating an Abner Doubleday-like myth for decades. Oh, and the mascot's name is Chief Wahoo. Chief Wahoo. This doesn't bother enough people for some media outlet to report on it?

Maybe I'm just underestimating people.

2 comments:

  1. Funny you should bring this topic up. Actually, one of our own (from Kansas City) traditional journalists addressed this very problem, albeit in an untraditional, new media way: Joe Posnanski gave his take on this topic on his blog. He gave a very insightful and interesting angle to it, which is all the more credible because he grew up in Cleveland.
    Check it out at http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2007/10/17/wahoo/.

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  2. People in the Native community have been following the playoffs with interest. You can find comments on Chief Wahoo in Indian Country Today, Indianz.com, and my own Newspaper Rock blog.

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