Opposition to Chief Wahoo logo grows
8/31/2000 By United Methodist News Service Opposition to Chief Wahoo, the logo for the Cleveland Indians baseball team, is growing, according to a Religion News Service article written by David Briggs, religion editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper.
Cleveland's own mayor revealed his objection to the caricature in recent weeks, Briggs reported, "but the moral groundwork had already been laid in a series of actions by black and mainline Protestant religious groups that underscored the new vulnerability of the fire-engine red, hook-nosed, bucktoothed logo many American Indians find offensive."
Meeting in Cleveland May 2-12, delegates to the United Methodist General Conference called on the team owners to remove the offensive logo and instructed planners not to hold a future conference in a city where such sports mascots exist. Several other religious groups have also expressed disfavor with the logo.
Briggs observed that those on the front lines say "the line of fear that prevented even religious groups from taking on Chief Wahoo has been crossed in a manner that parallels the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s, when black protesters gradually won over the larger community with moral persuasion."
A spokesman for the Cleveland Indians told Briggs the logo is a caricature that is not meant to represent any group of human beings.
"Our position on this would be our name and logo have been a part of the Cleveland fabric since 1915, and we continue to impress upon people that we believe when people look at our logo, they think baseball," said Bob DiBiasio, Indians vice president of public relations.
The protests go back to the 1970s, when American Indian Movement leader Russell Means organized demonstrations, Briggs wrote. Protest leaders said Chief Wahoo is demeaning to Indians and their traditions.
Briggs noted that until recently "the religious community mostly sat on the sidelines of the Wahoo debate." Local religious leaders would privately express support but would not go public in fear of offending large numbers of constituents.
When the East Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church took up the issue in 1998, a resolution to condemn Wahoo was defeated by a two-thirds majority.
In a series of electronic messages, Mayor Michael R. White and top aides expressed their disgust with "the offensive, racist symbol." The mayor proposed stripping it from city-owned property. The United Pastors in Mission, the leading group of black clergy in Greater Cleveland, came out against Wahoo, maintaining that the community should not start the 21st century with such an offensive symbol.
"We felt it was a discriminatory icon and offensive to our brothers the Indians," said the Rev. Larry Macon of Mount Zion Baptist Church, head of United Pastors in Mission. "I think this is a very essential issue."
In November, the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio approved a resolution calling for the end of Wahoo and asking churches and members not to buy any products bearing the logo. In spring 1999, the Presbytery of Western Reserve approved a resolution urging teams employing Native American imagery to choose a new logo, and also asked Presbyterians not to buy products that negatively stereotype Indians.
The United Church of Christ has been active in the fight since 1990, Briggs wrote. The denomination's Rev. Allison Phillips said different religious groups had finally put aside their fears of reprisal from members to confront the debate's moral issues.
"The bottom line is, it's always the right time to do the right thing," Phillips told Briggs. Phillips is an official of the Justice and Witness Ministries of the United Church of Christ.
Briggs' article appeared in the Aug. 25 daily report of Religion News Service, an interfaith news service based in Washington.
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