Cleveland's Chief Wahoo symbol is racist and dehumanizing

I would like to discuss the emergence of the Cleveland Indians baseball team's mascot Chief Wahoo that has been showing its racist face all over Oberlin's campus. It can be found plastered on the glass windows outside the health clinic, inside the health clinic, on the reception window, at the registrar's main office area and in the internal offices of that department. At one office I visited the racist caricature of an American-Indian was present everywhere I looked: on the desk, the filing cabinet - even the clock. When I have spoken to the persons responsible for these "decorations" about their offensive and racist nature, I have been told, "Oh, I never really though about it," "I guess there was something in the paper about it but I don't really remember what it said," "Oh, I don't see that as a Native American; I see it as the Cleveland Indians," or "The Native Americans should be proud of this symbol."

However, Native Americans are not proud of the symbol and for 50 years have been trying to get the name changed. It is not okay to represent people as mascots like Mickey Mouse - this is racist and dehumanizing. The logos are problematic because they perpetuate myths about American Indians that contribute to the systematic attempts to exterminate them and their cultures. Today when people think about Native-Americans they think of "Dances With Wolves" or a baseball team, not actual American-Indians who are alive today. It perpetuates America's love affair with the Indians of George Catlin's paintings and the stolen Indian artifacts in museums - these are their things! They belong to living people! All of these images and misrepresentations cloud the mind and distract people from the truth. Few people want to hear the issues Native-Americans face today. People don't want to hear about the U.S. government offering Native Americans $1 million just to consider storing nuclear waste on their land. If people get interested in Native Americans they only want to know about the ways they used to live, not the way they live now. What images are present in every day American society about Native-Americans that they themselves have created? Name three - name one? What images are present in every day American society of Native Americans that are not of Native American design - you can take a rest at 50. Why do they not have the power to speak and get their voices heard? Who is silencing them? Who is listening to them?

At the Cleveland games the symbol is the catalyst for intense abuse of Native-Americans and their traditions. While demonstrating at a Cleveland Indians game I saw mothers dressing their white kids up in Indian head dresses, painting their faces like they were in some John Wayne movie and prancing around in their little Pocohontas fantasy ignoring the voices of today's American-Indians who are telling us to look at our racist actions. Also present at the games is a little item that a beer company has chosen to market - a Styrofoam head band exhibiting a single feather. The relationship between alcohol companies and Native Americans is troubling enough, but through this mascot they have found more ways to exploit American Indians. They sell these head dresses - with the beer logo and the Chief Wahoo - and encourage lots of drunk people to make fun of American-Indian culture as they dance around trying to imitate traditional dances and teach their children to do the same. All this occurs as a never ending sea of fans yells threatening comments at the Native Americans and their supporters, purposefully smash themselves into the protesters as they make their way to a jammed packed stadium that roars with the cheer "Go Tribe!" People get hysterical about the game. Their team spirit actually gets charged as they wave their flags in the face of the Native Americans. The rivalry they feel for the other team in this night of competition bolsters their racism, and with the protection of hundreds of other fans they are given license to verbally and physically attack Native Americans.

The scene is violent. Those pictures that I see everywhere on this campus are violent. They perpetuate the myth that the Native-Americans no longer exist. They add fuel to many people's fire to continue to abuse and oppress Native American people and their culture. There are Native Americans and people from India on this campus that don't need to be confronted with this stuff when they go to the clinic or to the registrars office. I have focused mostly on the oppression of the Native Americans by the logo and the name of the baseball team, but for obvious reasons, it affects the people of India as well.

Oberlin College should not be supporting the corporate power of the Cleveland Indians' owner in his ability to continue to make bundles of money at the expense of the Native American people. Oberlin College needs to take a stand on this issue by striking the logo from all of Oberlin College property. I am asking the Oberlin College Community to take that stand and see to it that these logos are not all over a campus that advertises itself as an institution trying to fight racism. I ask that we all look at this issue and educate ourselves and others around us as to who is being hurt by this. Where can we put pressure on the owner of the team to change the name? 50 years is too long.

The fact that these posters and stickers are all the rag in this institution's administrative offices is a sign that Oberlin is seriously lacking in awareness on some of the most basic issues. Oberlin's administration is not doing enough to fight racism. Why are we losing outstanding professors like Brinda Rao? Because they can't deal with the lack of commitment to fight racism at Oberlin - especially at the administrative level.

All of these issues are examples of the institutionalized racism that we support on this campus and need to deconstruct if we are truly invested in the struggle to fight our own racism.