Indian Reservations
Is it time for a (Cleveland) Indians name change?
In early July, the NFL Redskins announced the decision to change their name. The Washington owner, just a few years ago, said he’d consider changing the name never. The time collapse seemed to arrive overnight, driven by pressure from corporate sponsors — for one, Fed Ex.
Days later the MLB Cleveland Indians tweeted “recent social unrest” as opportunity for a “best path forward” regarding their name.
Crystal Echo Hawk is a Pawnee. She founded illuminatives.org, a nonprofit initiative designed to “increase the visibility of – and challenge the negative narrative about – Native Nations and Native peoples in American society.” She sponsors research on the effects of American Indian imagery on children. A peer-reviewed research poll conducted a few years ago showed 65% of Native youth are highly offended and opposed to Native mascots.
Traditionalists cite a 2004 Annenberg Public Policy Center poll that found nine out of 10 Native Americans were not offended by the Redskins name.
In a July 7th “editorial board roundtable”, eight writers for the Cleveland Plain Dealer weighed in. Four said yes, change the name. One said no, bad timing, citing recent public distaste for the “money-grubbing” pandemic re-start negotiations. The other three hedged: one said we should assess our values, another suggested educational displays, and the last offered, oddly, that the name wasn’t important.
Hundreds of secondary schools call themselves Indians in the U.S. And as of 2014, more than fifty use Redskins, of which three were majority Native American schools. Dan Snyder had offered one, the Red Mesa (Arizona) Redskins football team, a free flight across the country to attend an NFL Redskins game. They accepted.
At the time, Red Mesa High’s water fountains were cut off due to arsenic and uranium contamination.
Water and other resources in the Ohio River Valley were historically a source of conflict. In Ohio’s Social Studies Curriculum, grade 4, the Content Statement:
Various groups of people have lived in Ohio over time including American Indians, migrating settlers and immigrants. Interactions among these groups have resulted in cooperation, conflict, and compromise.
Ohio Model Curriculum, Social Studies, Grade 4, Strand History, Topic Heritage
Six historic Indian tribes are listed. Are you smarter than a 4th grader? Quick Quiz #1: How many of the six Ohio tribes can you name?
- Answer: Delaware, Miami, Ottawa, Seneca, Shawnee, Wyandot.
Four northeast Ohio Native American organizations support change to “eliminate harmful and racist Native American sports mascots, names, and imagery.” Quick quiz #2: How many Indian reservations exist in Ohio today?
- Answer: Zero. Seneca, New York the nearest.
In the 4th grade curriculum are three migrating settler/immigrant groups. Quick Quiz #3: Name the immigrants.
- Answer: English, Scots-Irish, German.
My mom’s mother was German, her father Scots-Irish, or Scotch-, as mom says.
I grew up, as far as I know, among no Native Americans. Nor have I had a Native American in fifteen years of teaching high school in Georgia. Not that I’ve polled.
In addition to poverty, health inequity, and domestic abuse, another problem Crystal Echo Hawk lists: invisibility.
American Indians went unseen on the 1830 US Census form, only three categories: free white persons, slaves, and free colored persons. Half a century later, Louis Sockalexis was noticed by the Cleveland Spiders for his speed and power and recognized on the 1890 census, eight categories: white, black, mulatto, quadroon, octoroon, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian.
The 1960 Census form listed ten races: White, Negro, American Indian, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Hawaiian, part-Hawaiian, Aleut, Eskimo.
In 1963’s Letter from a Birmingham jail, MLK Jr. used Negro 34 times.
On the 1970 Census form, Negro was changed to Negro or Black.
Clearly, word connotations change. I believe die-hard Cleveland fans who cling to the 103-year-old mascot harbor no ill will toward Native Americans. It can be easy to attach to what’s always been. But Chief Wahoo is gone and was that so bad?
I was once a die-hard adoring Wahoo. At twelve, my dad took me to my first ballgame at Municipal Stadium. I remember the drive along the lakeshore, the walk from the muni lot, feeling small, a tween disciple hailed by his sport gods to the cavernous dreary cathedral. Granted passage through Gate D beneath the raised left cleat of a bat-wielding, red-faced Chief Wahoo, I remember feeling awe, captivated by the grass, that such a lawn could grow, let alone thrive, luxuriant, ensconsed in the belly of all that drab concrete and steel. I saw things for the first time: huge banks of lights, waving pennants from all teams, towering foul poles, choreographed grounds crew on the trot in navy shorts and kneesocks dragging hoses and rakes, vendors tossing foiled hot dogs, money passed among strangers, a fourth outfielder for the looping warmup toss, umpire chat between innings, on-deck batters racking donuts, the smack of a scorching 90 mph fastball into a catcher’s mitt, the swing, the split-second delay before — crack — the tremendous arc of my first homerun, courtesy of larger-than-life Andre Thornton, a white orb floating through summer sky by the lakeshore.
Duane Kuiper bent his knees at second base. We share birthdays. I discovered this factoid on the back of a baseball card some forty years ago. I’ve never forgotten. Google confirmed, though small comfort, like googling gravity and learning it’s an attractive force that compels everything: atom balls and cans of corn, ducks on a pond, and kids drawn to their heroes.
Over a decade later, my late twenties, I bought season tickets. My first season was the Indians last in Municipal Stadium. They were getting good and they were moving out. Opening day at the Jake in 1994, I watched Bill Clinton throw the first pitch. I kept the game ticket.
At thirty, I sold my tickets to my childhood friends and relocated to Atlanta where I met a gorgeous brown-eyed brunette after a night game in late October. It was game six of the ’95 Indians-Braves World Series. Glavine got the win, eight innings in a 1-0 shut-out. Cleveland got another runners-up. I got a wife.
At forty, I left a career in manufacturing (with Sherwin-Williams, corporate sponsor of the MLB Indians) for one in education to teach high school science.
First day of class, I ask students for personal information, a poll of sorts: why they’re taking my class, study habits, future goals, hobbies. My favorite question I save for last. Complete the sentence, “One thing Mr. Hogya would be surprised to know about me is…”
Maybe five years ago, at fifty, I found a familiar surname on my roster. I had shared my background, how I met my wife the night of Game Six. The familiar named student wrote, “One thing Mr. Hogya would be surprised to know about me is that my dad closed out that game.”
Last year a student confessed, “One thing Mr. Hogya would be surprised to know is I am the only South American in all my classes.” He was a class clown and huge D-Wade and Miami Heat fan.
The sports fanatics notice the Cleveland mugs and hats stored behind the glass cabinets in my classroom. They ask am I fan. I sense their deflation as I reluctantly confess to a waning fanaticism. They really want to bond over professional sports. But claiming a burning love for “my Indians” poses problems: one, it’s false. I can name more players from the ’77 roster than today’s. And two, I can imagine a first generation Asian Indian student cultured on futbol or cricket raising his or her hand, saying “What are you, some sort of Asian-o-phile?”
On occasion, I’ll hear an Asian Indian student refer to his or her ethnic fellows collectively as “the Browns.” It’s always said in a light-hearted, yet meaningful way, a mixture of pride and deference. An admission that yes we hang together, we share a common experience, but we can see ourselves from your perspective too.
On the 1980 Census form, Asian Indian was added along with Vietnamese, Guamanian, and Samoan.
Of course the word “Color” has evolved in meaning. Color was a race descriptor on the census for over 100 years. In 1990 the census changed the data item from “color or race” to “race”.
A student once shared, “One thing Mr. Hogya would be surprised to know about me is that I cannot see the color purple.” I’d never heard of this. A unique form of color-blindness or one helluva beef against Oprah.
On the 2020 Census form, there is a box for “White”, a box for “Black or African American”, and a box for “American Indian or Alaska Native.” Below American Indian, a string of boxes to write in the tribe name.
I recently read an article suggesting a mascot change from the Cleveland Indians to the Municipals. It referenced the analogous New York Metropolitans, the Mets. But come on, the Munis?
As for Redskins, here’s an exercise, try alternate colors. Blueskins? Reminds me of the indigenous bumblers in the Margaret Atwood novel, Oryx and Crake. Greenskins, think banknotes. Orangeskins, walking fruit. Hard pass on all colorskins.
You don’t remove a Native mascot because it will add jobs to the reservation in New York or decontaminate drinking water in Arizona. You change because you don’t want a race of people for your team’s mascot. It’s only decent.
I recently named my dog Gypsy. She’s mostly black and casts spells with her one blue eye. No one bats an eye here, but I wonder if, sharing my dog’s name in Europe, a Roma wouldn’t tilt their head.
Words evolve. In my physics classroom, I can’t talk about friction and retarding forces without pausing to clarify, not only the physical meaning of “retard” — to slow or hinder — but the word’s place in the evolution of disability language: from mongoloid to feeble-minded to retarded to developmentally disabled to exceptional. What was once acceptable, no longer is. Connotations change.
Final question: can you name the current Stanford University mascot?
Stanford’s nickname is “cardinal,” the color, not the bird. Did you guess, tree? The tree is unofficial. Officially, Stanford goes without a mascot. Kind of like today’s NFL Washington “Football Team.” Stanford’s last official mascot? Indians.
Here’s what Ombudsperson Lois Amsterdam presented in a petition to Stanford President Lyman in February of 1972. She added her own understanding of the issue:
Stanford’s continued use of the Indian symbol in the 1970’s brings up to visibility a painful lack of sensitivity and awareness on the part of the University. All of us have in some way, by action or inaction, accepted and supported the use of the Indian symbol on campus. We did not do so with malice, or with intent to defile a racial group. Rather, it was a reflection of our society’s retarded understanding, dulled perception and clouded vision. Sensitivity and awareness do not come easily when childish misrepresentations in games, history books and motion pictures make up a large part of our experience.
Maybe it’s not surprising that a Bay area university was out ahead of a midwestern Major League franchise on this one. But 48 years ahead? Glacial pace or not, tribe fans, it’s time. Can I get a howl-out for the Cleveland Moondogs?