The Washington Redskins have been under attack for their team nickname, and now the Cleveland Indians are finding themselves in a similar position.
Robert Roche, a Chiricahua Apache and director of the American Indian Education Center, is planning to file a federal lawsuit in late July against the Cleveland Indians organization. Roche leads the People Not Mascots activist group and says the lawsuit will challenge the team’s name and Chief Wahoo logo for being racist.
“We’re going to be asking for $9 billion and we’re basing it on a hundred years of disparity, racism, exploitation and profiteering,” Roche told ABC 5 in Cleveland.
The Indians have drifted from using the Chief Wahoo logo to the block C, but Roche still sees problems.
“What they’re doing is using the C, but for the most part, they’re still selling it. It’s still the Cleveland Indians. It’s still using the racist logo, and they’re making well over $200 million a year,” Roche says.
The Indians had no comment on the story at the time.
If Cleveland wants to maintain the feel of their nickname, they should probably just call themselves the Cleveland Tribe. That’s a general enough nickname that should not be considered offensive, and it still would have ties to the old nickname.
Like Washington, they probably will end up changing things.
H/T Eye on Baseball
