The Online Newspaper of Lakewood High School

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Rest in Peace, Chief.

    Rest in Peace, Chief.

    Cleveland’s own, Chief Wahoo, has been with the Cleveland Indians for over 75 years. So why is he just now becoming an issue?

    Truth is, this has been an issue for quite some time, but no one has really paid attention to it until now.

    Claims have been made that the Chief Wahoo symbol is an inappropriate Major League Baseball symbol. It has also been said that he is outdated, racist, and offensive.

    People have used many reasons to back up their claims.

    One major issue with the Chief is a majority of people found him very racist. People claimed that the entire logo itself was very offensive to the Native American culture.

    This topic became, not only nationwide, but worldwide when activist in Canada, Douglas Cardinal, had filed a federal human rights complaint against the logo. Cleveland decided on not featuring the Chief during one of the Major League Baseball playoff games that happened to take place in Toronto, Canada. They stated that the uniform change was a decision made by the Cleveland Indians organization, not by the Major League Baseball organization.

    Cleveland’s head coach, Terry Francona, stated that they never meant for the logo to be disrespectful but he knew changing the uniform for that four game series was the right thing to do.

    The Indians took the field for the first time without their beloved Chief on Thursday, which was when the series begun in Toronto.

    Even students at Lakewood High School are upset over this controversial topic. “It sucks! I want to get the Chief tattooed on my arm!” Said senior Christian Bendahan.

    Even though they are fading away from Chief Wahoo, the people are still not pleased. They expected for the league to do more. They wanted the Indians to change their franchise entirely, as in changing their team name and getting rid of their logo but that is not going to happen.

     

     

     

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