ainstream attention enforcing harmful cultural stereotypes? I'm sure the MLB association would say yes! But what do you say? To understand what's wrong with the Logo, let's step outside our cultural perspectives to create some equally culturally offensive teams: How about the Boston Negro Boys, the Penny Pinching Baltimore Jews, The Springfield Spanish Spics, The Williamstown Whities, or Georgia's flying Gooks. Those teams sound pretty absurd and offending. But are they any more absurd and offensive then the Cleveland Indian's logo? Hell no! Naivety assumes that the Cleveland Indians logo is harmless. Through childhood games of Cowboys and Indians, cartoon depictions, movies, and logos like that of the Cleveland Indians, enculturation leads us to unconsciously accept these images. We succumb to naivety if we accept these fallacious notions, culturally fed into brains, at face value. Close your eyes. Try and wipe away all your cultural biases. Have you ever been unfairly classified or belittled? Of course you have. It pissed you off, didn't it? Keep you eyes closed. You are a Native American, proud of your heritage, haunted by your past. Open your eyes, and look down at the Cleveland Indians logo. A ridiculous stereotypical caricature that insults you, your ancestors, and your people stands before you. I suppose we can never understand the animosity that this image conjures up, but we need to overcome our naivety and begin to recognize it as damaging. Why does this culturally appalling image still exist, and not our examples of other culturally degrading teams? Where is the outrage? Indians do not have the kind of political representation to fight the logo. Shoved off in their secluded reservations, Indians have become artifacts, a kind of link to a past man. The preconceived notions about Indians pervade in the mind of everyone who played cowboys and Indians as a child. The logo and Indian stereotypes have become such institutionalized ...
