The Cleveland Indians decided to change their nickname:
The organization is expected to announce the change this week, sources said, continuing a years-long process in which it abandoned its Chief Wahoo logo and committed to exploring a new nickname, as well.
…
Cleveland has not settled on a new nickname, and it’s unclear whether the team will be dropping the nickname immediately or will transition to a new moniker following the 2021 season.
ESPN.com
I would have kept the nickname and put a picture of Mahatma Gandhi on the cap. 🙂
Nicknames do have a life of their own. The 1920 Brooklyn franchise is listed as the Robins on Baseball Reference, but all the news articles I read referred to them as the Dodgers. The Robins referred to Wilbert Robinson, their manager, and teams of the era were often given a managerial nickname by the press (you see the Yankees called the Hugmen in articles after Miller Huggins). Robins did not stick, and I suspect many fans will continue call the team the Indians.
The official announcement is coming this week, and it may take a year to implement as the team needs to not only settle on a new nickname, but rebrand the uniforms and the stadium.
Well yes, who wants to be associated with Cleveland.
Seriously, Indian is not a pejorative. This is Orwellian language control.
Indian is not a pejorative? There are a couple of angles to tackle that statement from:
1. “Indian” is a result of Columbus not even knowing what continent he was on. Native Americans have their own names for themselves; to refer to them as Indians is nonsensical to begin with, and to do so against their will is an insult to their heritage, basically saying, “Our lazy nostalgia for the 500-year-old ignorant mistake of a European is more important than your actual identity.”
2. Using a name for a race of people in the same way the names of animals are used, while not doing the same with other races — have you seen a professional sports team named the Jews? the Caucasians? — is demeaning.
This change is not “Orwellian.” It is common politeness.
No, Indian is not pejorative, it is descriptive. Yes Columbus got it wrong, but India Indians is not pejorative. Mix ups happen. The Pennsylvania Dutch are not actually Dutch, but Deutsch. As someone with German and Dutch heritage, the mix up does not bother me.
Ever hear about the American Indian Movement, which was active in the 1970s and made up of guess who.
As for a professional sports team named after Caucasians, there is the Boston Celtics. Name me a sports team named purposely to degrade an ethnicity. Yankee can be pejorative if you are in the deep South, or south of the Rio Grande, but yet somehow the New York Yankees are very popular and successful.
Replace Chief Wahoo with Apu. Problem solved.
rbj1, funny you should mention the American Indian Movement. New York Times, July 10, 2020: “Philip Yenyo, the executive director of the American Indian Movement of Ohio, who has been protesting the Cleveland baseball team’s name for almost 30 years…”
“India Indians is not pejorative”
Right — it is not pejorative to Indians from India. Guess what, we are not talking about them.
Celtics are not a race (and the team name is not even pronounced correctly). Yankees are not a race.