Today, the New York Times reported that the Cleveland Indians will stop using the Chief Wahoo logo on their uniforms in 2019. According to a statement from MLB commissioner Rob Manfred that cited “Major League Baseball’s commitment to building a culture of diversity and inclusion,” the Indians organization “ultimately agreed with [Manfred’s] position that the logo is no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball, and [Manfred] appreciate[s] [Indians CEO Paul] Dolan’s acknowledgment that removing it from the on-field uniform by the start of the 2019 season is the right course.”
Wahoo’s retirement has been widely viewed as inevitable at least since 2016, when Major League Baseball was stirred to eliminate the logo due to the national embarrassment it caused during the World Series. Dolan announced last fall that the franchise “would come to an understanding” with MLB on Wahoo “before the start of the 2018 season and maybe sooner than that,” and also said the Indians and MLB were “not aligned” on the logo’s future.
While the organization could have embraced this moment to completely rebrand and disassociate with the strain of white supremacy that insists on the right to make baseball mascots out of genocide victims, it has instead insisted on sustaining the impression that MLB has forced the issue. Instead of acknowledgment of the obvious wrong the logo represents, we’ll now have the disgrace of an entire season where the Indians will continue to wear a symbol that it and MLB have publicly agreed to be “no longer appropriate for on-field use in Major League Baseball,” and contrary to “the goal of diversity and inclusion.” Also, Dolan has confirmed that the organization is “adamant about keeping the Indians name.”
The Times further reports that, “consumers will still be able to purchase items with the logo on them at the team’s souvenir shops in the stadium and at retail outlets in the northern Ohio market.” This only increases the likelihood that we’re in for a wave of revanchism at Progressive Field, where the same appropriative displays of Wahoo, redface, headdresses and the like—the very things that caused MLB to act on the issue in the first place—will only be more prevalent. Early returns on social media certainly suggest as much, with voters in a Cleveland.com poll coming out at 90% in favor of keeping the Chief.
It’s hard to think that the Indians organization has done anything more here than endorse a message that it’s OK to embrace racism as long as we’re not too obvious about it. It’s even harder to think that such a half-measure could exorcise Chief Wahoo’s curse. While the removal of the logo from the uniforms is a good in itself, to have it come without a full rebrand is a lost opportunity. Those who insist that our institutions display a baseline level of decency toward all people should continue to reject an MLB organization whose branding is rooted in and inseparable from white supremacy, whether Wahoo is on the uniforms or not.
