The Major League baseball team for the US city of Cleveland will drop the name “Indians” after Native American groups criticised the moniker as racist.
Key points:
- Owner Paul Dolan says “it’s time” to change the name, and the club has had months of internal discussions and meetings over it
- The team will still play, and be branded, as the Indians at least through next season
- The name change is the latest by an organisation in the wake of widespread civil rights protests last summer to have prejudicial names and symbols removed
The team has used the nickname for more than a century but it has been under pressure to make the change for some time.
The team owners have not yet announced a replacement name.
Owner Paul Dolan said, “it’s time,” that after months of internal discussions and meetings with groups, including Native Americans.
Speaking to the Associated Press, Mr Dolan said: “The name is no longer acceptable in our world.”
Mr Dolan said the team would continue to be called Indians until a new name was chosen.
That “multi-stage” process is in its early stages and the team will play — and be branded — as the Indians at least through next season.
“We’ll be the Indians in 2021 and then after that, it’s a difficult and complex process to identify a new name and do all the things you do around activating that name,” Mr Dolan said.
“We are going to work at as quick a pace as we can while doing it right.
“But we’re not going to do something just for the sake of doing it. We’re going to take the time we need to do it right.”
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Mr Dolan said the team would not adopt an interim name until choosing its new one.
“We don’t want to be the Cleveland Baseball Team or some other interim name,” he said.
“We will continue to be the Indians until we have identified the next name that will hopefully take us through multiple centuries.”
Club rules out ‘Tribe’ nickname
Cleveland’s move follows a similar decision earlier this year by the NFL’s Washington Football Team, previously known as the Redskins.
“It was a learning process for me and I think when fair-minded, open-minded people really look at it, think about it and maybe even spend some time studying it, I like to think they would come to the same conclusion: It’s a name that had its time, but this is not the time now, and certainly going forward, the name is no longer acceptable in our world,” Mr Dolan said.
As Cleveland considers new names, Mr Dolan said Tribe, the team’s popular nickname for decades, had been ruled out.
“We are not going to take a half-step away from the Indians,” said Dolan, acknowledging Tribe was an early choice.
“The new name, and I do not know what it is, will not be a name that has Native American themes or connotations to it.”
The name change by the Indians is the latest by an organisation reacting to a national movement, which gained momentum in the wake of widespread civil rights protests last summer, to have prejudicial names and symbols removed.
Across the south, Civil War monuments were taken down, and in some cases, names were taken off buildings.
Mr Dolan said his “awakening or epiphany” came following the death of George Floyd, a black man who died while being arrested by white Minneapolis police officers this summer.
Trump slams ‘cancel culture’
US President Donald Trump has tweeted that dropping the name is “cancel culture at work”.
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Cleveland’s name change comes on the heels of the team removing the controversial Chief Wahoo logo from its caps and jerseys in 2019.
The team has never stopped selling merchandise bearing the grinning, cartoonish figure, but Mr Dolan said any profits from future sales of Wahoo items would go to Native American organisations or causes supporting Native Americans.
Mr Dolan’s family bought the Indians in 2000, and even then he knew Chief Wahoo “was problematic”.
It was only after this summer’s unrest and in educating himself on Native American issues that he recognised Indians in the same light.
“There is definitely some pain in this. It’s the end of an era or the beginning of an era. But accompanying that is the recognition and maybe even excitement that we’re going on to do something that is better. It will be better for the community. It will be better for our team. And it will be something hopefully that unites everybody. It’s not anything that we have to feel any kind of reluctance about expressing,” he said.
“It’s going to take some time for everybody to embrace but I think when they do, we’ll all be better off for it.”
ABC/AP
