The Demise and Removal of the Cleveland Indians Logo

To: The Owner/CEO

Larry Dolan
Cleveland Indians
Jacobs Field
2401 Ontario Street
Cleveland, OH 44115-4003
(216)420-4636
(216)420-4430 (fax)

To: Larry Dolan/Owner-CEO

Dear: Mr. Larry Dolan

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED are outraged and offended that your baseball team has insisted on keeping as its logo a racist symbol that has been an insulting, degrading stereotype directed against Native American people for over 92 years.

Native American peoples were the original inhabitants of this country with various nations and cultures, and now they have been relegated to being a logo for a baseball team. Native American people have had to live with the callous disregard shown towards them with this caricature that in no way represents them, but, instead, stereotypes them as less than human.

This stereotype logo separates, marginalizes, trivializes and harms Native American people and their culture. The continued use of this logo teaches non-Native American people to accept, without question, to tolerate without challenging, racism in our society against Native Americans.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED demand that the Cleveland Indians cease their use of this demeaning logo.

"Indian" logos and nicknames create, support and maintain degrading stereotypes of Native American people. Such cultural denigration, when supported by one or more of society's institutions, upholds and promotes institutionalized racism.

It is not necessary to insult and debase an entire group of people, and that is what this logo does.

It is possible to have a baseball team without using Native Americans in a team's logo. Native Americans are not inanimate objects. As the original peoples of this continent, and like all other Americans, they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. This racist logo dishonors, misrepresents, slanders and makes a mockery of Native American culture, ceremonial traditions, sacred objects and components of traditional dress.

Native Americans are not a dead people. They are not an extinct culture. They are a living, vibrant society made up of various nations such as the Navajo, Pequot, Apache, Zuni, Pueblo, Hopi, and many others.

Their history and impact on American society should be given the respect it deserves.

The native peoples of America may represent a small community in proportion to numbers compared to the rest of the American population, but, regardless, their feelings should be respected in how their culture and traditions are viewed, and the use of Native Americans in sports team logos is shameful, and in no way imparts positive images at all.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED demand that the Cleveland Indians immediately and permanently renounce and retire this most hated stereotypical icon that degrades and insults the integrity of all Native Americans.

There is no reason to continue to have as a logo a symbol that is contemptuous and condescending towards Native Americans.

WE, THE UNDERSIGNED demand that the "Cleveland Indians" logo and the word "Indians" be removed from the name of your sports team and from all of your merchandise that now carry this hated trademark.

Native Americans have had to run the gauntlet of the disrespect that this logo heaps upon them, and it is time for your baseball team to come into the 21ST Century and lead the way towards a more enlightened and egalitarian logo that does not offend Native American people's history, culture and traditions.