On Seeing a Black American in a Cleveland Indians' Hat

2007-10-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

I haven't watched any games in the League Championship series in their entirety. But I tell you this: Every time I see of a person of color, whether player or fan, sporting the Cleveland Indians' hat with that grinning pickaninny above the brim, I feel sick. I used to get the same feeling when I'd see Hanoi Jane sitting in her box seat doing the Tomahawk Chop. That was it for me and Atlanta games.

When my friend Connie moved to Cleveland from Brooklyn a few years ago, she called within days, aghast not only that as big an enterprise as a major league baseball team could have such a logo, but to see Black Americans "walking around wearing a damned Sambo" on their hat. Her son was not going to wear that hat, she assured me; he'd have to root for the Mets. She'd been stopping other Black Americans in the street, asking how they could wear that hat. Without exception, she was told the image "didn't mean anything," that she should lighten up.

Of course, it's ludicrous to suggest that images "don't mean anything." I'd like to suggest instead that the City of Cleveland, site of America's recent high-school massacre, ban the the loathsome Indians' logo from clothing, backpacks, notebooks or any other surface in the public school system. Attention and respect, that's the way to avoid a massacre.

The Holler Tree

On Seeing a Black American in a Cleveland Indians' Hat