Native American Group to Sue Cleveland Indians for $9 Billion [VIDEO]
Not winning a World Series since the Truman administration no longer seems to be the biggest cloud hanging over the Cleveland Indians.
A Native American group plans to sue the team for $9 billion, claiming the franchise’s Chief Wahoo logo is offensive.
Robert Roche, who is Chiricahua Apache and runs the American Indian Education Center and a group called People Not Mascots (who you can see protesting before an April Indians game in April below), says the team name and its longtime logo are blatantly wrong:
We're going to be asking for $9 billion and we're basing it on a hundred years of disparity, racism, exploitation and profiteering. It's been offensive since day one. We are not mascots. My children are not mascots. We are people.”
Interestingly, the Indians have gradually replaced Chief Wahoo over the years, even going so far as to replace him on some hats with a standard ‘C’ logo.
Bob Rosen, who is president of the Wahoo Club, says he doesn’t know of many people with an issue with the name or the logo. "If just a small amount of people are against it, than I think you're doing a disservice to people that like it," he said.
Perhaps not coincidentally, news of the lawsuit comes after the US Patent and Trademark Office removed the Washington Redskins’ trademark and deemed the name racist. The Redskins, of course, have been under heavy pressure to change their name.