Will the Cleveland Indians soon be forced to change their name and mascot?
The National Congress of American Indians has published a poster attacking the Major League Baseball team for using offensive imagery, CBS Cleveland reports.
The group’s poster features the Cleveland Indians baseball hat next to two hypothetical hats, one with a stereotypical image of a Jewish man with the caption the “New York Jews,” and the other with a stereotypical image of a Asian man for the “San Francisco Chinamen.”
“No race, creed or religion should endure the ridicule faced by the Native Americans today,” CBS Cleveland quotes the poster. “Please help us put an end to this mockery and racism by visiting www.ncai.org.”
The campaign comes just days after President Obama said he supported changing the name of the Washington Redskins.
“If I were the owner of the team and I knew that the name of my team — even if they’ve had a storied history — was offending a sizable group of people, I’d think about changing it,” Obama told the Associated Press.
The Redskins’ attorney, former Clinton aide Lanny J. Davis, cited the Cleveland Indians in responding to Obama.
“We at the Redskins respect everyone,” Davis said in a statement. “But like devoted fans of the Atlanta Braves, the Cleveland Indians and the Chicago Blackhawks (from President Obama’s hometown), we love our team and its name and, like those fans, we do not intend to disparage or disrespect a racial or ethnic group.”