7.19.2010

Would you cheer for the San Francisco Chinamen?



This image is actually from a couple of years ago, and I've seen it before, but I can't remember if I've posted it, so here it is.

Created by the National Congress of American Indians, it plainly illustrates the mocking, racist nature of the Cleveland Indians "Chief Wahoo" mascot and other major sports teams using similar Native American imagery in their names and logos.

I do have a quibble with it though... I know the point is to show that in this day and age, it would be unthinkable to use the first two images on the left, so why is appropriate for Cleveland to use Indians mascot. When you put it this way, it's pretty outrageous.

But in fact, in this day and age, we still see idiotic illustrations and jokes like that "Chinamen" caricature popping up all the time. Maybe not on professional sports uniforms, but they're out there. Hell, there are still high school teams out there calling themselves the Orientals.

In fact, that "Chinaman" cap immediately reminded me of the Abercrombie & Fitch t-shirt fiasco from back in 2002. That wasn't that long ago, and honestly, there are still people out there who don't think that wasn't all that bad.

My point is, as much as we try to convince ourselves that the blatant hate we understand as racism is a thing of the past, it still exists in much subtler forms, right under our noses as caricature and ridicule we probably wouldn't think twice about... like a popular sports team logo. (Thanks, @MOSSey3535.)

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