Arizona to Rally Against Native American Mascots; De-chief Wahoo Rally at Arizona Diamondbacks game in Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, AZ – Arizona to Rally Against Native American Mascots, a group of Arizonians who advocate for

 the elimination of Native American mascots in pro-sports mascots and logos, will hold a rally calling on the

MLB’s Cleveland team and their fans to “de-chief” their merchandise of the grotesque caricature, Chief

Wahoo. The De-chief Wahoo Rally takes place at the Arizona Diamondbacks vs Cleveland Indians baseball

games on Tuesday June 24, 2014 and Wednesday June 25, 2014 from 5:00PM to 7:30PM at Chase Field

in Phoenix, Arizona.

De-chiefing is a movement whereby fans of the Major League Baseball team, the Cleveland Indians, remove

the Chief Wahoo logo from their merchandise as a way to show solidarity towards the efforts of Native

Americans who have been calling on the MLB team to retire the logo since the 1960’s. Professional sport

teams with Native mascots and logos, such as Chief Wahoo and the Redskins, promote stereotypes of

Native Americans and enable people to believe that Native Americans either are non-existent or only exist as

a cartoon or romanticized mascot, not as real human beings.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office declared, on June 18, 2014, six trademarks for the

Washington NFL franchise of the name “Redskins” must be cancelled. The term “Redskins” was established

as disparaging of Native Americans. The lead plaintiff in the case Blackhorse v. Pro Football, Inc. is Amanda

Blackhorse who is leading the group Arizona to Rally Against Native American Mascots along with other

organizers.


Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry, a group of Native parents and their allies from across the country,

support the efforts of the group Arizona to Rally Against Native American Mascots and the two rallies to

take place next week. In April 2014, EONM called on Nike, Inc. to stop selling products that feature the

Cleveland Indians’ mascot Chief Wahoo by holding a local protest at the Nike World Headquarters in

Beaverton, Oregon and launched a social media campaign to trend the #Dechief hashtag.



Source