Mr. Jeff Pearlman - You missed the mark as completely as possible on this one

Reading through Cleveland Indians stuff on the internet today I came across this article:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/29/opinions/dropping-cleveland-indians-logo-doesnt-solve-this-pearlman/index.html

Now the URL has "opinion" in it so realize this is just someone's personal thoughts on an issue and, as I was told since I was a kid, opinions are like buttholes, everyone has one.   Keep this analogy in mind as we go forward with this blog post.

So the Cleveland Indians are removing Chief Wahoo as their logo.   My thoughts on this are simple:

I can see the points made.  If this logo is offensive to American Indians then it should be replaced with another logo.   Just like the Atlanta Braves, Washington Redskins, Florida State Seminoles or the other 2000+ (https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-2128-native-american-mascots-people-arent-talking-about/) school sports teams with American Indian-linked nicknames/logos should be done away with.

So, if these are offensive to American Indians then all of them should be changed, right?  Trump likes to tout how many laws he has passed so why not get the Republicans to pass a law outlawing team nicknames that are offensive to ethic minorities.  I am sure that Notre Dame should change their nickname to another one that doesn't portray men of Irish descent as being violent individuals who brawl rather than settle their disputes in a reasonable, civil manner.  Oh, and it is probably that they were drunk when they were fighting, as everyone knows that Irish men drink to excess (sorry, I will take my tongue out of my cheek now).

We could go on for days discussing which nicknames should go.  Heck, I grew up in a predominantly Catholic, Italian community whose high school's nickname was the Blue Devils!   Blasphemy!  Last I heard, there was no movement to remove this nickname that clearly elevates the devil to a high position and convinces young, impressionable teens that being a devil is a good thing to be!

So, while I support Mr. Pearlman's opposition to the use of Indians as a nickname and logo, that is all I support in his article.  Excerpts from his "opinion" include:

• He rips on Paul Dolan for financially supporting the political campaigns of John Kasich.  While I don't like Kasich and would never support him, I don't hold it against any person about who they want to support politically.   Life and politics is not a one-issue existence.  As someone who grew up as a Catholic, I have seen and heard firsthand how the church will tell you things that will lead to vote for some idiot just because they are against abortion.  While I am against abortion I will NEVER vote an unqualified or unprincipled candidate just because they support one issue. BTW, the Catholic church doesn't like same sex marriage, if you want something else to write about, Jeff.  
• Pearlman rips on the Indians for not transitioning until 2019.  Well, this is a business, Jeff.  You don't just throw away inventory.  Bleeding money is a nice, altruistic position...in a vacuum.   However, if you told Indians fans that the team could not sign Edwin Encarnacion because they didn't have the resources because the team had to take a financial loss on millions of dollars of inventory they had to trash to make a political statement,  I am pretty sure you would have been run out of town on a rail.  Also, I suppose that you would support a law making it illegal to wear already purchased gear that bears such logos, right?   Because you know, Jeff, that at baseball games next year and in the future there will be fans of the Indians wearing gear purchased pre-2019.  Or should those fans trash all that gear and buy new gear without the logo?   But wait, that would give Dolan more money to support Kasich and such candidates in the future!  It literally makes the head explode thinking about it!
• In reading his "opinion" it appears to me that Pearlman rips on every person who wants to make a buck in a democratic society.   He tries to use the most base arguments about how the rich are bad and how poor people are subjugated by the rich, all to support an argument about a freaking team logo.  Hey Jeff, I am not rich, I am middle class and grew up very low middle class in the 60s and 70s and so I am all about civil rights for all but I don't get your arguments here. Unfortunately, we have seen these arguments before.   I think Hitler used the same tactics to dehumanize the Jews who were depicted as rich, unfeeling individuals, responsible for all the things wrong in Germany at that time.   Interestingly, the Holocaust organizations feel it is important to keep those issues in the forefront to make sure they don't happen again instead of sweeping them under the rug with trashed logos.  Removing the logos, Jeff, doesn't remove the problem.  In fact, it helps hide that those problems every existed.   However, if the American Indians feel it helps them, then I support in principle, not using such logos.

I will end by saying this.   IF it is offensive to American Indians, don't use the name or the logo.   However, simply removing these nicknames does not remove the injustices that American Indians faced in the settling of the US.  In fact, a case could be made to LEAVE the nicknames alone.  They represent American Indians as proud and fierce and a group not to be messed with, which is a compliment to the spirit of the American Indian heritage.   Leaving them alone also keeps American Indians in mind and reminds us of the injustices that can occur if one group is subjugated by another.  These nicknames don't represent Indians as suffering from a high incidence of alcoholism and low self worth and also don't represent them as the oppressed, less-worthy-than-the-rest-of-us group that they became after being put on reservations.  However, HAVING these logos/nicknames does remind us that these things did occur and are still occurring.   Maybe reminding us of that isn't such a bad thing. Maybe Jeff should write an article about how we can continue to highlight that.  There is a new movie coming out that addresses that situation, Jeff.   Maybe it's time to fire up the computer for something important.