1. The artist's main idea for this piece of art is to show the offensiveness of the Cleveland Indian's logo, and how it is racially stereotypical. By using the same face and simply changing minor details to it such as facial hair, clothing, skin color and hair the artist is trying to give people a taste of what it would be like if their stereotypical image was used as a mascot or sports symbol.
2. There are many different images that the artist uses, so he is directing his work towards people of many different cultures and races, wanting to put them in the Native Americans shoes. His image of the Gangsta shows a very dark skinned male, with a grill on his teeth, a bandanna and hat on his head, along with very large lips. The Chinese image of the man with a hat, facial hair, and a large smile on his face is supposed to represent the Chinese people as being pushovers and non aggressive, much like how they are described in Wu's writing "Yellow". The stereotype for Germans is shown as a guy that resembles Hitler, and is wearing a swastika around his neck, making the German people look like they are all Nazi's and heartless people. The Irish is shown as a drunken man wearing a hat with a shamrock on it and missing teeth, making the Irish appear to be ones who do a lot of fighting and drinking. In all of these examples the images that are used to represent each group of people are very negative images, and ones that when people would see them without the label written under them people would still know what group it is supposed to represent. The reason for the Indian as the emblem for the Cleveland baseball team is because Native Americans are thought to be strong people and fighters. They are looked at as people who take no prisoners and can act savagely. This image is used to make the team itself look strong, unlike how they would look if their mascot were something like a squirrel.
3. Why did the Indians change from the spiders? Who picked out the mascot/image of the Indian to represent the Cleveland team? Are there any other offensive sports logos that people have somewhat overlooked like this one?
4. It's not right for people to use stereotypical images of a specific group of people to represent all people. In many cases the representation is really only a justified representation of for a handful of these group members. I never saw the Indians symbol as being potentially offensive to Native Americans, and have never even heard anyone mention it. It would be weird to see a different mascot and to hear a different name for the Cleveland Indians team. I do not think that it is chosen to be offensive, but rather in respect to the Indians for being a strong group of people, a group that the team owners may even admire for their fight and drive without giving up.
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