Sock-a-lexit to me!
One of my journalism professors so long ago at UW-Oshkosh was a Korean-born man named Holim Kim. He was intrigued when I answered that my European nationality was German-Bohemian. That seemed to fit my hippy appearance in the late 1960s.
It distresses me NOT that “bohemian” is associated with the artsy set surrounding Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Or that the supper club in northern Wisconsin famed for the shoot-out between the FBI and the Dillinger gang is “Little Bohemia.”
Political correctness marches on!
But “Indians” is, apparently, a pejorative. So Cleveland’s 127-year old baseball team is no longer the “Indians” — their nickname since 1915 — but the “Guardians.” Isn’t that an insurance company? Then again, their stadium is named Progressive by the insurance company. Be thankful they’re not the Cleveland Progressives! Or worse, the “Floyds,” because the name change was an over-reaction to the death of George Floyd.
Cleveland’s team was once the “Naps” after Hall of Famer Napoleon LaJoie (great name!). He had bolted from the National League’s Philadelphia team to play for Cleveland in the newly formed American League in 1901.
When LaJoie left in 1914, the team sought a new name. “Indians” revived the informal nickname the team acquired when Louis Sockalexis, a member of the Penobscot tribe, played for the team 15 years earlier.
Dammit, show some spine! Call your team the Cleveland Sockalexi! (Plural of Sockalexis.)
This the latest instance of pusillanimity in the face of progressive bullying. Aunt Jemima, a proud (if overweight) black chef, the Indian maiden on the package of butter, and a 70-ton rock on the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin. Erased! We feel oh-so virtuous! We have been CLEANSED!
Will the Atlanta Braves be the next to cave? Always thought “brave” was a positive attribute. Or are they the Atlanta Cowards? Will Florida State become the Orange Juicers instead of the Seminoles? “Brewers?” Are we celebrating inebriation? Bret Bielema’s new team is the Illinois Fighting Illini. Now THERE is a triple conundrum!
Pass the Bucks
Do the parents and alumni of Mukwonago WI high school so hate their kids that they call their sports teams “Chiefs”? Is it good to be a chief? Almost every Wisconsin town settled by Norwegian immigrants calls their school teams “Vikings.” Those marauders!
To name a sports team after an ethnicity is to demean the ethnicity,” Nicholas Frankovich writes in National Review. “Unless, apparently, we’re talking about northwestern Europeans — Vikings, Celtics, Yankees, Fighting Irish.”
Blaska’s Bottom Line: So much for “white fragility.” Our progressive … acquaintances are more fragile than a Faberge egg in one of their mostly peaceful riots.
Blaska Policy Werkes 
10 responses to “At least they’re not the Cleveland Progressives!”
Should have called them the “Cleveland Steamers” from the old Bob and Tom radio show.
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Or “Cleveland Rocks” after the Drew Carrey TV show and the city’s Rock & Roll museum.
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Nice try, all you racists. “Rocks” are racist, as cited above,(70-ton rock on the Madison campus of the University of Wisconsin”). What’s next? Non-Indigenous Glacial Stones? (The acronym for THAT is no surprise)
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Interesting about Mr. Sockalexis. I didn’t know that!
From what I’ve read, most Native Americans aren’t offended by the name. Yet white limousine liberals are. If only they spent as much energy on solving actual problems as they do on virtue signaling.
Your bottom line nailed it. Progressives sure do project a lot.
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The difference between an pessimistic and optimistic Conservative is that a pessimistic Conservative will say, “Well, things can’t get any worse.
An optimistic Conservative will say, … “Sure they can.”
With the Cleveland Cavers, we’ve gone from bad to diverse,
It’s racist, and it’s a hate crime.
Louis Sockalexis has gone the way of Uncle Ben, Aunt Jemima, that pretty Indian maiden on my butter package and any and all non-white mascots and trademarks. They’ve all been culturally cleansed and hung out to dry by Lefty’s Kancel Kulture Klub.
But it is just another manifestation of our Age of Absurdity that anyone would think that team nicknames were designed to demean and insult, instead of honor, the person or thing from which the name is derived. Does Cleveland’s baseball team hate Cleveland’s Guardians of Traffic that have now replaced Sockalexis?
Of course not. The idea that they do is just as absurd as the claim that the old name degraded Native Americans.
Willwe cancel the names of our helicopters, … Apache, Blackhawk, Kiowa, Lakota, Comanche?
I hope not. You never can tell with our woke, PC proglobotic chiefs of staff.
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The current tsunami of political correctness/cancel culture will eventually reach a point where the absurdity of their perpetual outrage over the most trivial of cultural signifiers exhausts or disgusts a sufficient number of people to create a backlash. “Enough” is not that difficult a word to utter–unless you’re one of the tiny minority of fanatics that have been allowed–sometimes encouraged–to reconfigure the everyday world in which we all live. The problem is that by the time that happens, incalculable damage will have been done. Too bad conservatives didn’t take Pat Buchanan seriously way back in the early ’90s when he sounded the alarm; we’re finally beginning to realize that culture wars are at least as serious as political wars.
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You make some important points.
I think most sane people have grown weary of this nonsense. Just not sure there will be a backlash. It didn’t happen last year during the riots (AKA “mostly peaceful protests), so why would it happen in the future? Most people are content to sit and back and pick up and move instead of stick around and fight. It’s easier. Thing is, Marxism is spreading, even to conservative areas. There’s no running away from this.
“The problem is that by the time that happens, incalculable damage will have been done.”
Yes! It’s everywhere now, in corporations, media, politics, academia, nonprofits, and sadly even in police departments. It’s corrupted the minds of young people, created policies that put us in danger (ie hand holding criminals), and created a society where we’re afraid to talk to each other for fear of being canceled or harassed. This is not what should be happening in a free nation.
“Too bad conservatives didn’t take Pat Buchanan seriously way back in the early ’90s when he sounded the alarm; we’re finally beginning to realize that culture wars are at least as serious as political wars.”
And yes again!
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Pat Buchanan signed his book (“Right from the Beginning”) for me.
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What else needs renaming? The Madison Mallards. Logo is disrespectful to ducks, don’t ya know.
Oh please. Kidding, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some local fruitcake raised the issue.
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Should be the 351 Clevelands. Like to see that in the stat lines.
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