Save Chief Wahoo

I see this morning that Major League Baseball has made the Cleveland Indians remove their smiling Indian mascot, Chief Wahoo, from their uniforms. This action will only make me wear my own personal Chief Wahoo cap more and more often even though I am a lifelong and devout Detroit Tigers fan. No tiger that I know is offended by that, and being me, perhaps they should be.

Chief Wahoo violates, in the eyes of many, one of the worst sins of the modern world: racism. I will not debate his origin. Being not naive, I would not be shocked if the image originated with a degree of racism. I also don't doubt that the charge is overblown, or at least ameliorated over time. Chief Wahoo in 2018 is a symbol of a baseball team. Nothing more.

Now I'm really going to stir the pot. As a white guy, a Catholic, and being of Irish descent, I'm sure that I cannot possibly understand such harm as Wahoo offers (I'm being smarmy here folks). Be all that as it may, I am in fact not offended in the least by the San Diego Padres and their sometimes-used goofy friar pathetically swinging a bat at a ball, nor by the enraged Irish caricature used by the Notre Dame Fighting Irish (and don't you dare tell me that the Irish weren't a genuinely offended group once), neither by the Wake Forest Demon Deacon. Why should I be? They are, to use the word again, mere caricatures and intended to be funny. I am not so overly sensitive, so thin-skinned that I cannot take a jibe. I wonder if we shall ever be equal until we can equally jibe one another.

Yes, the line can be crossed. Not to upset NFL fans, but the moniker Redskins does cross it. But the problem with Chief Wahoo is nothing more than he offends the PC police. And I intend to offend them all summer long with my Cleveland baseball cap. They've earned it.