Argument Prospectus

Student 1

Joe Student

Instructor Brentar

ENG 102

1 October 2014

Argument Prospectus: Take Wahoo Out of the Ball Game

By the early part of the twenty-first century, the move

toward equal civil rights for all has done much to improve the

lives of groups previously marginalized by systemically racist

American power structures. Yet to say the racial landscape has

changed in its entirety would be false. Indeed, pockets of

resistance remain which seem relatively intransigent. One

playing field of such intransigence is sports, especially

professional sports. A principal area of this vestigial racism

in sports is in regard to Native American team names and

mascots. To their credit, high schools, colleges, and

universities with offensive, racist team names have done well in

the past fifteen years to rename their teams and remove their

mascots. On the other hand, the record in pro sports--

especially for the Washington Redskins and Kansas City Chiefs of

the National Football League, the Chicago Blackhawks of the

National Hockey League, and the Atlanta Braves and the Cleveland

Indians of Major League Baseball--is much worse.

As a native Clevelander, I shall concern myself with the

lattermost of the above group. Since the 1940s, the Cleveland

Overview of issue

Ra.onale

Student 2

Indians have used as a mascot/logo Chief Wahoo, a stereotypical

depiction of a Native American that is racially offensive and

demeaning to Native Americans. Opposition to Wahoo has been in

place, both in scholarly and journalistic discourse, as well as

in protest rallies, for fully a generation, yet the ball club

still retains its use, and adherents seem to have retrenched

themselves. Further discourse on the matter will hopefully be

productive in persuading the populace of the wrongness of Wahoo,

especially in reaching an audience of eighteen- to twenty-year

olds who may not have critically examined their own beliefs

about Wahoo. Therefore, I shall argue that, regardless of

claims that Wahoo honors Native Americans, the Cleveland Indians

should cease using that logo. My main line of argument will be

that the logo is patently racially offensive and hence not in

keeping with the democratic principles upon which our society is

built. Moreover, I shall argue that the effects of this

lingering racial prejudice have weighed and still weigh heavily

upon Native Americans.

Wahoo’s supporters, however, are numerous and vocal in

their support. Their main objection to Wahoo’s removal is

tradition. While I will concede that tradition is a fundamental

aspect of any society, I will rebut this objection, first by

demonstrating that the historical basis for a “tradition of

Wahoo” is at its heart invalid, and second by calling into

Agenda Dra5 thesis

Probable lines of

argument

Probable counterargument

Student 3

question the very nature of tradition as a legitimate line of

argument. My source materials will constitute a mixture of

scholarly and journalistic sources. The journalistic sources

will help me make the case that the history of Wahoo rests upon

an invalid set of underpinnings. The scholarly sources I plan

to use to establish the psychosocial effects of the use of

Native American mascots.

With luck, I will be able to move a significant part of my

audience to agree with my position and, moreover, to act upon it

in calling for the end of Wahoo.

Sense of sources to be used

Statement of desired outcome

Student 4

Annotated Works Consulted

Black, Jason Edward. “The ‘Mascotting’ of Native America:

Construction, Commodity, and Assimilation.” American

Indian Quarterly 26.4 (2002): 605-22. Electronic Journal

Center. Web. 14 Sept. 2014. Black, a cultural critic,

analyses mascots as “commodification tools” used to assist

in the European-American appropriation of Native American

culture. I will use the article to reinforce my lines of

argument about the effects of mascots upon Native

Americans.

Brady, Erik. “Taking a Stand against ‘Redface’.” USA Today 22

July 2014: C1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14 Sept.

2014. Brady focuses on various reactions to sports fans

wearing supposedly Native American garb, such as feathered

headdresses. I will use the article in my discussion of

tradition and its role in the controversy.

Briggs, David. “Chief Wahoo Must Go.” Cleveland.com. Plain

Dealer-Northeast Ohio Media Group, 5 Apr. 2008. Web. 15

Sept. 2014. Briggs, the then-current Plain Dealer religion

columnist, indicts white attitudes about Wahoo and other

Native American mascots. I plan to cite Briggs in support

of my ethical/moral line of argument.

Dolgan, Bob. “Tale of Indians' Name Off Base: Legend of Louis

Sockalexis As Origin of Nickname Strikes Out with Baseball

Bibliographic info

Annota.ons

Summary comment

statement of rhetorical intent

Student 5

Historians.” Plain Dealer [Cleveland] 17 May 1999, final

ed.: D1+. Lexis-Nexis Academic. Web. 14 Sept. 2014.

Calling upon archival news reports from 1915, sportswriter

Dolgan rebuts the accepted view that the name of the

Cleveland baseball club was to honor a player, Louis

Sockalexis, who was a member of the Penobscot Nation. I

will use this article in my rebuttal of the argument that

the name and logo of the team honor Native Americans.

Freng, Scott, and Cynthia Willis-Esqueda. “A Question of Honor:

Chief Wahoo and American Indian Stereotype Activation among

a University Based Sample.” Journal of Social Psychology

151.5 (2011): 577-91. Academic Search Complete. Web. 14

Sept. 2014. Freng and Willis-Esqueda examine racial

stereotypes and how they might be triggered by images such

as sports mascots. . They find that Chief Wahoo engenders

negative stereotypes about Native Americans. I will use

Freng and Willis-Esqueda in support of my claims of the

deleterious effects of Wahoo.

Fryberg, Stephanie A., et al. “Of Warrior Chiefs and Indian

Princesses: The Psychological Consequences of American

Indian Mascots.” Basic and Applied Social Psychology 30.2

(2008): 208-18. Print. Focusing on the psychological

effects of Native American mascots upon Native American

high school and college students, Fryberg et al. conclude

Student 6

that the students’ self-esteem and self-image suffer as a

function of self-limitation in the face of mainstream

America’s narrowly stereotypical representations of Native

Americans. I will cite this work in demonstrating the

deleterious effects of Native American mascots.

King, C. Richard, and Charles Fruehling Springwood, eds. Team

Spirits: The Native American Mascots Controversy. Lincoln:

U Nebraska P, 2001. Print. This anthology examines

various aspects of the debate, including the historical

foundations of Native American mascots. I plan to call

upon and integrate its historical perspectives in my

argument.

Spindel, Carol. Dancing at Halftime: Sports and the Controversy

over American Indian Mascots. New York: New York UP, 2000.

Print. Spindel analyzes white America’s attachment to a

romanticized and, hence, stereotypical view of Native

Americans, in particular its effusion throughout American

sports. Her treatment of the matter will help me to

encapsulate the positions of my opposition.

Staurowsky, Ellen. “You Know, We Are All Indian.” Journal of

Sport and Social Issues 31.1 (2007): 61-76. Print.

Staurowsky discusses white reactions to the NCAA policy

that impelled colleges and universities to abandon Native

American mascots. Even if they are not stereotypical, such

Student 7

mascots represent cultural misappropriation of Native

American culture on the part of whites. The reactions to

the forced abandonment of these trappings reveal much about

white privilege and power structures. I will cite

Staurowsky in in supporting my claims about the injurious

effects of these mascots.

Zimmerman, Jonathan. “The Cleveland Indians' Mascot Must Go.”

Christian Science Monitor. Christian Science Monitor, 15

Oct. 2007. Web. 16 Sept. 2014. In an op-ed piece,

Zimmerman argues that the Cleveland Indians should abandon

the Wahoo logo. Zimmerman covers much of the same ground

as Dolgan--he clearly has read the Dolgan article, though

he does not cite him specifically. But Zimmerman is also a

respected academic historian who should be able to lend

greater authority to my lines of argument.