Skowhegan ‘Indian Pride’ website continues to denigrate Native Americans
Since the French, the British and colonial Americans invaded North America, the use of alcohol helped white people to subjugate Native Americans in all manner of nefarious ways and made the indigenous peoples subservient to their respective wills. They cheated them in basic trades for furs and goods, stole lands from them again and again in treaties they never intended to honor and robbed them of their self-respect and perverted their health.
Let’s build a statue to Louis Sockalexis, baseball’s first Indian, in Bangor
He was a college baseball player so legendary in his time that he was inducted into his school’s athletic hall of fame, even though he only attended two years. Then he broke a color barrier and became the first man of his race to play professional baseball. Then he became a professional baseball star, in spite of being subjected to the vilest of racial prejudice and violations of his civil rights from fellow players, fans and the press.
It’s up to students to end Skowhegan mascot dilemma
Skowhegan Area High School is keeping the entire state from declaring that Maine is the first state in the country to end the practice of school use of Native American nicknames and mascots. As one Skowhegan school official recently noted, sadly, “We have a target on our backs.”
Institutionalized racism is embarrassing for Skowhegan schools
When will town officials, education officials, and faculty, staff and students at Skowhegan Area High School stand up to the 11 or 12 members of the school board who do more thinking backwards than forwards, surrounded by a small but volatile group of residents who threaten and mock the very people they are said to be “honoring?”
On Indian mascots, Maine’s top school officials get failing grade
Maine could be the first state in the U.S. to eradicate school use of Native American nicknames and mascots. But our effort to make that a reality has encountered two obstacles:
Skowhegan has a chance to break shackles of acceptable racism
Well-publicized across the state, the Skowhegan-area school board, by a narrow 11-9 vote in early May, rejected an appeal by Maine’s four Native American tribes to end the use of their inappropriate nickname and mascot. For the time being, those 11 school board members have thumbed their noses at more than 30 other Maine communities and public schools that have ended such usage over the past decade.
It’s time for Cleveland Indians to drop racist logo…
Our campaign to end the use of Native American nicknames and mascots by Maine’s public schools has reached the last community, Skowhegan, still clinging to the tenets protected by acceptable institutional racism. But more formidable examples of mascot racism remain. One is the Cleveland Indians baseball team and its controversial, racist caricature, Chief Wahoo. In August 2014, I visited Cleveland and spoke in honor of Louis Sockalexis at a suburban branch of the Cleveland Public Library. Sockalexis was the first-known Native American baseball player who inspired the team nickname and who is most likely the first man to successfully break professional baseball’s color barrier.
Campaign seeks support for Louis Sockalexis statue in Bangor
Bangor native and writer Ed Rice is starting a campaign to find support and interest in building a statue in Bangor of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis, the first Native American to play Major League Baseball.
Skowhegan High School stands in Maine’s way: ending Native American mascot use
When all around her members of Congress stood frightened and mute in the face of Joseph McCarthy’s Communist fear-mongering, Margaret Chase Smith of Skowhegan stood, alone, in opposition and spoke what she knew to be right, what she knew to be the truth. Today, we need that spirit in Skowhegan once again.
Mr. Smith Goes to Cleveland to Kill Chief Wahoo
As my plane winged its way to Cleveland last week, to give a library talk in praise of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis and against the Cleveland Indians’ continuing use of Chief Wahoo, I began imagining myself as being something like the Jimmy Stewart character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.” Upon my return trip to Bangor, after thinking about a solitary walk around Progressive Field that left me infuriated by the Cleveland Indians’s treatment of Sockalexis, followed by a earranged luncheon meeting with two executives of the team’s public relations staff, I had to ask myself whether that film title might now more properly be characterized as “Sleeping With the Enemy.”
Mainer confronts Cleveland Indians execs…
As my plane winged its way to Cleveland last week, on my way to give a library talk in praise of Maine Penobscot Indian Louis Sockalexis and against the Cleveland Indians’ continuing use of Chief Wahoo, I began imagining myself as being something like the Jimmy Stewart character in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.”
Recognize Sockalexis by ditching Wahoo…
Some day, probably under an entirely new ownership and new organizational leadership, I believe Cleveland’s baseball team will reverse course and demonstrate, like most of the rest of the country is currently doing with mascot and nickname changes, that there are far, far better ways to show respect to our Native Americans and their culture.
Time for Skowhegan, Nokomis to answer: What makes your school so special?
Nearly 30 schools in Maine have stopped using Native American nicknames and symbols, mostly over the past decade. Standing all alone are Nokomis Regional High School of Newport, Skowhegan Area High School and southern Maine’s Wells High School in a race for infamy: Who will be the last to stop this insidious practice in Maine?
The Cleveland Indians, Louis Sockalexis, and The Name
[Ed Rice note: Just 6 paragraphs into this major piece Joe Posnanski very generously credits me with having an "informative" biography...but then he mistakenly arrives at the conclusion that Sockalexis played absolutely no factor in the team's long-standing "Indians" nickname. To his credit, Joe Posnanski apologized both to me and Bob DiBiasio, Cleveland's vice president of public affairs, when we corrected him with the proof that, yes, an unnamed editorial writer in January of 1915 credited Sockalexis for this "official" nickname, its origins occurring in March of 1897 when the team dropped the informal nickname "Spiders" and adopted a new informal nickname, "Indians," all owing to the presence of Sockalexis. No, it was not meant respectfully at the time.]
Cleveland Indians must end offensive use of Chief Wahoo…
While it’s admirable — and I’m completely sarcastic here — that the Cleveland Indians organization sought feedback from its fan base on the controversial issue of its racist mascot, Chief Wahoo, and has started 2014 by implementing a partial end to its use, wouldn’t it finally be considerate of the team to seek the blessing of the Penobscot Nation for even part-time use?
The Cleveland Indians need to learn same lesson…
ORONO, MAINE — The Cleveland Indians organization has never had any real understanding — or appreciation — of what it has in the historical figure of Louis Sockalexis, a man who almost certainly broke professional baseball’s color barrier, a man who was definitively the first-known American Indian to play, a man who went through the exact same experience Jackie Robinson endured 50 years after him but never gets any comparable credit for doing so and a man who most certainly did inspire the team’s nickname.
Orono journalist continues quest for recognition of Native Americans in Baseball Hall
Journalist Ed Rice of Orono has been an advocate for Native Americans’ rights in sports since the 1970s. He has written commentaries, given speeches and penned a book titled “Baseball’s First Indian, Louis Sockalexis: Penobscot Legend, Cleveland Indian,” where he argues that Sockalexis deserves recognition as baseball’s first Native American ball player.
Will Baseball HOF finally start honoring the game’s native pioneers?
The stated mission of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, in Cooperstown, New York, is “to preserve history, honor excellence and connect generations.” It fails on all three counts where Native American players and history are concerned.
Maine students should protest, end Native American school mascots
From our Colonial period right through to the present day, Native Americans have always been the victims of an intrinsic “institutional racism” in the United States. Or, put more bluntly, it’s always been okay to be flat-out disrespectful.
Indians Facing Curse?
Perhaps the city of Cleveland and fans of the Indians should be asking the question: Are we in the presence of a baseball curse, one that may be beginning to approach the magnitude of the one that allegedly faced the Red Sox for 86 years and is steadily creeping toward the magnitude of the one that still, allegedly, plagues the Cubs for more than 100 years now?