The Cleveland Indians MLB team on Monday confirmed that they would drop their long-held “Indians” name after protests from fans and Native American groups who say the moniker is racist.
Cleveland confirmed the change, which was widely reported on Sunday, in a statement on Twitter.
The club has yet to decide on a replacement name for the “Indians” tag adopted in 1915.
Photo: David Richard-USA Today
“The Cleveland Indians today announced our decision to begin the process of changing from our team name ‘Indians,’” the team wrote.
“Since July we have conducted an extensive process to learn how our team name affected different constituencies and whether it aligned with our organizational values,” it wrote. “As a result of that process, we have decided to move forward with changing the current team name and determining a new, non-Native American based name for the franchise.”
“We believe our organization is at its best when we can unify our community and bring people together — and we believe a new name will allow us to do this more fully,” the team added.
Paul Dolan, controlling owner, chairman and CEO of the team, said that the decision had been taken after consulting with Native American groups.
“We gained a deep understanding of how tribal communities feel about the team name and the detrimental effects it has on them,” Dolan said. “While Indians will always be a part of our history, it is time to move forward and work to unify our stakeholders and fans through a new name.”
Dolan told the MLB.com Web site that the club wanted to “unite the community.”
“There is a credible number of people in this community who are upset by our name, are hurt by our name, and there is no reason for our franchise to bear a name that is divisive,” Dolan said.
“We’ll be the Indians in 2021 and then after that, it’s a difficult and complex process to identify a new name and do all the things you do around activating that name,’’ Dolan said. “We are going to work at as quick a pace as we can while doing it right.”
Additional reporting by AP
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