Tell the Cleveland Indians it's time to change their racist name and mascot

My name is Toni Buffalo, I am a Lakota person of faith and a member of the United Church of Christ.

I started this petition because it is time for the Cleveland baseball team to change their racist mascot and inappropriate team name.

To me, this is personal – as a Native American woman, a mother, a grandmother and an educator I see the impact of this harmful imagery on our Native youth and students. When our culture is boiled down to a stereotypical team name or a racist team mascot that falsely represent 2.9 million people and 566 federally recognized tribes, the result is our young people suffer and cannot reach their full potential as God’s children. For all youth to grow up in a world that is healed of prejudice, we must dismantle the racist imagery and names in our society.

Our indigenous tradition teaches us that we are all relatives to one another through Mother Earth. Our faith tradition tells us that we are all created in God’s image. Holding on to racist images and inappropriate names only serves to injure our common humanity and to disfigure God’s image in all of us.

For more than 100 years, the Cleveland baseball team has adopted the name “Indians” and perpetuated the myth of Indigenous peoples as savages in this continent. It's the same negative stereotype that was used to justify genocide and land theft from our communities. The racist caricature of Chief Wahoo is similar to the smiling face of Little Black Sambo and equally offensive. There is nothing funny or endearing about racism.

Join me and people of faith around the country in calling on the Cleveland baseball team to change their racist mascot and inappropriate team name!