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Saving Chief Wahoo
The Supreme Court’s breathtaking defense of the bedrock principle of freedom to speak.
By Daniel Menninger
June 21, 2017
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder immediately got the importance of the Supreme Court’s “Slants” decision this week. “I am THRILLED.” Mr. Snyder said in a written understatement. “Hail to the Redskins.”
No, hail to the Supreme Court, which stands in our times as the nation’s sturdiest dam against a determined assault on American free speech.
Set aside for a moment the Washington Redskins, and we’ll shortly get to the bigger issue of the Cleveland Indians’ embattled logo, Chief Wahoo. Several elevated thoughts are in order.
It is not possible to overstate the importance of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision this week to confer free-speech protection on the Slants, an Asian-American rock band. That is because it is also hard to overstate the progressive left’s determination to establish, in practice if not in law, limits on America’s free-speech traditions.
Ruling against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s determination that the name Slants had violated its “disparagement clause,” Justice Samuel Alito’s decision for the court was written with the rare clarity of a declarative sentence in the active voice: “This provision violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.”
Anyone half-awake to American life in recent years knows there is a large effort under way to banish that bedrock principle of protection for words that offend. Free-speech traditions are under pressure on campuses, in high schools, in the media, in the streets and in sports.
That the court’s liberal justices— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan —joined the majority suggests these four see what is going on, that letting the ability to speak one’s mind slip away under this silencing weight will damage all Americans.
What the free-speech diminishers understand, however, is that the way around a stalwart Supreme Court is self-censorship. If you are trying to suppress certain ideas and thoughts, the most effective means is to get people to shut up. The ideas you don’t like will disappear.
Like the Washington Redskins or Chief Wahoo.
Some years ago, the notion emerged that school sports teams with names such as the Dartmouth Indians or the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux were offensive, racist slurs.
In 2015 Sen. Harry Reid leaned on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to ban the Washington Redskins’ name. Mr. Goodell declined. The trademark office ruled in 2014 that the Redskins also violated its “disparagement” clause, and the Supreme Court decision at least ensures that the logo is legally protected.
That won’t stop the political coercion cops, who are still deploying intimidation and shaming tactics beyond the reach of the courts and Constitution. All the informal silencing elements are in play to extinguish Chief Wahoo, who after nearly 70 years is pretty much the symbolic representation of the entire city of Cleveland.
Unlike the NFL’s Mr. Goodell, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is leaning on Indians owner Paul Dolan to drop the logo. Last month, “Saturday Night Live”—which notably bills itself as “from New York”—described Chief Wahoo as “racist.” Naturally, an ESPN commentator in April did a number on Chief Wahoo. Editorial pages in Ohio routinely call for a ban, which, needless to say, gives us some idea of where the truth lies.
Last year, the Washington Post actually did a poll of Native Americans’ feelings about the Redskins logo. The percentage who were offended was . . . 9%. The rest checked off “doesn’t bother me.” A Cleveland friend who’s been going to Arizona for years says she has met plenty of Navajos who love Chief Wahoo.
What is going on? In two words, cultural appropriation.
“Cultural appropriation” is the sort of thing someone like me gets paid to absorb so other people can keep their heads clear. Among the phrase’s various uses, it means that the representative of one culture isn’t allowed to use the images or traditions of another culture unless the second culture gives its permission. Got it?
The art world has recently had several cultural-appropriation controversies, which get covered with eye-opening theoretical nuance by New York Times culture writers. Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center agreed to dismantle and ultimately burn a sculpture by a white artist after some members of the Dakota Nation objected.
People like MLB’s Rob Manfred think they are making a reasonable accommodation. But you can’t. The exterminating left will pocket any concession and roll forward toward the next target. Agree to delete Chief Wahoo or burn one uncomprehending artist’s sculpture as cultural misappropriation, and centuries of Western art will be heading to the furnaces or basements, with complicit museum directors holding the door open.
An exaggeration? These days? I recall a Buffalo Springfield lyric: Step out of line and they’ll take you away.
This happens because people in positions of authority buckle. Which is why the Supreme Court’s unanimous defense of the Slants and freedom of speech is breathtaking.
Write henninger@wsj.com
Appeared in the June 22, 2017, print edition.
The Supreme Court’s breathtaking defense of the bedrock principle of freedom to speak.
By Daniel Menninger
June 21, 2017
Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder immediately got the importance of the Supreme Court’s “Slants” decision this week. “I am THRILLED.” Mr. Snyder said in a written understatement. “Hail to the Redskins.”
No, hail to the Supreme Court, which stands in our times as the nation’s sturdiest dam against a determined assault on American free speech.
Set aside for a moment the Washington Redskins, and we’ll shortly get to the bigger issue of the Cleveland Indians’ embattled logo, Chief Wahoo. Several elevated thoughts are in order.
It is not possible to overstate the importance of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision this week to confer free-speech protection on the Slants, an Asian-American rock band. That is because it is also hard to overstate the progressive left’s determination to establish, in practice if not in law, limits on America’s free-speech traditions.
Ruling against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s determination that the name Slants had violated its “disparagement clause,” Justice Samuel Alito’s decision for the court was written with the rare clarity of a declarative sentence in the active voice: “This provision violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment. It offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.”
Anyone half-awake to American life in recent years knows there is a large effort under way to banish that bedrock principle of protection for words that offend. Free-speech traditions are under pressure on campuses, in high schools, in the media, in the streets and in sports.
That the court’s liberal justices— Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan —joined the majority suggests these four see what is going on, that letting the ability to speak one’s mind slip away under this silencing weight will damage all Americans.
What the free-speech diminishers understand, however, is that the way around a stalwart Supreme Court is self-censorship. If you are trying to suppress certain ideas and thoughts, the most effective means is to get people to shut up. The ideas you don’t like will disappear.
Like the Washington Redskins or Chief Wahoo.
Some years ago, the notion emerged that school sports teams with names such as the Dartmouth Indians or the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux were offensive, racist slurs.
In 2015 Sen. Harry Reid leaned on NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to ban the Washington Redskins’ name. Mr. Goodell declined. The trademark office ruled in 2014 that the Redskins also violated its “disparagement” clause, and the Supreme Court decision at least ensures that the logo is legally protected.
That won’t stop the political coercion cops, who are still deploying intimidation and shaming tactics beyond the reach of the courts and Constitution. All the informal silencing elements are in play to extinguish Chief Wahoo, who after nearly 70 years is pretty much the symbolic representation of the entire city of Cleveland.
Unlike the NFL’s Mr. Goodell, Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is leaning on Indians owner Paul Dolan to drop the logo. Last month, “Saturday Night Live”—which notably bills itself as “from New York”—described Chief Wahoo as “racist.” Naturally, an ESPN commentator in April did a number on Chief Wahoo. Editorial pages in Ohio routinely call for a ban, which, needless to say, gives us some idea of where the truth lies.
Last year, the Washington Post actually did a poll of Native Americans’ feelings about the Redskins logo. The percentage who were offended was . . . 9%. The rest checked off “doesn’t bother me.” A Cleveland friend who’s been going to Arizona for years says she has met plenty of Navajos who love Chief Wahoo.
What is going on? In two words, cultural appropriation.
“Cultural appropriation” is the sort of thing someone like me gets paid to absorb so other people can keep their heads clear. Among the phrase’s various uses, it means that the representative of one culture isn’t allowed to use the images or traditions of another culture unless the second culture gives its permission. Got it?
The art world has recently had several cultural-appropriation controversies, which get covered with eye-opening theoretical nuance by New York Times culture writers. Minneapolis’s Walker Art Center agreed to dismantle and ultimately burn a sculpture by a white artist after some members of the Dakota Nation objected.
People like MLB’s Rob Manfred think they are making a reasonable accommodation. But you can’t. The exterminating left will pocket any concession and roll forward toward the next target. Agree to delete Chief Wahoo or burn one uncomprehending artist’s sculpture as cultural misappropriation, and centuries of Western art will be heading to the furnaces or basements, with complicit museum directors holding the door open.
An exaggeration? These days? I recall a Buffalo Springfield lyric: Step out of line and they’ll take you away.
This happens because people in positions of authority buckle. Which is why the Supreme Court’s unanimous defense of the Slants and freedom of speech is breathtaking.
Write henninger@wsj.com
Appeared in the June 22, 2017, print edition.
