Indians Fan On His Redface: "It's Cleveland Pride"

Remember all that " IIIIIIIIIIII'm probably fucking up here" supposing we did yesterday? Yeah, about that: our redface dude had no problems with his behavior and was actually in the process of setting this Native American straight about his belief that Chief Wahoo is an offensive and racist caricature.

Cleveland Scene was on hand for the protests yesterday and reports that the poster boy for Cleveland pride—identified only as Rodriguez—refused to acknowledge that Chief Wahoo was offensive to anyone. And he meant anyone, including the Native American man, Robert Rorche of the Apache Nation, standing before him who just said he finds Chief Wahoo offensive.

Rorche literally told him he was offended by Chief Wahoo and the use of tribal feathers and redface, and Rodriguez just kept shaking his head.

Rodriguez wasn't the only one giving a hard time to the Wahoo protesters–who have used Opening Day to draw attention to the absurd mascot for years—and it seems the whole scene was pretty ugly.

For the most part, though, passers-by hurled insults. A handful of boozy risk-takers sporting "Keep the Chief" tees walked directly in front of those holding signs, to taunt. Others distributed individual middle-fingers to each protester while inviting them to fuck themselves. Others launched the familiar hate speech — "Go back to the reservation," etc.

We hope to have more on Monday from the Cleveland Frowns gang, who were also at Progressive Field, filming a documentary.

Photo credit: Sam Allard/Cleveland Scene

"It's Not Racist!" And Other Responses to Wahoo Protesters at Home Opener [Cleveland Scene]