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Critical Sociology
http://crs.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/10/26/0896920511407357
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0896920511407357
published online 2 November 2011Crit Sociol
Michelle Renee Jacobs and Tiffany Taylor
Wahoo
Challenges of Multiracial Antiracist Activism: Racial Consciousness and Chief
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DOI: 10.1177/0896920511407357
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Challenges of Multiracial
Antiracist Activism: Racial
Consciousness and Chief Wahoo
Michelle R. Jacobs
Kent State University, USA
Tiffany Taylor
Kent State University, USA
Abstract
We explore how white activists’ racial identity struggles might disrupt effective antiracist action in
multiracial organizations. Drawing on data collected through participant observation and interviews,
we examine the struggles of a small, multiracial antiracist organization that protests the Cleveland
baseball franchise’s ‘Indians’ name and Chief Wahoo mascot. White activists’ racial consciousness,
or awareness of white racism and white privilege, compels them to participate in the group; their
ways of participating, however, ultimately may hamper the organizational effectiveness of the
Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance. Specifically, white activists’ racial consciousness
makes them reluctant to adopt necessary leadership roles. Borrowing from literature on white
racism, white racial consciousness, and multiracial organizing, we illustrate the complex nature and
potential pitfalls of multiracial alliances formed to protest racism in the United States.
Keywords
antiracist activism, Indian mascots, multiracial organizing, race and ethnicity, social movements,
sociology, white guilt, white racism
Introduction
The iconic visage of Chief Wahoo, a red-faced Indian sports mascot replete with foolish grin and
teepee-shaped eyes, inundates the Ohio region throughout the Major League Baseball (MLB) sea-
son. Professional baseball in Cleveland is ‘one of the city’s oldest traditions’ (Cleveland Indians,
2006) and the ‘Indians’ moniker and Chief Wahoo mascot have been archetypal elements of this
tradition since 1915 and 1937, respectively. Despite the legitimizing effect created by the satura-
tion of Cleveland’s cultural landscape with the team’s purportedly ‘harmless’ and ‘honorable’
Corresponding author:
Michelle R. Jacobs, Department of Sociology, Kent State University, 215 Merrill Hall, Kent, OH 44242. USA
Email: mjacobs2@kent.edu
407357CRSXXX10.1177/0896920511407357Jacobs and TaylorCritical Sociology
Article
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2 Critical Sociology
depiction of Native Americans, some Ohio residents resist the franchise’s use of pseudo-Indian
imagery. Organized resistance to the imagery was initiated by Native Americans, but over time,
Native American activists were joined by non-Native allies in their fight for racial justice. Here we
investigate multiracial activism within the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance
(hereafter, the Committee), an antiracist organization that protests the ‘Indians’ moniker and ‘Chief
Wahoo’ mascot associated with Cleveland’s MLB franchise. Specifically, we look at how white
activists’ racial consciousness may negatively affect organizational efficacy.
A plethora of survey research focuses on white racial attitudes generally and some ethnographic
research focuses on white antiracists more specifically (for examples, see Eichstedt, 2001; O’Brien,
1999, 2000, 2001), but few studies focus on whites’ ways of participating in multiracial antiracist
organizations. In this article, we draw on participant observation and interviews conducted over a
two-year period to consider the role of white activists in the Committee. First, we look at reasons for
whites’ participation; importantly, white Committee members exhibit awareness of white racism
and white privilege. Often this awareness developed as a result of whites’ intimate relationships with
people of color. Next we show that structural and contextual factors inhibit Native participation in
the organization. Although white Committee members recognize these barriers to Native involve-
ment, they insist that Native participation and Native leadership are necessary to the organization’s
success. In particular, whites describe their level of engagement in the work of antiracist activism as
being dependent upon having a ‘Native voice to follow’. In the conclusion, we discuss the hearten-
ing and hindering effects of white guilt on white Committee members’ activism.
White Racism and Indian Mascots
Feagin and Vera (1995) define white racism as ritualized behaviors that reproduce a racialized
social structure, or one that supports and perpetuates race-based hierarchies (Bonilla-Silva, 1996).
According to this paradigm, racial myths, ‘which take the form of prejudices, stereotypes, every-
day racial fictions, and broader ideologies’ (Feagin and Vera, 1995: 10; see also Doane, 2006)
prevent dominant members of a structurally racist society from feeling empathy for outgroup
members. Importantly, racial myths are so deeply ingrained in people’s minds that they become
filters through which experiences are both seen/unseen and (mis)understood.
Scholarly and public debates about the appropriateness of Indian sports mascots illustrate how
white racism exacerbates race-based inequalities in society. Scholars agree that Indian mascots per-
petuate a negative and stereotypical image of indigenous populations in popular consciousness
(Black, 2002; Farnell, 2004; King et al., 2002; Springwood, 2004; Staurowsky, 2004; Strong, 2004).
Colonial processes constructed indigenous peoples as ‘other’ and thereby paved the way for the ‘mas-
cotting’ of Native America (Black, 2002). Privileged whites, who benefit from the ‘luxury of oblivi-
ousness’ (Johnson, 2001), do not take these historical processes into account when evaluating the
contemporary status of Native American peoples. At the same time, the imagery that antiracist activ-
ists in Cleveland seek to eradicate – the ‘red-faced, hook-nosed, grinning buffoon’ that is Chief
Wahoo (Committee publication, 2003) – fuels white racism by perpetuating racial mythologies about
Native Americans. For instance, Indian mascots transmit stereotypical notions of Native peoples as
stoic warriors and vicious combatants (Hanson and Rouse, 1987; King et al., 2002; Trimble,1988).
They lump diverse US indigenous populations into one amorphous group (Pewewardy, 1991) and
disallow Native people to assert their own definitions of self and/or collective selves (King et al.,
2002). Furthermore, their use represents Native Americans as historical relics rather than viable
racial-ethnic groups in contemporary society, which ultimately leads to the trivialization and dis-
missal of problems Native peoples currently face (Davis, 2002; Davis-Delano, 2007).
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Jacobs and Taylor 3
The prominent ‘Indians’ MLB franchise validates these racial mythologies for Ohio residents,
particularly Northeast Ohio baseball fans. The Cleveland baseball franchise enjoys overwhelming
support from over 130 public and private sources, including communications networks, restaurants
and bars, financial organizations, clubs, and businesses (Staurowsky, 2000). Ohio is so inundated
with images of Chief Wahoo that the mascot creates a ‘consumer blind spot’ (Merskin, 2001) and,
consequently, prevents many Ohioans from perceiving its dehumanizing effects. Simultaneously,
the ‘mascot slot’ allocated to Native Americans silences Native concerns and prohibits Native
peoples from participating as full citizens in US democracy (Strong, 2004: 80).
White Antiracist Activism and White Guilt
Pseudo-Indian imagery is part of the culture of Cleveland, making it difficult for the majority of
people living in the area to think critically about its use. Yet, the franchise’s name and mascot are
critically evaluated and opposed by a small group of people collectively known as the Committee
of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance. This group is comprised of Native Americans and their
allies, many of whom are white. The question of why whites participate in antiracism work, despite
such work’s direct opposition to the system of racial privilege from which they benefit, has been
addressed by numerous studies. The question of how whites participate, however, has received less
attention. Our study of white antiracist activism in Cleveland attempts to bridge this gap.
A number of scholars suggest that whites who adopt antiracist identities begin their activist
journeys by divesting from dominant racial ideologies (Bonilla-Silva, 2003; Frankenberg, 1993;
Gallagher, 2003; O’Brien, 2000; Williams, 1995). Antiracist whites acknowledge the realities of
racism because they have what Perry and Shotwell (2009) refer to as propositional knowledge, or
fact-based knowledge, of the role race plays in structuring access to resources and power.
Furthermore, their macro-level understandings of racism and race relations generate awareness of
their unearned racial privileges. Empirical research conducted by Eichstedt (2001) and O’Brien
(1999, 2000, 2001) corroborates Perry and Shotwell’s (2009) theory-driven analysis. Eichstedt
(2001) and O’Brien (1999, 2000, 2001), through interviews with 16 and 22 white antiracist activ-
ists, respectively, discovered that interview respondents initiated their antiracist activism by
acknowledging white racism and their individual, unavoidable roles in perpetuating racial inequal-
ities. In Frankenberg’s (1993) terms, these antiracist whites are ‘race cognizant’; they fully under-
stand that they play a role in reproducing the racist social structure if they fail to actively resist
racism in all of its forms. They are obligated to ‘embrace the oppressor label at the same time that
they challenge oppressor identity and behavior’ (Eichstedt, 2001: 460).
Some scholars of white antiracism suggest that affective knowledge, or feeling-based knowledge,
of racial inequality is also critical to whites’ participation in antiracist praxis (Collins, 1993; Feagin,
2000; Mallett et al., 2008; O’Brien, 1999, 2001; Perry and Shotwell, 2009). Whites may develop
affective knowledge of racial inequality in numerous ways. For instance, O’Brien’s (2001) study
revealed that whites whose close friends and/or romantic partners were people of color seemed more
likely than other whites to engage in antiracism work. These whites were able to empathize with the
hardships of racism because they experienced them indirectly through their intimate companions.
Mallett et al. (2008) call this empathetic insight ‘perspective taking’ and suggest that it may contrib-
ute to dominant group members’ participation in collective action on behalf of a subordinated group.
In a study of student responses to hate crimes committed against homosexual and black students
on a university campus, Mallett et al. (2008) illustrate that guilt also may play an important role in
collective action. Guilt, as defined by Lorde, is a ‘response to one’s own actions or lack of action’
(1984: 130), and consequently, is experienced by people who assume responsibility for some
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4 Critical Sociology
wrong. White guilt, therefore, is experienced by whites who acknowledge their white privilege and
their (unavoidable) role in perpetuating racism – particularly if they do not actively resist racialized
social norms. Thus, Mallett et al. (2008) suggest that affective knowledge, or ‘perspective taking’,
triggers feelings of white guilt which, in turn, inspire white antiracist activism.
Like Lorde (1984), Swim and Miller (1999) conceptualize guilt as an emotion resulting from
wrongdoing; consequently, they believe that guilt feelings can be relieved by taking ‘corrective
actions’ (Swim and Miller, 1999: 512). Shame, on the other hand, is a ‘tendency to feel bad about
oneself’, whether or not one is personally responsible for wrongdoing (Swim and Miller, 1999:
512). It can be an immobilizing force for whites who do not feel responsible for continuing rac-
ism, but who believe that others perceive them negatively due to their dominant group member-
ship. Although Swim and Miller (1999) maintain that shame, rather than guilt, causes whites’
defensiveness, other scholars of white antiracism propose that feelings of guilt can stymie collec-
tive action, particularly when whites react defensively to implications of wrongdoing (Katz, 1978;
Lorde, 1984; Warren, 2010). Survey research supports the idea that dominant group members’
feelings of defensiveness can create barriers to cross-racial communication (Iyers et al., 2003;
Swim and Miller, 1999). For instance, defensive whites may choose to protect themselves from
feelings of inadequacy by closing themselves off to relationships with people of color. In this
article, we borrow Lorde’s (1984) and Swim and Miller’s (1999) definition of guilt, leaving open
the possibility that guilt may help or hinder whites’ abilities to work effectively with people of
color on antiracism projects.
The extant literature identifies factors that foment whites’ participation (or lack thereof) in
antiracist activism, but relatively little research examines how whites’ racial and activist identities
interact in the context of multiracial antiracist organizations. For instance, some ethnographers
explore members’ efforts to increase racial diversity within feminist organizations; none of the
organizations studied, however, were explicitly antiracist (Matthews, 1989; Poster, 1995; Scott,
1998, 2005). In contrast, Eichstedt (2001) and O’Brien (1999, 2000, 2001) provide rich accounts
of whites who participate in overtly antiracist work. Eichstedt (2001) does not focus on white
antiracist activists within specific organizational settings, but the majority of O’Brien’s interview
respondents participated in one of two antiracist organizations – Anti-Racist Action (ARA) and
the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond (PI). In O’Brien’s study, organizational affiliation
is crucial to activists’ identities and their ways of participating in antiracism efforts. Her de-
localized sample, drawn from seven cities across the US and Canada, however, does not allow
O’Brien (1999, 2000, 2001) to comment on how racial dynamics within a multiracial antiracist
group operate at the ground level.
We build on this literature by spotlighting racial identity issues that surface in multiracial anti-
racist alliances. We examine how whites’ racial consciousness – a necessary precursor to antiracist
activism – may inhibit their efficacy within multiracial organizations. By examining the positional-
ity of both white and Native American Committee members, we illustrate the unique tensions that
result when whites work with people of color to confront racial inequalities. Our findings indicate
that whites’ awareness of their racial privilege and their subsequent feelings of white guilt may
limit their antiracism efforts within multiracial activist groups.
Methods
Our research focuses on the Committee of 500 Years of Dignity and Resistance, an antiracist organi-
zation originally formed in 1991 to protest quincentennial Columbus Day celebrations. After 1992,
the year in which these cross-continental protests occurred, the organization reoriented its protest
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Jacobs and Taylor 5
activities to focus specifically on the elimination of the Cleveland baseball franchise’s ‘Indians’ name
and Chief Wahoo mascot. Today, the Committee is comprised of approximately 8 to 12 core mem-
bers, but has a broader peripheral membership base of approximately 150 individuals who receive the
organization’s annual newsletter and occasionally heed the group’s ‘call to conference’.
We use multiple methods to develop a multilayered, holistic understanding of the Committee
and the racialized environment within which it exists. These methods include field observations,
semi-structured interviews, and the analysis of documents produced by and/or written about the
Committee. Our inductive approach allowed us to generate in-depth, firsthand accounts of the
Committee’s organizational and protest strategies enacted throughout 2006 and 2007. Furthermore,
we analyzed the data using a grounded theoretical approach (Charmaz, 2006; Glaser and Strauss,
1967), which enabled us to move from intimate and detailed descriptions of empirical realities to
the theoretical interpretation of these realities.
The first author, a white female graduate student, attended all of the Committee’s meetings,
conferences, and demonstrations throughout 2006 and 2007, and remained an active member of the
group until 2010. Consequently, the first author observed the Committee’s monthly (and some-
times bimonthly) meetings, which typically were attended by between 4 and 8 core members of the
group. She also observed the Committee’s annual Conference on Racist Imagery in Popular
Culture, the largest event sponsored by the Committee each year. Finally, the first author partici-
pated in the Committee’s monthly demonstrations, held throughout the MLB season.
We also draw from semi-structured interviews with nine Committee members, each of whom
participated in the organization for a time period ranging from 6 to 15 years. This diverse panel of
knowledgeable informants is comprised of core (N=7) and peripheral (N=2) members of the
Committee. Core members are actively engaged in all aspects of the organization’s work; they
attend a majority of Committee meetings, establish and carry out the organization’s agenda, and
participate in conferences and demonstrations. Over the years, core group members have formed
close relationships; thus, meetings are informal and friendly gatherings. Peripheral members, on
the other hand, only occasionally attend meetings or demonstrations, and some of them participate
only in the Committee’s annual conference and/or are entirely inactive. Committee members at
both levels are diverse in terms of their racial and ethnic affiliations. During the first author’s par-
ticipation in the group, eight core members attended almost every Committee meeting and
Committee-sponsored event. Five of these core members were white, one was African American,
and two were Native American. With the exception of one Native American woman, each of these
core members participated in the interview process. Table 1 provides information about each
respondent’s Committee membership status and race/ethnicity.
The first author interviewed Committee members between April and September 2006. These
interviews lasted approximately1½ to 3 hours. Interview topics included: initial interest in the
Committee’s work, recruitment into the organization, participation in Committee meetings and/or
Committee-sponsored events, and assessments of the Committee’s effectiveness as an organiza-
tion. The semi-structured interviews allowed respondents to elaborate upon both their experiences
within the organization and their more general experiences as antiracist activists. Although the
issue of racial identity within the organization was not raised, our findings illustrate the saliency of
this topic to Committee members, each of whom addressed the issue despite the lack of a prompt-
ing question. Additionally, organizational documents and archival data were collected to under-
stand the Committee’s position within the broader Cleveland environment and to fill any gaps in
the history provided by long-time Committee members.
In this article, we discuss three themes that emerged from the data: motivations for white
participation, lack of Native participants, and dynamics of multiracial (white–Native) antiracist
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6 Critical Sociology
organizing. Our findings suggest that white antiracists’ racial consciousness and subsequent
white guilt may impede progress toward the Committee’s goal of ‘enhancing and protecting the
cultural human rights and heritage rights of indigenous people living in Northeast Ohio’ (http://
www.committee500years.com/). From the standpoint of Committee members, eliminating the
pseudo-Indian imagery propagated by Cleveland’s baseball franchise is elemental to achieving
this goal.
Findings
Motivations for White Participation
As noted by other scholars of white antiracism, white Committee members initiated their involve-
ment in the Committee’s antiracism work for a number of different reasons (Eichstedt, 2001; O’Brien,
1999, 2000, 2001; Perry and Shotwell, 2009; Williams, 1995). During the interviews, respondents
were asked how they first became aware of the Indian mascot issue and why they think this issue is a
priority in Cleveland. Committee members’ responses illustrate that propositional (conceptual)
knowledge and affective (feeling-based) knowledge of discrimination against Native Americans in
Ohio motivate them to participate in the Committee. Although one respondent relied upon proposi-
tional knowledge alone, the other respondents clearly drew upon both forms of knowing.
Mark (white peripheral member) is the only respondent to define his interest in the Indian mas-
cot issue as purely ‘political’. He is very vocal about his distaste for racism, which he believes is
‘really, really thorough and deep’ in Cleveland. He explains:
I know people on the west side [of Cleveland] who won’t come downtown because they’re afraid of
running into black people. And they don’t talk about it, but, when they get to trust you, it’ll come out. They
don’t know any black people. They don’t want to know any black people. And uh, they really don’t like
black people. […] The elephant in the room in American society is race.
Table 1. Descriptive Characteristics of Interview Respondents
Self-identified Race/
Ethnicity
Race Category* Age Education Length of Committee
Membership
CORE members
Anthony ‘African-American’ African-American 42 M.A. 13 years
Corey ‘Navajo’ Native American 30 High School 12 years
Eva ‘White, Heinz 57’ White 57 High School 15 years
Gerald ‘German’ White 73 M.A. 9 years
Lynne ‘Mixed’ White & Chinese 70 Ph.D. 10 years
Michael ‘Scottish’ White 50 Ph.D. 12 years
To d d ‘Hungarian’ White 53 B.A. / RN 14 years
PERIPHERAL members
Benjamin ‘Native American,
OST member’**
Native American 44 M.A. / RN / MSN 6 years
Mark ‘White’ White 68 M.A. 10 years
*In the table, race is expressed in two ways. The racial description in quotation marks denotes the ‘race or ethnicity’ that
each respondent recorded on a fact sheet completed at the time of the interview. The second description is our estima-
tion of how the respondent would be classified racially by the broader public.
**Oglala Sioux Tribe
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Jacobs and Taylor 7
As these comments illustrate, Mark has knowledge of and direct experiences with white racism in
Cleveland. His awareness of the Indian mascot issue, however, did not develop prior to a conversa-
tion with his sister, a Philadelphia resident. As Mark states,
I went to visit her and she said, ‘How can you put up with this in Cleveland?’ And I said, ‘What?’ And she
said, ‘Look at this logo of the Indians!’ And I said, ‘Well, I never pay attention to sports.’ Which is true – I
never gave it a thought. And then I said, ‘Man [sic], you’re right. This is – oh, God!’
Although Mark acknowledged racism in Cleveland, he did not recognize the role of ‘Chief Wahoo’
in perpetuating racism against Native people until having this conversation with his sister. Now
Mark participates in the Committees’ protests, but not in the Committee’s organizational meetings.
It is possible that he remains at the periphery of the Committee due to his limited affective knowl-
edge of racism.
White core members of the Committee demonstrated their affective knowledge of racism by
speaking openly about their relationships with Native Americans and other people of color. For
instance, Gerald (white) ‘became interested in the [Native] culture somewhat’ as a result of conver-
sations he had with his Native American (Seneca) niece. When he read a Cleveland Plain Dealer
letter to the editor about the Indian mascot controversy, he called the author, a Committee member
named Michael (white), who invited him to the Committee’s next demonstration. Gerald attended
the demonstration and has been an active member of the Committee ever since. It is possible that
Gerald would not have taken such a strong interest in the issue if it had not been for his close rela-
tionship with his niece.
Eva (white) also talked about an experience that drew her attention to the fact that most people
‘don’t even realize that [Indians] exist’. She explains,
A guy I was engaged to years ago … he was Crow and Grosventre. We were at Best Buy or somewhere in
this area. And I walked up to pay for the stuff. He was standing beside me, then he walked over to look at
something. A high school kid was working and he goes, ‘Is he Indian?’ And I went, ‘Yeah,’ and he goes,
‘[Gasp!] I’ve never seen one before!’ He was all excited. There was a real Indian in his store. And I went,
okay, we’ve got a problem here.
Several years later, Eva met a Native (Hidatsa) woman named Anna while working as a secretary in
the United Church of Christ administrative offices. According to Eva, Anna (who recently moved to
Ohio) ‘took one look at that logo and said, “Oh, no. That has got to go.”’ Following Anna’s lead¸ Eva
became involved in protests against the Cleveland team’s name and mascot. Over the last 15 years,
Eva’s commitment to the Committee’s antiracism work has been re-energized by the endless stories
of discrimination told to her by Native friends. During the interview, she reflected on these stories
and how they sustain her commitment to eradicate stereotypes of indigenous peoples:
… to hear their stories about what [indigenous] children go through in school. [One] friend, whose
daughter … was talking to her history teacher, the subject [of Indian mascots] came up in class. And his
response was, ‘Who cares? The Indians are a dying race.’ One little boy, in junior high school at the time,
told his teacher – ‘I don’t want to color these Wahoos and put them on the window for team spirit day
because this is an insult to my people.’ He was kept after school. So this is what the children go through
that live in the urban areas where they have these mascots.
As a mother, Eva empathizes with the heartaches her Native friends experience when their children
suffer as a result of dehumanizing Indian stereotypes – suffering that is documented in the
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8 Critical Sociology
literature (Fryberg et al., 2008). For another Committee member named Michael (white), the pain
of racial stereotyping hits even closer to home. Michael explains,
The reason I’m involved in the Committee of 500 Years and active on this issue, as opposed to just
agreeing with it, right, is the woman I’m married to is Japanese-American. … It’s very clear every, each
December 7th, how stereotyping works, right? I don’t get jokes about Pearl Harbor on December 7th. She
does, you know? … I don’t get Scottish jokes or Anglo jokes. She gets ‘ching chong Chinaman’ and so on
and so forth. You know, stupid stuff from kids as she’s biking down the street.
Later in the interview, Michael reiterates how affective knowledge led to his participation in the
Committee. He states that his ‘involvement with the issue … is fundamentally because I have
people of color as in-laws. And that’s given me insight into it that most white people don’t have.’
When asked to discuss the resistance of Ohioans to the Committee’s antiracist message, however,
Michael articulates his propositional knowledge of structured racism, responding:
I’m going to go out on a limb here, okay, which is, I think this country, everything about our culture was
founded, developed, and continues to rely on racism. We live on stolen land. We live on the wealth of
slave labor. We continue to live on, to have cheap commodities and a luxurious lifestyle on the labor of
illegal immigrants and sweatshops around the world. Central to the American capitalist, industrialist
empire is racism and dehumanization. I believe that the mascots are just the tip of the iceberg. I think
that its – people say, ‘Don’t you mess with our mascot.’ They’re saying, ‘Don’t you mess with our
worldview.’
Similarly, Todd (white), another core Committee member, stated that he became involved in the
movement because he understood the issue to be one of human rights. Todd did not have any per-
sonal connections to the Native community in Cleveland, but rather, heard about the Committee
through his participation in a local chapter of the Sierra Club. When the first author asked Todd
why he felt compelled to engage in the Committee’s struggles, he stated,
I think it’s important to have some kind of a change, to let Native people take the lead for a change. And
this is what they want, and so I’m perfectly happy to let them take the lead, you know? Because I figure,
you know, like one of the things that the Sierra Club is interested in is the environment, you know? But
closely related to the environment, you know, is human rights, you know? You can’t have a good
environment without good human rights and vice versa and one of the ways to get human rights is to, uh,
not necessarily to help Native people, but to learn from them so that we can help each other. So one way,
you know, we can help each other is to let them take the lead for a change.
In this statement, Todd explores the relationship between human rights activism and white
accountability to historically subordinated indigenous populations. His insistence on allowing
Native people ‘take the lead for a change’ illustrates two contradictory points. First, Todd
unwittingly disregards centuries of indigenous resistance to colonization by asserting that
Natives ‘tak[ing] the lead’ is change (Hill, 2010). At the same time, however, he acknowledges
white racism and white privilege by consciously disassociating from white paternalistic atti-
tudes regarding the inability of Native peoples to ‘help’ themselves; rather, Todd insists that
whites should ‘learn from’ Native people. Throughout the interviews, many white Committee
members, like Todd, expressed their desire to follow Native leadership. As we show in the pro-
ceeding pages, this antiracism strategy might be an impediment to the Committee’s antiracism
work.
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Jacobs and Taylor 9
Lack of Native Participants
Since its inception, numerous phenomena highlighted by social movement scholars have affected
the Committee’s progress toward its goal of protecting the rights of Northeast Ohio Natives. Davis-
Delano and Crosset (2008) discovered that three factors – culture, political processes, and the abil-
ity to mobilize resources – interact to produce positive and/or negative outcomes in struggles over
Indian mascots. We already have described cultural impediments to the Committee’s work, such as
the ‘consumer blind spot’ (Merskin, 2001) created by Northeast Ohio businesses’ overwhelming
support of the Cleveland baseball franchise and its mascot (Staurowsky, 2000). The region’s inun-
dation with ‘Indians’ imagery prevents Committee claims (specifically regarding the damaging
effects of such imagery) from resonating with Northeast Ohio residents (Jacobs, 2007).
Political processes, or constraints and opportunities created by the social structure, also can
inform a discussion of the Committee’s efficacy. Although long-time Committee members fre-
quently referred to the organization’s ‘glory days’, when the Committee was more active, had more
members, and received more publicity, they infrequently addressed the significant relationship
between organizational ebbs and flows and the external political context of Cleveland (Tarrow,
1989). However, two notable aspects of the Cleveland political environment may have had pro-
found effects on the Committee’s early mobilization efforts. First, the Committee began protests
against the MLB franchise’s pseudo-Indian imagery in 1992, only two years prior to the team’s
move from Municipal Stadium to Jacobs Field. During this time, the Committee’s work was spot-
lighted by local and national media because the organization participated in negotiations with the
franchise’s owners about whether the mascot would follow the team to its new stadium. Second,
the team’s most successful seasons occurred shortly thereafter, between 1995 and 2001. Winning
the American League Central Division Crown in six out of seven years boosted the team’s popular-
ity and provoked a media blitz, providing the Committee with a larger audience to which it could
appeal. Following 2001, Cleveland’s political context changed and the Committee’s opportunities
for publicity diminished; thus, the Committee’s inefficacy in recent years could be attributed in
part to the natural rhythm of social movement ‘protest cycles’ (Tarrow, 1989).
Finally, the Committee’s inability to mobilize resources undoubtedly plays a role in the group’s
recent lack of success in executing its goals. In Davis-Delano and Crosset’s study (2008), a number
of resources, including organizational composition, leadership, and tactics, enabled some groups to
successfully oppose Indian mascots. Importantly, the leaders and lead antagonists in these strug-
gles cited extensive Native involvement as critical to the movements’ successes. They also noted
the importance of articulate and organized leaders who used a wide variety of tactics, including
garnering the support of local Native communities and organizations. As one mascot opponent
from Davis-Delano and Crosset’s (2008: 120) study commented – ‘more [Indian] people’ was
equated with ‘hav[ing] the high moral ground’.
Committee members understand the value in mobilizing such resources and repeatedly note that
increased Native participation and the implementation of a Native leader are critical to the organi-
zation’s success. In fact, white Committee members place most of the blame for the Committee’s
limited success in recent years on the organization’s lack of these crucial ‘resources’. As Gerald, a
white core Committee member, states, ‘We don’t have enough Native peoples involved’.
Unfortunately, particular problems affect the mobilization of Native Americans around the Indian
mascot issue in Northeast Ohio.
Many Native Americans living in Cleveland today are here as a result of the federal govern-
ment’s Indian Relocation Program and this provides an important framework for our discussion of
Native participation in the Committee. Relocation removed Native Americans from their tribal
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10 Critical Sociology
groups and placed them in urban areas that typically were thousands of miles from relocatees’
homes. Several interview respondents, both Native and non-Native, noted the detrimental political
consequences that this dispersion of Native peoples has for Native action. Committee members
referred to relocation as ‘the government’s effort to break up the cohesiveness of nations’ (Lynne),
‘a process to eliminate the Native’ (Corey), and ‘programs of diluting a community and spreading
it out and assimilating it into the white community’ (Michael). All but one respondent discussed
the inability of Natives to attain political power due to their small population size.1 Consequently,
the difficult task of recruiting activists in any social movement organization is compounded by the
small population of Native American people from which the Committee can draw. In the past, the
Committee expanded and diversified its membership by working in solidarity with organizations
such as the All African Revolutionary People’s Party and Escuela Popular, a Puerto Rican school
and center for activism around immigrant issues and workers’ rights. In recent years these collab-
orative efforts have been neglected, causing core Committee members to increasingly emphasize
Native participation as key to the organization’s success.
Recruiting Native participants, however, has been an arduous task. Relocation not only affected
the total population of Native Americans living in Cleveland; it also contributes to the transient
status of urban Natives. Since many Cleveland Natives have family members back home on reser-
vations, they are likely to travel between these two locations. This transient status makes it difficult
for the Committee to maintain steady Native membership and participation. As Corey (Navajo)
noted, ‘it’s hard because with Native people, you know, they tend to be very mobile…. Everybody
has their particular reasons [for traveling between the city and the reservation], but a lot of times
it’s just back and forth.’ Todd (white) also observed that the ‘Native Americans … come and go.’
In addition to the mobility that Corey and Todd addressed, some Native individuals and families
leave urban centers – which in many cases are viewed as temporary residences – and never return.
Two of the Committee’s first Native leaders, Rick and Anna, eventually moved away from
Cleveland to live in areas nearer their home towns.
The problems associated with Native organizing in the Cleveland area extend beyond the min-
ute and transient Native American population. Native Americans in Cleveland suffer from high
rates of unemployment and underemployment, poverty, alcohol and drug dependence, and ill
health. These hardships make it difficult for Natives to participate in Committee meetings and
events. Non-Native Committee members acknowledged that more Native Americans would par-
ticipate in the organization if they were not hindered by their obligations and social locations. With
respect to the literature, Natives in Cleveland lack the ‘biographical availability’ – attributable
primarily to young people without children – that would enable their involvement in Committee
events (McAdam, 1986; Schussman and Soule, 2005). For instance, Benjamin, a Lakota man with
a young family, placed himself at the ‘periphery of the Committee generally because I’m always
really busy’. He explained that he carefully selects the Committee activities in which he partici-
pates because he must ‘work within the constraints of [his available] time’. During Eva’s (white)
interview, she discussed her personal efforts to increase Native participation despite innumerable
hardships that prevent Native Americans from attending Committee meetings:
I used to, years ago to make sure everyone went to the meetings, I’d go pick up the girls, you know – Berta
and Janice and Lillian, who’s no longer here. [Lillian] is White Mountain Apache, but she went back to her
rez when she retired. I’d go pick’em up, take’em to the meetings, just to make sure they got there, you
know? … Well, Berta works at night. Janice works at night. Corey has gotten more involved lately. I keep
waiting to say [to Corey], ‘Okay, now you’re chairperson again. Please be chairperson!’
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Jacobs and Taylor 11
Eva’s statement illustrates that the irregular work schedules of Native Committee members prohib-
its their participation in the organization’s evening meetings. In addition, it shows Eva’s willing-
ness to exchange resources available to her (such as time and transportation) for greater Native
participation in the Committee. Lynne (white) also addressed the lack of Native participants,
explaining why many of the Committee’s Native members could not attend the 2006 Conference
on Racist Imagery in Popular Culture:
There were things going on in major universities and in other cities that day that just kept people from
coming because they had their own things that they were totally involved in … one of them was making
fry bread at one of the other places and another was selling jewelry at a powwow. And it’s, you know, how
people make their money.
Lynne is careful to address the fact that Native Americans in Ohio often supplement their incomes
selling traditional Native foods and crafts at local festivals, gatherings, and powwows. Despite
Native individuals’ commitment to the Committee’s work, potentially ‘making their money’ neces-
sarily outweighs participating in purely activist endeavors. Another possibility is that Natives pre-
fer to attend cultural events, such as powwows, rather than attending anti-Wahoo conferences and
demonstrations. Not only does cultural preservation remain an important objective of indigenous
peoples (Jaimes, 1992), but, as we describe below, anti-Wahoo demonstrations are possibly quite
harrowing experiences for Native protestors. When asked if there was anything she would like to
add or talk about at the conclusion of the interview, Lynne said:
I think I would just like to say … It’s [the Native community] neither large, nor powerful, nor wealthy, and
that makes it ever so much harder to achieve what really should be achieved. And I don’t know how to
overcome this if it can be overcome, but I think it’s something that people should realize, maybe, when
they’re trying to decide whether to support the cause or not – when they’re thinking, why aren’t there more
people out there, you know, demonstrating? Why don’t we hear more about it [the mascot issue]? I think
people should at least know and realize that that’s what the situation is. The fact that there aren’t very many
[Native] people here compared to how many other people are here in the city doesn’t mean that it’s okay
to discriminate against those people and to ridicule them and to disrespect them.
In this statement, Lynne draws attention to an argument commonly used by Cleveland baseball
fans – that Indian mascot supporters far outnumber the protestors, and therefore, the franchise
should retain its Indians name and Chief Wahoo mascot. In contrast to Committee members, whose
knowledge of both historical and contemporary discrimination against Native Americans provides
them with insights into why there are so few Native protestors outside the baseball stadium, the
majority of Indian mascot supporters do not see a connection between past colonization and the
contemporary status of Native Americans (Black, 2002). White privilege remains invisible to these
fans, and this invisibility increases fans’ adamancy that the lack of protestors – specifically, Native
protestors – is evidence that the mascot ‘issue’ is really not an issue at all.
During Committee demonstrations, Cleveland baseball fans on their way into the stadium clearly
(and often loudly) communicate their perceptions that Committee members are white liberals taking
up a cause that Native Americans may or may not support. They are vocal about their disapproval
of the racial composition of the protest group. While protesting, the first author repeatedly was
asked why she, a white woman, cared about Native American mascots. In formal and informal con-
versations with other white Committee members, she discovered that this line of questioning was
not uncommon. Though unprompted, Mark (white) brought the topic up during his interview:
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12 Critical Sociology
Then they ask you – do they ask you, ‘Are you Indian? What are you doing out here?’ I mean, what
difference does that make?! I’m a Clevelander and I’m embarrassed by this thing! That’s enough reason.
I’m an American!
The first author also repeatedly witnessed baseball fans pointing a finger at each protestor in line
and identifying him or her racially, saying ‘white, white, white, white, black, um – maybe Native,
white, white [etc.]’. This practice illustrates the amazing amount of significance that Cleveland
baseball fans attach to the protestors’ races. As Davis-Delano and Crosset (2008) suggest, whites
are not deemed legitimate representatives of Native peoples in debates over Indian mascots.
Ironically, the fans attempting to identify protestors by race unknowingly validate Committee
members’ claims that Indian mascots perpetuate stereotypes about indigenous peoples. Often, pro-
testors designated as ‘white’ are Native American. As Mark (white) articulated:
I’m sure they wouldn’t know an Indian if they bit ’em in the leg. You know, they walk by our picket line
and they don’t know half of those people are Indians. They have no idea! They expect to see red faces,
feathers, you know? They think all the Indians are dead.
Yet, despite strong evidence indicating that Cleveland baseball fans prefer to see Native protestors
outside the baseball stadium, it is the protestors whose phenotypic traits correspond with stereo-
typical representations of Indians that receive the most negative attention from enthusiastic
members of Major League Baseball’s ‘Tribe’. ‘Indians’ fans angrily tell Native protestors to ‘go
back to where they came from’ and to ‘get a job!’ They scream ‘it’s an honor!’ just before cupping
their hands over their mouths and shrieking ‘woowoowoowoowoowoowoo!’ The special attention
granted protestors identified as Native by fans on their way to the baseball game illustrates deeply
entrenched white racism in Ohio. The ‘Indians’ baseball team’s most vocal fans make darker-
skinned protestors the targets of their most disparaging remarks, and at the same time, these fans
remain steadfast in their claims that Indian mascots are ‘harmless’.
This brief discussion of common fan behaviors during Committee protests introduces another
explanation for the lack of Native participants in the Committee’s work. According to Corey
(Navajo), ‘Sometimes it’s … just the activism in itself’. During Corey’s interview, he explained
that some Native Americans do not feel comfortable ‘being [in] the public eye’ and this discomfort
‘kind of pushes people away from showing support’. After witnessing the abhorrent behaviors of
some baseball fans toward the Native people present at Committee demonstrations, this reason for
abstaining from demonstrating is completely justified. Natives who continue to protest outside the
baseball stadium must develop, as Corey says, a very ‘thick skin’.
Dynamics of White-Native Antiracist Coalition
Despite having few remaining core Native members, whites involved in the Committee continue
to assert that Native leadership is tantamount to the organization’s success. All but one white
respondent, a peripheral Committee member, mentioned the importance of following Native lead-
ership during the interviews. Core members, such as Michael, are involved in the group simply
because it is ‘led by Native people – as opposed to white people trying to interest people of color
in something that essentially the white people are running’. Similarly, Todd stated that the mascot
issue is an immediate concern for him ‘because this is what the Native people want’.
In O’Brien’s (2001: 145) comparative study of two antiracist organizations, she discovered that
white activists attempt to fight racism by ‘striving for humility’. Following Native leadership is
one way Committee members utilize this strategy, which they learned during the organization’s
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Jacobs and Taylor 13
formative years. Interviews with Committee members revealed the continuing influence of the
group’s original chairperson, a Mexican Apache man and a strong-willed leader named Rick. Rick
insisted that the Committee’s constitution contain two important stipulations: that the Board of
Directors has a majority of Native people and that organizational decisions be made with a quorum
of Native people. Rick took these precautionary measures because he feared that white people,
even well-meaning whites, might eventually dominate the Committee’s activities.
Michael (white), a Committee member since 1994, discussed Rick’s insistence on the Committee
being Native-run. According to Michael,
[Rick] was very clear [about the fact that] this Committee has to have Native people running it or it has no
validity. And no matter what you do, white people are going to be racist and they’re going to try to take
over … So anyways, [Rick] was very stubborn about not letting white people take over the organization,
while at the same time, you know, needing their help.
Michael’s statement illustrates a unique tension that exists within antiracist organizations – the
desire and perhaps need for white participation is equal to the fear of white ‘takeover’ of the orga-
nization. Rick, the group’s Native chairperson, was adamant that Native people establish the
Committee’s organizational goals and provide the group’s leadership. His strategy mirrored that of
third world nationalists reclaiming power from their colonizers (Bhavnani, 2001), making it con-
sistent with the Committee’s goal of eliminating externally imposed definitions of indigeneity in
the form Indian mascots.
According to Michael, Rick was a ‘very, very smart guy, very insightful, very, um – forthright?’
He went on to say that Rick could be ‘extremely difficult’ and ‘abrasive’. Yet Michael further
explained,
Sometimes we [the Committee members] deserved it, you know? Because white people can be pretty
racist and domineering…. it gets pretty tiring telling people that they’re being racist and they’re being
wasichu [derogatory Lakota name for whites] and just, you get tired of it.
These comments illustrate Michael’s ‘perspective taking’ and his acceptance of responsibility for
wrongdoing. Michael clearly takes the perspective of Rick when stating, ‘you just get tired’ of ‘tell-
ing people that they’re being racist and … wasichu’. Furthermore, Michael describes Rick’s ‘abra-
siveness’ as appropriate and/or warranted in his dealings with ‘racist’ white Committee members.
Not insignificantly, Michael acknowledges his membership in this ‘racist’ group by indicating that
‘we deserved it’ [emphasis added]. Michael seems to graciously accept the white guilt overtly
roused by Rick nearly a decade ago, but it is difficult to surmise whether Michael or other white
Committee members reacted defensively to Rick’s admonishments at the time they occurred.
After Rick resigned from his leadership position, a Hidatsa woman named Anna took on the respon-
sibilities of networking with other progressive organizations in the region and of financing and orga-
nizing the Committee’s conferences. She refused to be named the Committee’s ‘chairperson’, but she
provided the Native leadership that Committee members had come to expect under Rick’s direction.
In August of 2004, however, Anna formally resigned from the Committee to move back to her reserva-
tion in South Dakota. After Anna’s departure, the Committee’s organizational capacities experienced a
gradual decline, measured by decreases in core Committee membership and number of Committee-
sponsored activities, fewer participants in Committee-sponsored functions, and dissipated relation-
ships with other Cleveland-based, justice-oriented social movement organizations (SMOs).
Although white members of the Committee tried to fulfill the responsibilities once executed by
Rick and Anna, they did not successfully accomplish these tasks. As Michael stated,
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14 Critical Sociology
Rick would kind of determine which initiatives we would take – let’s do this, let’s try this, let’s try this kind
of protest, let’s work in solidarity with, you know, the All African Revolutionary People’s Party. … And
so, um, now basically what we do are the protests and the conference. And we don’t really have, well, with
Corey coming on and increasingly assuming leadership, then we have kind of a Native voice to follow, so
we may get more active again. But, um, the white people in the group – after being kind of broken in by
Rick – have learned not to take major initiatives on behalf of the Native community.
According to Michael, even networking with other Cleveland-area SMOs is an initiative that ‘the
white people understand’, but will not act upon because ‘it’s not our place to take that kind of lead-
ership’. White Committee members’ continued reluctance to take initiative within the organization
almost a decade after Rick’s resignation suggests that their ability or their will to act has been
impeded. From a social movement theoretical perspective, the Committee’s inertia could be the
result of oppressive cultural factors, disadvantageous political factors, and /or member burnout,
among other things. However, white Committee members attribute the group’s curtailed activity to
a lack of Native leadership. White interviewees who proactively joined the Committee to fight rac-
ism against Native people specifically described their recent immobilization in terms of lacking ‘a
Native voice to follow’.
Eva, for instance, agreed that the absence of a strong Native leader has negatively affected the
group’s motivation and ability to accomplish goal-oriented tasks. She said the group needs ‘a
strong leader’ like Rick, but unfortunately, ‘We don’t have that leadership yet’. Eva continued,
[The Committee’s leader] really needs to be an indigenous person, because … not only because it’s
indigenous issues. The issues were created by whites, actually. These mascots, these names were created
by white people and I think it’s the responsibility of the white people to change it. So we need to work
together side by side, hand in hand.
Other Committee members also acknowledged the necessity of white–Native collaboration on the
issue of Indian mascots. According to Mark, ‘[T]here’s just not enough Indians to make a differ-
ence. You don’t have to listen to them. The only hope is they can get some white allies to help them
out.’ Michael further stated,
You know, really, the Native people have to continue to say, yes, this is objectionable. They have to have
their presence out there. But in terms of working with the white people who created this – you know, we’re
the ones who created it. We created this mascot. We created the mess. We created all of the playing Indian
stuff. It’s up to us to change it.… And um, so that’s why the Committee of 500 Years continues to be a
white–Native coalition. The Native peoples can say very clearly, ‘this is offensive.’ But in terms of actually
working to change it, I think it’s the white people’s job to go back to the institutions they’ve created and
change them.
As these comments illustrate, Committee members acknowledge white ownership of the problem
of Indian mascots at the same time that they express a will to follow Native leadership. This conun-
drum lies at the heart of the Committee’s organizational struggles.
White Committee members’ resistance to taking leadership positions despite ‘owning’ the prob-
lem of Indian mascots may result from their early experiences in this antiracist organization. As
noted by several white respondents, whites learned deference to Native decision-makers from
Rick, who promptly rebuked them when he perceived their actions to be ‘domineering’. It is prob-
able that white Committee members who accepted Rick’s accusations of wrongdoing experienced
some guilt over their roles in perpetuating racism (Lorde, 1984; Swim and Miller, 1999). According
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Jacobs and Taylor 15
to the literature, this situation likely develops into one of two scenarios – either whites take ‘cor-
rective action’ to alleviate the guilt (Swim and Miller, 1999), or whites react defensively, shutting
down communication with people of color (Katz, 1978; Warren, 2010). We suggest that white core
Committee members who remained active in the organization long enough to participate in this
study may have chosen to alleviate their white guilt by taking corrective action – in the form of
limited action. These white Committee members continued their participation in the group along-
side the few remaining core Native members, with whom they developed close friendships. They
strictly limited their participation, however, to avoid ‘taking over’ or dominating decisions in the
organization. We believe this strategy may have enabled white Committee members to alleviate
feelings of white guilt.
A final example of core white Committee members’ ways of participating in the group further
illustrates this point. During interviews, several members acknowledged the lack of attention
devoted to the formal structure of the organization since Rick and Anna, the Committee’s original
Native leaders, resigned. The position of chairperson rotated between several members as Native
and non-Native activists were reluctant to take charge. Todd (white), an active member of the
Committee since the early 1990s, said that at one point, he became the vice chair ‘because nobody
else wanted to do it.’ At the time of his recruitment into this position, Corey (Navajo) became
chairperson and Eva (white) became secretary. Only months before the first author interviewed
Todd, however, he overheard Eva say she was the Committee’s ‘acting chairperson’. At the time,
Todd thought Eva was still the group’s secretary.
When asked to describe her role in the organization, Eva promptly responded,
Um, volunteer, secretary, fiscal agent, acting chair … The secretary is going to take care of all the e-mails,
letters, books … [I] have all that stuff in my office [at work], because there’s no place here to put it. Just
everything that needs to be done, you know. I kind of run the meetings, only because I haven’t found
someone else to do it yet.
Eva’s reluctance to assume a direct leadership role in the group is signified by her self-designation
as the ‘acting chair’. When asked how long she has held this position, Eva answered, ‘A couple of
years, I think. Um, Corey (Navajo) was chair for a year and uh – we conned him into that. Then he
said, okay, I’m done, and we’re like – [sighs in frustration]. So it’s like, okay, I use the term “acting
chair” when needed or depending on the hat, you know.’ By adopting the depreciated title of ‘act-
ing chair’, Eva is able to do ‘everything that needs to be done’ without accepting all due credit.
Interestingly, Corey was ‘conned into’ becoming the Committee’s ‘official’ chairperson for a sec-
ond time in November of 2006. He reluctantly accepted the title, but Eva continued to fulfill the
roles of ‘volunteer, secretary, fiscal agent, acting chair’.
Discussion and Conclusions
Our case study documents the struggles of a small multiracial organization devoted to the eradica-
tion of the Cleveland baseball franchise’s ‘Indians’ name and Chief Wahoo mascot. Consistent
with past research, white activists who participate in this antiracist organization articulate both
propositional and affective knowledge of white racism (Feagin, 2000; O’Brien, 1999, 2001; Perry
and Shotwell, 2009). They are aware of their unearned racial privilege in a society that continues
to discount the experiences and needs of people of color. Furthermore, white Committee members
see themselves as accountable to members of the Northeast Ohio Native American community,
which strengthens their commitment to resisting stereotypical Indian imagery. Unlike previous
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16 Critical Sociology
research on white antiracism, however, this case study illustrates the unique tensions that result
when white activists participate with people of color in explicitly antiracist work. We suggest that
white Committee members’ heightened racial consciousness, in conjunction with strategies to
deflect white guilt, negatively affect how they participate in the group. These phenomena prevent
whites from adopting the strong roles necessary to the organization’s success.
White Committee members’ awareness of structured racism opens their eyes to the myriad ways
in which white racism in Ohio complicates their antiracism work. For example, they realize that
their antiracist actions are discounted by Cleveland baseball fans who repeatedly insist that more
Native Americans should be present at demonstrations against the MLB franchise’s ‘Indians’ mon-
iker and Chief Wahoo mascot. Unlike the majority of these fans, white Committee members excuse
Native members’ non-participation, noting that a convergence of historical and contemporary rac-
isms prevents them from being more involved in organizational efforts. Furthermore, white
Committee members acknowledge that whites created the conditions under which their activism is
needed, and therefore, whites are responsible for social change efforts. Essentially, white Committee
members recognize that assigning people of color the responsibility of explaining their realities
and struggles is ‘an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the
master’s concerns’ (Lorde, 1981: 100).
Throughout the study, it also was evident that white Committee members had cultivated an
‘ethic of humility’ that encouraged their deference to Native authority figures (O’Brien, 2001). To
avoid what might be construed as white paternalism toward people of color (Eichstedt, 2001), they
resisted taking ‘major initiatives’ on behalf of the group. Throughout the 1990s, this antiracist
strategy was productive for the Committee, whose white members completed supportive tasks
under the supervision of Native leaders. After the 1990s, however, the Committee’s Native leader-
ship resigned and whites became the majority of core group members. In white members’ efforts
to honor two contradictory antiracist sentiments – that whites are responsible for anti-Indian mas-
cot activism and that whites should defer to Native leaders – whites continued to participate in the
Committee, but they substantially reduced their organizational inputs and activities. They also
resisted leadership titles.
We suggest that core white Committee members’ unwillingness to perform needed organiza-
tional tasks may have been their strategy for alleviating white guilt. White members had learned
that dominating decision-making processes in multiracial organizing was wrong. Consequently,
engaging in such action, whether or not it was mandated by circumstance, might cause unwanted
feelings of white guilt to surface. The alternative option of placing the burden of leadership on one
of the few remaining core Native Committee members, however, is both counterproductive and
antithetical to the Committee’s antiracist goals. In fact, doing so reinforces a pattern of subordina-
tion similar to that imposed by Cleveland baseball fans who demand that more Native protestors
participate in the Committee’s demonstrations. Although white Committee members’ devotion to
following Native leadership arises from authentic antiracist sentiment, it also illustrates, to some
extent, that these activists have not fully developed an antiracist praxis that does not reproduce the
racism (Perry and Shotwell, 2009).
Ultimately, the antiracist activism of white Committee members seems to be both heartened and
hindered by feelings of white guilt. Their awareness of white privilege gives them the strength to
confront racism directly at the Cleveland baseball stadium and their active resistance to racism
helps to alleviate feelings of white guilt. At the same time, their awareness of white privilege and
their attempts to deflect white guilt prevent them from taking needed actions on behalf of the
Committee. Undeniably, white Committee members find themselves in a complicated dilemma for
which no clear answers exist. Their participation in antiracist activism with people of color forces
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Jacobs and Taylor 17
them to negotiate a complex boundary between taking effective actions to resist racism and resist-
ing white domination of multiracial antiracist action.
The complex challenges faced by white Committee members have not been adequately
addressed by research on multiracial organizations. Conclusions drawn from studies of feminist
organizations cannot be applied directly to antiracist organizations such as the Committee. For
instance, Scott (1998, 2005) suggests that the establishment of organizational hierarchies in which
people of color occupy authoritative, paid positions is necessary to building racially diverse femi-
nist organizations. For the all-volunteer Committee, however, providing subsidies to Native lead-
ers is not an option; the group barely can appropriate the funds necessary to host its annual
conference. Other research on feminist multiracial activism indicates that mixed race coalitions are
more effective when separate, racially homogenous organizations develop ‘mutually advanta-
geous’ divisions of labor to achieve common goals (Matthews, 1989; Poster, 1995). This strategy
is similar to the one used by the People’s Institute (PI), the explicitly antiracist organization studied
by O’Brien (1999, 2000, 2001). PI relies ‘on a Malcolm X-like philosophy that Whites should be
doing separate work in their own communities’.
Logistically, the Committee could adopt this latter strategy. There is an organization in Cleveland
that explicitly focuses on the promotion of cultural activities for members of the Native community
and the Committee is associated with this more racially homogeneous organization. The question
that must be asked, however, is should the Committee abandon efforts to sustain its multiracial
composition? We suggest that it should not abandon such efforts. First, we have illustrated that
participating in antiracist activism with people of color has increased white Committee members’
affective knowledge of racism. As Michael (white) stated, it also provided whites with an opportu-
nity to ‘listen to and follow directions from people of color’. Second, due to the nature of Indian
mascot protest, Native Committee members do not benefit from white participation in ways sug-
gested by Mallett et al. (2008) – through the increased influence that whites have on other whites –
but they do benefit from the sheer increase in number of participants at demonstrations against
Chief Wahoo. As we have discussed, the small population of Native people in Northeast Ohio,
coupled with the ‘biographical unavailability’ of many members of Cleveland’s Native commu-
nity, severely restrict the number of Native participants in Committee protests.
In sum, we believe this research contributes to literature on white antiracist activism and multi-
racial organizing. With regard to the former, our research provides a more nuanced look at white
guilt and its effects on white antiracist action. Understandings of white guilt have been shaped
primarily by psychologists’ survey research of college students, which cannot take innumerable
contextual factors into account. We illustrate that white guilt can both motivate and immobilize
white activists whose responses to this emotion vary across situations. Additionally, our study
provides insight into multiracial activism by illustrating that people of color are not the only antira-
cism activists who fear ‘white takeover’ of mixed race organizations. These fears also can reside
within antiracist whites who make conscious efforts to avoid reproducing racism in their relation-
ships with people of color. Unfortunately, in the case of white Committee members, avoiding
‘white takeover’ of the organization stunted white action, and ultimately, contributed to less effec-
tive organizing against racism in Cleveland.
Acknowledgements
We extend our deepest gratitude to the activists who shared their stories with us and to the Committee of 500
Years of Dignity and Resistance for its continuing struggles to attain human rights for indigenous peoples in
NE Ohio and beyond. We also sincerely appreciate advice on this article provided by our colleagues [listed
alphabetically] Lindsey Ayers, Katrina Bloch, Joanna Dreby, Matthew Lee, David Merolla, and Clare Stacey.
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18 Critical Sociology
Finally, we are thankful for the insightful critiques of anonymous Critical Sociology reviewers and editor,
David Fasenfest.
Notes
1. Native Americans and Alaskan Natives comprise 0.2% of the Cuyahoga County population according to
the US Census Bureau, 2010.
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