AIC still working on Wahoo Issue

To the Editors:

Yes, spring is almost here and with it comes the media blitz by Oberlin trustee Larry Dolan’s baseball team. Just to be clear, the issues that students, faculty and staff have with Mr. Dolan’s team has nothing to do with the sport of baseball or the players (although it would be great if players followed Hank Aaron’s lead and develop a social conscience).
What is important for the Oberlin community to know is that Mr. Dolan became a trustee in the spring of 2000, buying the team in the summer of the same year. Dean Clayton Koppes was acting president then and issued a statement on Nov. 21, 2000 that included: “The College is working with Mr. Dolan and the Cleveland Indians to provide appropriate forums, meetings, and other ways in which to discuss the use of symbols such as Chief Wahoo as sports icons in our culture.” American Indian Council members, student leaders, and faculty did meet with both Mr. Dolan and his son, Paul Dolan, in December of 2000. Another meeting with AIC members, student leaders and Mr. Dolan occurred in December of 2001. These meetings were audio taped and are stored in the Oberlin archives (fourth floor Mudd).
The meetings with Mr. Dolan were models of respectful discourse and constructive dialogue. Mr. Dolan met Native Peoples for the first time, and I think we can see the impact by the introduction in 2002 of the “I” on caps and uniforms. But Mr. Dolan is also a lawyer and at the end of the meeting in 2001 he was quick to assert that “people love Wahoo.” He also issued this challenge to the students: “Oberlin College students should not be the leaders to remove Wahoo. Your credibility is too largely in context…You need visibility. You need to get it out of this campus… If you want to help me get where you’re going to go, you’ve got to put more pressure on me from groups other than the Oberlin campus.” It is interesting to note that Mr. Dolan is a member of the trustees’ student life committee.
The AIC, Oberlin students, faculty, and staff have continued working on the Wahoo issues these past 15 months. We believe that “we are relying on knowledge and reason” (President Nancy Dye) and that our position is affirmed by official statements from the NAACP, NCAA, NEA and most recently by the United States Commission on Civil Rights that denounce the use of Native Americans as sports team mascots. To learn more about the issues, visit the American Indian Sports Team Mascots web site: www.AISTM.org. And come hear Charlene Teeters speak on Sunday, March 9 at 8p.m. in West Hall (Science Center) as part of the Indigenous Women’s Series sponsored by the AIC, the MRC and the Edmonia Lewis Center for Women and Transgender People.

—Peter Dominguez
Professor of Jazz Studies and Double Bass