FREE ESSAY ON CULTURAL ABSOLUTISM

CULTURAL ABSOLUTISM

Take Me Out to the Ballgame?
I awaited the day before the big game in nervous apprehension. Would the Red Sox be able
to rebound from a 0-2 series deficit and advance to face the Yankees? They had already
won two straight games and evened the series at 2-2. The next game would be the do or die
situation. I stylishly dressed in all of my Red Sox apparel (even the lucky red socks)
and prepared for an invigorating game. Mike from the third floor came down to the first
floor lounge to watch the big game. Being from Cleveland, Mike was sporting all of his
Indians apparel. For the next the 3 hours Mike would be my most bitter enemy. Mike was
the antichrist. We would swear at each other, hurl projectiles at each other, and
possibly even have an outright brouhaha if things got out of control. In the bottom of
the second inning, the Indians got 2 hits, which spawned an outrageous reaction from
mike. He sprung from his seat, arms failing about, and began to do a mock Indian dance in
front of me. Sit your silly ass down, I probably yelled. Then he began to do the tomahawk
chop to his fabulously cliched rendition of an Indian chant, Ohhhh oh oh oh Ohhhh oh oh
oh. I looked up at Mike's hat. The Cleveland Indian logo goofily stared down at me.
The mascot of the Cleveland perpetuates a stereotypical image of Native Americans as a
savage being tamed by settlers. Baseball, an American institution, is guilty of
disgusting racism. This blatantly racist symbol must strike an angry chord with
contemporary Native Americans, whose past overflows with examples of cultural abuse. On
the hat of each player, an Indian with swollen red face and stupid slaphappy grin appears
in an expression of gloating jubilation. All his facial features are exaggerated, and an
erect feather stands above his head like an alfalfa bean sprout. If it was up to me, I'd
say scalp the commissioner of baseball for allowing such an atrocious symbol of cultural
racism to blossom and affect the masses on television. How have the Cleveland Indians
been able to get away with such a culturally demeaning mascot without a significant
public outcry? Our cultural absolutism along with our naivety places Native Americans on
subhuman animalistic level and feeds our unconscious notion that the logo is harmless. 
The majority of Americans practice cultural absolutism. Cultural absolutism, the tendency
of individuals to view their culture as superior, ingrained itself into the American way
of life before Columbus landed. Americans have a worldwide reputation as arrogant,
ignorant, simple-minded cowboys. And these stereotypes are completely justified by past
examples of cultural butcheries. I, as an American, can recognize our tendency to
dominate others in the service of spreading the superior way of life. Native American
people, misunderstood to this day, have been simplified to this naked, feather toting,
red-faced, stupidly barbaric sub-human creature. (Notice that I use Native Americans, as
opposed to Indians as Cleveland's team so casually labels them. Calling Native Americans
Indians is submitting to Columbus' blunder, and would make me even more ignorant than I
am already.) They chant, dance and worship strange deities; somehow they are below
Westerners on the evolutionary chain. We have no context to judge their culture except
our own, which is absolutely the normal, righteous one. 
Sport teams are usually coined with names of savage, or fierce connotations, fierce
animals conquered by white settlers. The Cleveland Logo represents this dominated wild
animal. It exists for the same reason a gloating hunter puts some poor animal's head on
the wall as a trophy. The Cleveland Indian asserts the American cowboy's cultural
absolutism. One would expect the politically correct 90s to abolish such a disturbingly
blatant case of institutionalized mainstream racism. Is tradition ground for allowing
this Logo to receive sustained mainstream attention enforcing harmful cultural
stereotypes? I'm sure the MLB association would say yes! But what do you say? 
To understand what's wrong with the Logo, let's step outside our cultural perspectives to
create some equally culturally offensive teams: How about the Boston Negro Boys, the
Penny Pinching Baltimore Jews, The Springfield Spanish Spics, The Williamstown Whities,
or Georgia's flying Gooks. Those teams sound pretty absurd and offending. But are they
any more absurd and offensive then the Cleveland Indian's logo? Hell no! Naivety assumes
that the Cleveland Indians logo is harmless. Through childhood games of Cowboys and
Indians, cartoon depictions, movies, and logos like that of the Cleveland Indians,
enculturation leads us to unconsciously accept these images. We succumb to naivety if we
accept these fallacious notions, culturally fed into brains, at face value. Close your
eyes. Try and wipe away all your cultural biases. Have you ever been unfairly classified
or belittled? Of course you have. It pissed you off, didn't it? Keep you eyes closed. You
are a Native American, proud of your heritage, haunted by your past. Open your eyes, and
look down at the Cleveland Indians logo. A ridiculous stereotypical caricature that
insults you, your ancestors, and your people stands before you. I suppose we can never
understand the animosity that this image conjures up, but we need to overcome our naivety
and begin to recognize it as damaging. 
Why does this culturally appalling image still exist, and not our examples of other
culturally degrading teams? Where is the outrage? Indians do not have the kind of
political representation to fight the logo. Shoved off in their secluded reservations,
Indians have become artifacts, a kind of link to a past man. The preconceived notions
about Indians pervade in the mind of everyone who played cowboys and Indians as a child.
The logo and Indian stereotypes have become such institutionalized symbols that they are
similar to apple pie. 
Native Americans have been bullied long enough. The national baseball ball association,
those fans who do the Tomahawk chop, and you Mike are guilty of cultural racism. Applying
culture relativism is difficult. Behind the smile of the seemingly harmless Cleveland
Indian logo hides another example of American cultural absolutism. Are you unconsciously
being a racist? Don't be fooled! And by the way Mike, who ended up winning the game?