Alternate title: Oh for fuck’s sake, stupid white people, get a clue!
A National College Prospects Hockey League team that has yet to even take the ice for a game is being blasted on social media for the red-skinned Mohawk logo they released back in May.
Additionally on July 26th, the team tweeted “Warriors Hockey beats the drum in Erie!”
One user responded, “You must be joking. Do you need graphic design help? Or an adult in the front office?” Another user said, “Please fire your branding/marketing team.”
Uni-Watch website contributor Paul Lukas shared the logo Wednesday on his Twitter account which started the massive social media response. Lukas wrote in his tweet: “Quite a logo for the Lake Erie Warriors, new team in the National College Prospects Hockey League.”
Many of the large number of responses deemed the logo racist.
Ryan Adams stated on the Lake Erie Warriors Facebook page, “Seriously? This is your logo? Could you make it just a little more racist?”
On deadspin.com, contributor Barry Petchesky also ripped the logo in an the article entitled, “Hey, Come Look At This Hockey Team’s Logo Before They Apologize And Change It.”
Currently the logo can be seen on the team’s Twitter page, Facebook page and their website.
The Lake Erie Warriors, a Tier III Junior A hockey team competing in the National College Prospects Hockey League, has not yet responded to ICTMN’s request for comment.
They haven’t responded. Well, there’s a big surprise. :eyeroll: Yes, that’s quite the fucking logo. I had no idea at all that the only warriors on the planet were Indians. As for ‘warriors’, gosh what an inspired choice, it’s almost like you didn’t spend a whole 30 seconds coming up with something. You need to fire your “creative thinkers” because they are out of creativity and not too hot on that thinking business. Apparently, the idiots who came up with this logo are unaware that the Mohawk people were (and are) a part of the Haudenosaunee, a confederation dedicated to peace. Kukúše takuni slolye šni šiča don’t care about that, or the reality of Indian peoples.
UPDATE: It’s the Lake Erie Gulls now. At least it was a quick turnaround, just like Barry Petchesky at Deadspin predicted. It’s good they pulled it down and changed it, but really, whoever came up with this in the first place? You should, at the very least, be deeply ashamed.
Full story at ICTMN.
They can’t even argue “tradition” with this one. As more and more teams are shedding their racist imagery, I’m honestly shocked that a new team would take it on. I get that a lot of people don’t pay attention to the news, but you’d think someone would at least be aware enough to bring this us, especially seeing as almost all the talk about this is in the sports world.
On the other hand, maybe somebody did and they decided “Hey, screw the SJWs, we don’t have to be PC! Trump 2016!”
The other new team names are: Mallers, Sharks, Red Cats, Ottawa Sharpshooters U-18, Kings, Rebels, and Toronto Stealth. Just wouldn’t be right if we couldn’t get something seriously racist and offensive in there, I guess.
I hope the Rebels use the Confederate battle flag as their logo. That would be awesome!!!!111!!!1 (/snark in case people don’t know me)
Apparently Lake Erie is under a rock and only recently acquired internet and Facebook.
More seriously, seriously??? How ignorant must one be to design this in 2016?
(I can see the appeal of ‘Warriors’ as a team name, but it seems that the term, with regard to sports, has been so thoroughly tainted with racism that it wouldn’t be possible to present any team with that name in a non-racist connotation.)
It would be so trivial to chance the logo to a Conan the Barbarian-esque figure holding a battle axe. That would completely remove the racist connotations without changing the name, or even making a major change to the logo. But no, we gotta stand up to the SJWs because defending out right to have racist caricatures in our sports team logos is such a worthy hill to die on.
Now re-branded as the Lake Eirie Gulls. That was, at least, a fast reaction. Someone realized their ignorance quickly when it was pointed out. It’s a shame it needed to be pointed out in the first place.
Kengi:
So they came up with a big…G? Wow, they really, really need to fire their creative person.
My guess is a new logo is coming, but someone on the web team probably just Photoshopped a generic “G” in the meantime to keep the page on the league website up. The new Twitter and Facebook accounts aren’t even active yet.
Whilst searching for certain information on this subject, I came across this very interesting paper, Racial Nicknames and Mascots for Sports Teams (PDF) by Leanne Hinton (“professor and chairwoman of the linguistics department at UC Berkeley, and the director of the Survey of California and Other Indian Languages”, according to the short bio in the paper). Perhaps the key quote:
The paper — actually, an article in the newsletter(?) News From Native California — was published ten years ago (2005).
Another interesting article from that website was about a redesign for the Chicago Blackhawks logo.
I can’t help but wonder what went through Vincent Schilling’s mind when he saw, and had to report on that racist crap, because he’s Mohawk. The asshole[s] who came up with that never think, they are probably the kind of moron that thinks all Indians are extinct.
His hands because he facepalmed rather too energetically?
(The mildly deranged penguin points out this one of the many advantages of an all-natural feathered tuxedo — when one wingbeaks, all that happens is the beak is cleaned of dust.)
How many people’s eyes did that logo cross in front of and get nodded along by before it got officially approved, and can they please all be fired?
Onamission5 @ 13:
I wish. This should never have occurred to anyone in the first place. Why in the hell does the word warrior automatically mean some cartoonish savage Indian?
Why in the hell does the word warrior automatically mean some cartoonish savage Indian
Why in the hell would anyone want to aspire to being a warrior at all?
Marcus Ranum #15
Carlos Casteneda read as a teenager.
Castaneda
but you knew that
also The Book of Five Rings
chigau@#18:
What got me was “Seven Samurai”
The Golden State Warriors somehow manage to use the ‘Warrior’ name without any racist crap mixed in. At least, none of that crap mixed in since 1970, if this potted history of GSWarriors logos is to be believed.
Cubist @ 20:
Wow, those early ones. It’s impressive they caught on so quickly, and had it changed by 1970.
Huh. Apparently now it’s Eagles instead of Gulls. Too bad, gulls sounded a lot more interesting on a sports team. But based on the change and the logo I’m guessing they don’t have a lot of creative talent over there to play with.
FWIW when I hear “warriors” I tend to think Vikings or Romans but then I don’t find sports all that interesting.
lanir @ 22:
Wow. That logo is impressively ugly. Apparently their ‘creative talent’ is really determined to go with ugly and ridiculous.
Ex-Dinosaur of the Day, eh?
Rats-in-Bird-Puppets, Inc., is expanding its offerings, perhaps…?