wandering stars

“I’m here so my grandchildren can be proud of their heritage. People act like we’re trying to take their baseball away from them, but we’re not. It’s just, why do they have to turn us into Chief Wahoo?”

Jim Farrar, a member of the Cherokee Nation who drove from Michigan to join this year’s demonstration, speaks of re-education camps and smallpox-infested blankets — painful memories associated with the displacement of indigenous North Americans by European colonists. To Farrar and many protesters, Wahoo’s exaggerated features and toothsome grin trivialize and mock their history.

Content note: article includes racist illustrations for reference.