The Art Deco-style statues also might remind viewers of the Ancient Greeks, who utilized slave labor in architecture, a practice that was carried over to this country, which was founded in 1619 and on no other date. Each statue possesses in their hands different means of colonial transportation, from the covered wagon, which white Christians used to colonize the lands of Indigenous folx, to the automobile which traveled across the country’s racist highway system, to the concrete-mixer truck which created racial redlines.

The racial and imperialistic overtones of the four effigies can no longer be ignored. The statues themselves should be removed in the name of anti-racism. It is an enormous step backwards for Major League Baseball and the Cleveland Baseball Team to honor such brutal and dehumanizing traditions, which mirror those symbols of Nazi Germany. As Paul Robeson once said, ‘I do not hesitate one second to state clearly and unmistakably: I belong to the American resistance movement, which fights against American imperialism, just as the resistance movement fought against Hitler.’