Copyright © 2000 NLThomas
All Rights Reserved

Saint Petersburg, FL - The American Indian Movement of Florida (Florida AIM) will protest the use by the Cleveland Major League Baseball franchise of American Indian peoples as a sports mascot Saturday April 8th, and Sunday April 9th, 2000 at 4th Ave and 16th Street S. in front of Tropicana Field. The protests will begin at 3:30 and 12 Noon respectively.

There is little question the use of American Indian peoples as a sports mascot is demeaning, dehumanizing, disgraceful, shameful and racist. That the Cleveland baseball franchise has, since 1969, ignored the demand of American Indian organizations, Nations, and peoples that the team halt the use of American Indian peoples as their sports mascots shows the depths of depravity and racism that are ingrained within the owners, administrators and fans of the Cleveland MLB franchise.

Adolf Hitler’s NAZI party used grotesquely stereotypical imagery of Jewish people, gypsies and others targeted for their genocidal assault upon those peoples In the United States the stereotypical imagery of Native people has been used for similar means. Only 25 years after the slaughter of Mniconju and Oglala Lakota people at Wounded Knee the Cleveland Naps, changed their name to the Cleveland Indians. The lies told by the Cleveland MLB front office claim the team was named for Penobscot Nation athletic hero Sockalexis. In reality, his name was never mentioned as the team changed its name from the Naps to the Indians at the suggestion of sports writers who found the name Indians "colorful".

Less than a century later as fans degrade Indigenous peoples, culture, and spiritual symbols in a circus like atmosphere; the United States Civil Rights Commission notes that a male in Bangladesh will live longer than American Indian males. As baseball fans make silly whooping sounds and paint their faces in ludicrous stereotypical caricatures of Native culture, the hate crime murders of two dozen Lakota’s in South Dakota and Nebraska along with nine hate crime murders of Indians in Arizona remain unsolved and under-investigated. Seems Americans only care about Indians when they can "honor" them by degrading and stereotyping Indian culture.

There are no Cleveland Negro’s whose mascots pick cotton while eating watermelon. No Cleveland wetbacks who cross the border every time they score. No Cleveland Catholics whose mascot Pope and Nun do the lambada every time they score throwing communion wafers on the field in front of frenzied fans doing their rendition of the crucifix chop. Yet in an America where Indians face high unemployment and un-investigated and unnoticed hate crimes, this is how America claims to honor Indians.

It is time for the honoring to be real. Honor the treaties, honor the people by halting these murders and investigating and jailing the sick demented perpetrators. Its time to recognize that American Indians are Human Beings not a Sports Mascot for America’s Fun and Games. As this has not yet occurred the American Indian Movement and human beings will continue to protest this dishonor by the Cleveland MLB franchise.