Copyright © 2001 NLThomas
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New Port Richey, FL - The American Indian Movement of Florida (AIMFL) has worked for five (5) years to engender the dialogue of cooperation with the West Pasco County Chamber of Commerce and the organizers of the Chasco Festival, to no avail.

        After five (5) years no substantive changes have been made to a festival based on a racist novella by former New Port Richey Postal worker Gerben Devries. In the Novellas Chasco: Queen of the Calusa, the entire premise is the superiority of the dominant society culture over Native spirituality and culture. The novella, the Chasco Pageant, and indeed the entire festival is predicated on the belief that traditional Indigenous culture and spirituality is "savage", "barbaric", and "heathen." Such language and inference permeates the pageant and the novella by Mr. De Vries.

        Florida AIM North Florida Director David Narcomey, Pasco Director Ruby Beaulieu and State Executive Director Sheridan Murphy met with Chasco Fiesta organizers and called for substantive changes and in detail made clear the racism and offensive nature of the festival. In response the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce organized a highly stereotypical float for the area's Christmas parade that was even more outrageous and racist than previous actions by the Chamber.

        Florida AIM therefore is calling upon European Indigenous support networks, civil rights organizations, progressive organizations, and human beings to boycott Pasco County as a tourist destination, as a location for conventions etc. Florida AIM considers this the beginning of a aggressive campaign designed to remove the vestiges of disgraceful, shameful, and racist depiction's of Native peoples.

Florida AIM is also calling upon organizations and corporations that sponsor the Chasco Festival to withdraw its sponsorship. Florida AIM believes the Chasco Festival is no different that Pasco County organizing a Sambo Festival replete with stereotypical imagery or a Frito Bandito Festival replete with those stereotypical images. The Chasco Festival must, and will go the way of both the Sambo and the Frito Bandito. It is time as we move forward in this 21st Century to leave these racist depictions of entire peoples in the past. We believe the Chasco organizers and West Pasco Chamber of Commerce do a great disservice to the residents of Pasco County by sending a message that Pasco County is a backwater clinging to the racist ideals of what needs to be a bygone era.