Colorado AIM Applauds Decision Against Racist "R-Skins"
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
American Indian Movement of Colorado
Denver, Colorado
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
The American Indian Movement (AIM) of Colorado commends and
supports the decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), which
has cancelled the federal trademark of the Washington Redskins on grounds that the team name is racist
and disparaging to American Indians. It
is time for Dan Snyder, owner of the Washington, D.C. professional football
franchise, to recognize the harmful, racist character of the mascot and to join
the rest of us in the 21st century.
Colorado AIM also calls on other private and public sports
teams to abandon the use of American Indians, and other indigenous peoples, as
their sports team mascots – this includes the Cleveland Indians, the Kansas
City Chiefs, and the Atlanta Braves. We further call on the Colorado Department
of Education to prohibit the use of American Indian as mascots in public elementary
and secondary educational programs. We specifically call for an immediate ban
on the use of the Lamar High School “Savages,” and the Eaton High School
“Reds.”
“If people are genuinely interested in honoring
American Indians, then get your government to live up to the more than
400 treaties it has signed, and broken, with our indigenous nations. Try respecting our
religious freedom - which has been repeatedly denied in federal courts. Try
stopping the ongoing theft of Indian water and other natural resources. Reverse
your colonial process that relegates us to the most impoverished, polluted, and
marginalized conditions in this country. Stop the rape and violence against American
Indian women and children by non-Native men – a phenomenon that is higher among American Indians that of
any other group in the US. Understand that the mascot issue is only the tip of a very
huge problem of continuing racism against American Indians. Then maybe your
"honors" will mean something. Until then, your "honors" are just so much
superficial, hypocritical puffery. People should remember that the measure of
an honor isn't born when it parts the honorer's lips, it is born when it is
accepted in the honoree's ear.”
Glenn Morris, American Indian
Movement of Colorado