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 21^st 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