Transcripts

SPEAKER 1: Well, quite a few people around the country have been rooting for the Braves to make it to the World Series. But many American Indians have not counted themselves as Atlanta Braves fans. And in fact, they find many things about the Braves and their tomahawk-waving, headdress-wearing fans downright offensive. Activists in the Twin Cities are planning to demonstrate at the Metrodome. One of the organizers in the American Indian Movement is national representative Vernon Bellecourt, here in the Twin Cities. Good morning.

VERNON BELLECOURT: Good morning.

SPEAKER 1: Can you tell me at this point what is planned by way of demonstrations against some of the antics of the Braves fans as we go into the World Series?

VERNON BELLECOURT: Well, first of all, you can't find as good baseball fans as the first people of this land, called Indians, since the coming of the colonial pirate Christopher Columbus. We remember Jim Thorpe. We remember great Indian athletes who excelled in almost every sport. So just to reiterate, you can't find better baseball fans than the American Indians.

However, we've been concerned for some years about the fact that in many cases in Major League sports, our culture is used for sport, utilizing cheap Hollywood chants and people dressing themselves in headdresses which were reserved for the most respected of our great chiefs and great spiritual leaders. And that continues today.

So like no other time, Indian people also are drawn to the fact that even though we were instrumental in getting rid of Chief Noc-a-homa, where at one time in Milwaukee, the Braves had this young Indian man who would jump out of his teepee when they would knock a home run and jump around the outfield like a fool, putting our culture on display.

Then we seen the Atlanta Braves take on the mascot with their large, oversized head of Homer Brave, how cute, Homer Brave. And of course, now we see this display coming from the owner of the Atlanta Braves and the owner of CNN and others, like an ex-president, Jimmy Carter, perpetuating these cheap stereotypes.

Indian people have for a long time tried to bring attention to the fact that various Major League ball clubs, both baseball and football, such as what's happening with the Washington Redskins, where people jump around, and mimic, and put our culture, and our spiritual values, and our traditional dress on display with cheap paint and cheap chants, as well as the fact that the Kansas City Chiefs does the same thing, the Cleveland Indians.

And Chief Illiniwek, yet on the University of Illinois campus, where during halftime at baseball games and football games, we have a non-Indian person coming out in what he feels to be traditional Indian dress with, again, a headdress which is reserved for our greatest chiefs. And when we tell them that this is demeaning and degrading, that our parents are concerned about the image it projects to our children and to other children of America.

SPEAKER 1: Vernon Bellecourt, unfortunately, we've run out of time, but thank you. Vernon Bellecourt of the American Indian Movement. A meeting is scheduled later today to plan protests over the World Series.