Transcripts

Last month, Clyde Bellecourt, National Director of the American Indian Movement, stood outside the Metrodome before game one of the World Series and publicly challenged Atlanta Braves owner, Ted Turner, to drop his team's name in favor of something racially neutral. Next week, AIM representatives will take their case inside Atlanta-Fulton County stadium, home of the tomahawk chop.

But even though he has his foot in the door, Bellecourt doesn't expect an immediate change of heart from Braves management. Instead, he expects to hear about sports tradition and how monikers like Braves and Indians honor Indigenous North Americans.

I would expect them to make remarks like that. They are the owners of the team. I don't think they're going to say and admit right out publicly and to the first person that comes along that they're going to-- that there's something wrong with it, they have to defend it.

Bellecourt is resigned to the fact that it may take many meetings and a lot of public education to force a change. But he's confident that once non-Indians begin to understand these cultures they may now claim to honor, they will agree Indian names and mascots can't help but inspire insensitive responses from the culturally ignorant.

The thing that's wrong with it is not so much the tomahawk chop. It's not so much the name being called Braves or being called Chiefs. It's the whole package. It's everything that goes with it. It's a bunch of drunks. It's a bunch of drunks walking into the Metropolitan Stadium after a long trip from Georgia, with stubble whiskers, dirty, filthy t-shirts on, been drinking all the way up here through Bureau all over one another. When they got here, they put an eagle feather, put a chief's headdress on and walk through and make, and slap themselves in the mouth, make some silly sound they call a Warhoo.

That's what we're trying to do. That's derogatory. That's filthy. That's dirty. And that's the way they portray Indian people. We're not that way. We're not that way. We never have been.

But if Bellecourt and other advocates of racially neutral team names are counting on public opinion to help force the issue, the task may be a difficult one because even though Bellecourt says AIM has received an unprecedented show of support since the world series, Atlanta Braves publicist, Gregg Sarra, says what feedback his organization has received overwhelmingly favors retaining the team name.

Looking at the polls that were conducted by USA Today paper, I thought it was like an 82% response folks said that it didn't bother them. That might be a good reflection nationwide and in Atlanta. A lot of people might say that's skewered too high, or too low. That it might be 95% don't disapprove of the name Braves and all the other logos around the league.

Though he declined to be interviewed on tape, Braves president, Stan Kasten, did say that public support for the Braves is not especially relevant to how the franchise will respond to the name issue. He did not elaborate, nor did he say what factors the team would consider. Meanwhile, AIM is trying to convince other professional teams to drop Indian names. And because the Washington Redskins and Kansas City Chiefs have been enjoying winning seasons, planning has begun for another round of protesting outside the Metrodome prior to next January's Super Bowl. I'm Bill Wehrum.