Town ends use of Indian teams names

By Erwin Marquit

BURNSVILLE, Minn. - In this Minneapolis suburb, the Board of Directors of the Burnsville Athletic Club (BAC) July 11 adopted team-naming guidelines, according to which it "will not employ a mascot, emblem, name, logo, or official symbol which is considered potentially discriminatory and/or offensive to an individual or group (i.e. gender, race, religion)."

In a separate resolution applying these guidelines, the BAC board specifically dropped the names "Indians," "Braves," "Warriors," "Redskins," "Chiefs" currently in use in its sports clubs roster of over 100 teams.

The BAC has a semiofficial role in Burnsville and the surrounding communities in organizing sports activities and providing team uniforms and paraphernalia.

The action was the result of a two-month campaign that was initiated by two public-school teachers, Jean Klatte and Margaret Hinton, after Klatte's 7-year old son came home in May with a T-shirt issued by the BAC.

The shirt was imprinted with the caricatured racist image of the feathered, big-toothed Indian used as the symbol of the Cleveland baseball team, after which his own team was named.

As a result of their protests, the BAC Board of Directors scheduled a forum on the issues at its June 13 meeting.

During the discussions, one of the BAC directors, tacitly acknowledging the racist character of the logos, asked what is racist about the team name "Indian." In reply, he was told how it opens up the use of racist stereotypes. A local newspaper account of a high-school game was cited in which the team named "Indians" had "scalped" and "massacred" its opponent.

As a result of protests spearheaded by the American Indian Movement, three-quarters of the Minnesota school boards have already dropped the use of Indian names, mascots, and logos.

The main newspaper in Minneapolis, The Star Tribune, has even adopted a policy of not using the words "Braves" or "Indians" when referring to the baseball teams of Atlanta and Cleveland.