This racist sign was snapped Sunday morning outside a Sonic restaurant in Kansas City and tweeted before the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Washington [Redacted] in an embarrassing 45-10 rout Sunday.
The sentiment of the human who put up that sign is illustrative of the pervasive attitude toward us Indians. Every time something like this happens, it's a reminder that while certain racial slurs have been abandoned, in public at least, others are still handed out with no consideration whatsoever of the pain they cause.
To its credit, the corporate office of the Sonic fast-food chain responded with a straightforward, no-hedging apology, a rare thing these days:
Patrick Lenow, vice president of public relations at Sonic, told NBC News that the sign was created by an employee who is "known for creative use of his signs," but that this sign was done "in poor taste."
"The remarks posted on this message board were wrong, offensive and unacceptable," Lenow said in a statement. "In a misguided effort to support his football team an independent franchise owner allowed passion to override good judgment. The owner has reinforced with his employees the boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable. On behalf of the franchise owner and our entire brand we apologize for the offensive remarks."
For more on the history of American Indians and their fight against ignorance in sports, please read below the fold.
For decades, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, the American Indian Movement, the Oneida Nation, and other Indians of various tribes have sought with considerable success to get high school, college, and professional team mascots, caricatures, and nicknames that denigrate Native Americans changed. Now, the biggest holdouts with the worst examples of these are the Cleveland Indians' Chief Wahoo, who is to many Indians what Little Black Sambo is to African Americans, and the Washington Redskins, which might just as well be the Washington "Niggers," "Chinks," "Spics," "Kikes" or "Ragheads."
But, despite growing opposition to the name, owner Dan Snyder continues to claim the name is all about respect and he will "never" change it.
As a consequence, the American Indian Movement issued a manifesto on Oct. 16 threatening a class-action suit against the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins if they don't change. An excerpt from the manifesto:
It is illegal in the United States to discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, physical difference or gender preference. We, the Indigenous People of America, are victims of discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin and institutional ignorance. While many indigenous people choose to live their lives with pride and independence from the negative influences of institutional racism, it remains necessary to assert our equal rights as citizens of the United States through education and legal action.
The name for the Washington DC football team is a racial slur, an illegal form of hate speech and discrimination, that damages a protected class of people by denying us respect and equality: in the workplace, at government funded facilities and contractors, at public gatherings, over regulated airwaves, and in corporations producing electronic and print content. The “R” word has no place in a country of equals. No similar denigrating term for other protected classes of people would be tolerated, and we would not accept any such denigration of anyone. Yet, sports organizations, media organizations and many fans have inherited and perpetrated an immunity to the racism embedded in derogatory indigenous sports names and mascots, and the damage they do to the freedom of anyone to live their lives without experiencing prejudice or ridicule.
The argument or rationalization that indigenous sports mascots and racist names filled with fan tradition should somehow be immune from the laws of the land that protect people from discrimination hardly matches the damage to the heritage and traditions of indigenous people perpetrated by the mascots, by the names, and by centuries of desecration and injustice that continue to this day.
All Indigenous Mascots manufactured for professional and school sports teams by and for non-indigenous people are unwelcome caricatures that do not represent the religion, culture, beliefs and rich history of native people.
Moreover, there is overwhelming evidence from impartial academic research that unwelcome indigenous mascots and stereotypes and caricatures damage indigenous children, damage indigenous futures, and damage the perception of all protected classes.
The disparagement of Indians like that on the Sonic marquee will continue as long as teams have racist names and caricatures. Apparently, the only way that team owners will acknowledge the racist nature of these slurs, is to hurt them in the wallet. So far, nobody has figured a way out of doing that. Perhaps, instead of focusing on Washington and Cleveland, pressure should be put on other NFL and MLB teams to refuse to play those two until they make the changes.