07/05/2020
Racism against indigenous peoples in the United States
Baseball teams are planning to get rid of controversial names (Press Release)
Several leading US sports clubs are considering changing their names after being accused of racism against indigenous peoples. "The rethinking in the US sports industry is an encouraging sign that the anti-racism debate could lead to concrete successes in the fight against racism against indigenous peoples," stated Ulrich Delius, Director of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), in Göttingen on Sunday.
Over the weekend, the Cleveland Indians and Washington Redskins baseball teams had announced plans to change their names to set a sign against racist prejudice and exclusion. Indigenous organizations in the United States have been criticizing leading sports for their discriminators names or emblems for many years. The Kansas City Chiefs football team, the Chicago Blackhawks ice hockey team, and the Atlanta Braves baseball team are met with criticism as well.
In January 2018, following heavy criticism, the Cleveland Indians had decided to stop using the Chief Wahoo emblem on their jerseys from the 2019 season onwards. The controversial emblem had showed a grinning red-faced man with a feather in his hair.
