Calif. governor kills anti-racist bill
By Brenda Sandburg
San Francisco
California State Assemblymember Jackie Goldberg wanted to
stop California public schools from using terms derogatory to
Native Nations as their team names. Goldberg originally
introduced a bill that would have banished "Indians," "Braves,"
Chiefs," "Apaches," "Comanches," "Papooses," and other
references to Native people as school mascots. But when the
measure failed to pass, she watered it down to outlaw one term:
"Redskins."
In a major victory against racism, the bill cleared the
legislature and was set to go into effect at the beginning of
2006. But in September, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger stepped in.
He vetoed the measure.
"Decisions regarding athletic teams names, nicknames or
mascots should be retained at the local level," Schwarzenegger
said. "Adding another non-academic state administrative
requirement for schools to comply with takes more focus away
from getting kids to learn at the highest levels."
The governor doesn't really care about educating children.
The bill, in fact, would have given kids an opportunity to
learn about racism and the U.S. government's genocidal campaign
against Native Nations.
The term "Redskins" is the most offensive of all words used
against Native people. In the 1700s and 1800s, the U.S.
government offered to pay colonists a bounty for the scalps of
Native people, which were brought in as evidence they had been
killed.
"The trappers would bring in Indian scalps," along with
bearskins and deerskins, said Tina Holder, who is part
Blackfoot, Cherokee and Choctaw, in a news article posted on
BET.com.
"The term came from the bloody mess that one saw when
looking at the scalp," Holder said. "When we see or hear that
term ... we don't see a football team ... we see the bloody
pieces of scalps that were hacked off of our men, women and
even our children ... we hear the screams as our people were
killed ... and 'skinned' just like animals."
Goldberg's bill is the most recent effort to do away with
team names derogatory to Native peoples. In 1999 a group of
Native people led by Suzan Shown Harjo successfully petitioned
the Patent and Trademark Office's appeals board to revoke the
"Washington Redskins" and "Redskins" trademarks owned by
Pro-Football Inc. But a federal judge overturned the PTO's
decision.
According to the PTO's Web site, there are 17 active
"Redskin" trademarks. A few companies have dropped their marks
over the years. These include Advance Bag & Paper Co.,
which received a "Redskin" trademark in 1926, and Milton
Bradley Co., which registered the mark for Artists' Finger
Paints in 1950. The struggle continues, and one day surely the
mark will fade from football teams as well.
Reprinted from the Oct. 14, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
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