I’m cured, no more meat

My wife is a vegetarian, and I’ve mostly cut meat out of my diet, too — I’ll indulge a bit when I travel, but that’s about it. But I’m done now. It makes no sense: it’s not sustainable or economical, but worse, it’s brutal and cruel. Rolling Stone has just published a remarkable expose of Big Meat, the factory farms that abuse animals.

I made the mistake of watching the videos, too. Fortunately, my dinner had been vegetarian already, or I might have lost it. So be warned.

Really, everyone, this is a small step. We’ve been cutting back on meat for years — I might have a small portion, once a week, if that. We’ve already got all the recipes we need, my wife is already fully vegetarian, this is just making a little more commitment on my part. It’ll be an easy transition.

Race-baiting is alive and well at UMM

The University of Minnesota Morris is a liberal arts university — that means that we teach a wide curriculum in which students are expected to graduate with a broad background. Our science students are expected to also get at least an introduction to the humanities and social sciences, and even within biology, we expect that our graduates will get training in both molecular biology and ecology (which is, of course, not as much of a reach as you might think). Our student body also tends to be rather more politically liberal and progressive than the community we’re imbedded within, although that is not a prerequisite for the liberal arts. We do have conservative students here — I expect that the majority are more conservative than I am — but they also trend towards being more the reasonable, rational, educated sort of conservative. Not the kind you’ll see on Fox News, and most unfortunately, not the kind who are likely to get elected to the Republican party.

This is not a story about any of those students. This is about our wingnutty embarrassments. We do have a few of them.

The embarrassments have a weekly student paper of their own, The North Star. We also have a regular campus weekly, the University Register. The Register is the paper we groan over; it’s student run, it’s sometimes terrible, but at least it is representative and sometimes does a good job. The North Star is a disgrace — its one virtue is that it makes the Register look professional. We’ve tolerated the North Star despite its inanity because hey, at least it’s sucking in money from external conservative organizations, and it does a fabulous job of demonstrating the ethical bankruptcy of movement conservativism. But now they’ve stepped way over the line. Their latest crusade is basically promoting racial hatred and discrimination, and I’m ashamed to see their drivel distributed on campus.

Their “new” game — it’s actually old and tired, so add total lack of originality to their sins — is “satirizing” racism. You’d think students at a liberal arts university would understand the actual meaning of satire, but they don’t, despite writing a sloppy disclaimer in their latest issue pronouncing everything they do as satire.

Here’s their most recent exercise in creativity: selling “Affirmative Action cookies,” that old game. White people are offered cookies for $5, while minority students get a discount or are even given money to take a cookie. One incident with John Geiger, the right-wing genius in charge of this demonstration, was described in today’s Register.

Mr Geiger assured me ever so sweetly that an undisclosed portion of all proceeds would go to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Mr Geiger pointed to my Native/female/LGBT friend and roommate standing next to me, she’s probably struggled so much, she could really use a cookie. He then proceeded to giver the cookie, and pay her $2.50, stating, though you’re taking proceeds from the NAACP, you probably struggled $2.50 more than them. How benevolent.

Nauseatingly patronizing, more like.

We are a university in the middle of a very white, very rural part of the country. We have been working hard to open the doors to a more diverse student body; we waive tuition to American Indian students, we want a more representative sampling of what America actually looks like, so we actively recruit students from underserved populations, so we have a large proportion of first generation college students and students on financial aid. We have had disgraceful racial incidents in the past — the Halloween practical “joke” in 1993 by our former wrestling coach Frank Pelegri is still a mark of shame — and we struggle to make this a more inclusive place. Having a group of young Republican assholes-in-training mocking our minority students is not a step forward.

Worse, they have a “satirical” series in their paper in which they call out various faculty and administrators for not doing enough to promote equality and combat racism. These are known progressive workers at our university, and are actually already working hard to create a more inclusive space — so apparently, if this is satire, they’re trying to mock leaders of our non-discriminatory policies, and are apparently opposing the encouragement and acceptance of minority students on campus. And this has taken a particularly vile turn.

On page 9 of the latest issue, they have…

Jesus, it disgusts me to even say it.

…a crime scene photo of Trayvon Martin’s dead face, with the caption Trayvon Martin, victim of racism and fascism, and what does [administrator] have to say about it? Nothing. Not a single thing.

And with that, they have crossed a line. Free speech is one thing, making light of murder and claiming that our chancellor of student affairs excuses it is another. Using dead black boys to “satirize” equality is contemptible. I would advocate the disposal of their flyers if the Ku Klux Klan started papering our campus, and likewise, the North Star has worn out its welcome and must go. Treat their scattered papers as hate-filled trash and dispose of it appropriately.

Not that it will help much. I’ve been told by one of our students that they’ve made arrangements with our town newspaper, the Sun Tribune, to have their evil rag distributed with that paper every week. I guess I won’t be reading that paper anymore, either, if they’re endorsing this kind of racism. And I guess the community will now get the idea that our university endorses racism, thanks to the racist idiots publishing the North Star.

This is currently our university’s shame. The measure of our commitment to equality will be determined by how we deal with it.

Time for the professional societies to take a stand on Burzynski

The 4th Quadrennial Meeting of the World Federation of Neuro-Oncology is meeting right now in San Francisco, and guess who is presenting there? There are four papers being presented by those criminal frauds of the Burzynski Clinic.

They sure can talk the science talk, can’t they? And they go through all the motions of attending and presenting at meetings of the Society for Neuro-Oncology, which I’m sure looks formidable to the rubes, but when you look at the results of recent reviews of their facilities and protocols (or read the summary in USA Today), they don’t walk the science walk. Read about the patients, or the story of the Burzynski scam. For over thirty years, he has been skating at the edge of credibility by carrying out the rituals of science without going the next step and actually testing his claims, getting rich off desperate people and killing them with bad therapies and sloppy protocols.

I know what these meetings are like. They will be full of professionals in nice dresses and conservative ties, and they will be talking shop and taking notes on the interesting presentations, and I know exactly how they will respond to Burzynskiites: they are beneath them, they will roll their eyes as they skip their talks, and they might grumble a bit at the bar afterwards. And that’s about it. I’ve seen it when creationists get their work into poster sessions at non-peer-reviewed science meetings.

But these guys are worse than creationists. These are con artists giving false hope to dangerously ill patients, using organizations like the SNO as a façade to bilk people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and skirting on the proper protocols to give the illusion that they’re doing legitimate science.

It is a huge ethical problem for these societies to provide cover for quacks. I would hope that, at the very least, attendees take time to read the facts about Burzynski and give these con artists a hard time in public; but more significantly, I think the only appropriate thing for the Society for Neuro-Oncology to do is to kick the bastards out. Don’t let them take shelter under your wing any more.

That’s not very friendly

Hemant is off taking care of personal business, so I guess he didn’t notice this rather unpleasant guest post that is celebrating a decapitation. Islamists in Syria killed the wrong person, one of their own allies…so now we’re supposed to celebrate brutal murder and bloody mutilation, as long as the right guy was murdered and mutilated.

Indiscriminate cruelty and slaughter has long been a way of life for these types. I guess I’m supposed to be sad when it becomes a way of death for them too, but for once I’ll nod along in agreement with Jesus, who is said to have stated the inevitability of violence begetting violence pretty succinctly: “He who lives by the sword shall die by the sword.”

Mohammed Fares was another Islamist boil on the ass of humanity. It’s an unpleasant procedure, but boils need to be lanced. Or beheaded — same thing.

No. The dead man might have been the most evil creature on the planet, a terrible, awful person who would have spread more terror if he’d lived, but let’s not dehumanize people by calling them diseases and asking for more death and using the Bible to justify violence. You know who else does that, right? Hint: it shouldn’t be atheists.

Wait. Sometimes Christians get it right, too.

Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Step back, and look at this violent planet

My last article triggered a great deal of furious response. Some of it was outrageously stupid: this one, in particular, is the frontrunner for blithering idiocy.

Sometimes I wonder if PZ Myers is capable of empathy at all. This anti-war message, coming ironically from someone who has essentially declared war on others to promote his own values, is more insulting to veterans than to decision-makers, all the while dressing itself as morally righteous.

You don’t need to be pro-war to be pro-veterans, but it is especially abhorrent to chastise others for fighting for what they value when you insist that anyone who doesn’t fight for what YOU value is the enemy.

Right. Because what I do when I disagree with someone is conscript an army of riflemen and shoot them, followed by blowing up their house and bankrupting their country. But let me ignore the truly stupid comments, of which there were so many, and talk a bit about the one rather more intelligent rebuttal.

This is the argument of the form, “What about Nazi Germany, and the atrocities they were committing?” Another good example is “What about the Confederate States and slavery?” And I have to agree — the world is an uncoordinated, tragically short-sighted mess, and all too often we let horrendous circumstances accumulate until suddenly we’re confronted with a situation so dire that only violence can resolve it. We could not let genocide continue or slavery to persist, and we let the problems smolder until we reached a breaking point. My argument is not that we should have laid down our arms and let Jews be murdered or blacks languish in servitude, but that in every case war is a belated and expensive solution, and always a mistake. Sometimes we’re stuck with going to war, because we are stupid. Because we often lack the international tools to stop destructive behavior any other way.

Another point: it’s easy to damn the CSA and the Nazis. Are Americans as willing to recognize the evil violence we perpetrate? If we agree that it was acceptable for us to use violence to stop the Holocaust or slavery, are we also willing to concede that therefore it is acceptable for others to use violence against us, to stop the drones, to end our nuclear threat, to stop our meddling in other countries? I don’t think so, and at least I’m consistent in saying that violence doesn’t solve the problem. How are you going to justify other wars, where good and evil are not so clear? Was the Vietnam War a just war? The Franco-Prussian War? The Thirty Years War? The Peloponnesian War?

And finally, step back and back and back. Take a human perspective for a change, rather than a nationalistic one.

We sent young men, little more than boys, to slaughter other young men in Europe and in the South. Did the German soldiers have mothers? Did the Southerners? Did most of them go to war telling themselves they must preserve the right to murder Jews or blacks? Most of them, on both sides, were doing what they thought they must to defend the homeland, to promote their way of life, and to be men of honor. On both sides. Both sides were absolutely convinced that they were in the right, and so we had two large masses of people flailing viciously at each other until one side or the other collapsed in submission, and I’m sorry, victory was not determined by who was right, who was fairer to humanity, who had the most noble values. It was a contest where right was determined by bloody, brutal might.

How can you say that the soldiers of one side deserve honor and the other does not? And if you’re going to claim that both deserve respect, than what a bloody stupid flailing exercise in futility war is.

You can obviously state that there is a difference in cause: fighting for the right to enslave or kill some of your own citizens, or to enslave or kill your neighbors, is clearly an unethical, even evil, goal. But you do not persuade people to live ethical lives by killing them, or shooting their neighbors. We do not seek to convince people at gunpoint, but only to stop them from carrying out criminal action. And unless you are prepared to police the planet with a gun, that is not a satisfactory solution — a lasting peace can only come from a long-term effort at education and equality, not a burst of gunfire.

But if you’re going to equate education and argument with gunfire and militarism, well then, we’re back to the idiot I quoted at the beginning.

Other good perspectives: Ta-Nehisi Coates pointing out the Civil War was just one flash point in a long smoldering human failure. And good god, read about the Battle of the Somme. There is no moral justification for that slaughter.

Who deserves honor?

Today is the day when nations around the world pause to celebrate their most colossal failures, the events that killed the greatest numbers of their citizens, that broke and crippled their men after they’d been intentionally trained to dehumanize other human beings. We love to take our young people, especially our young men and boys, and grind them up in bloody battles, and then once a year we remind ourselves of what we do, and we congratulate people for it. Dulce et decorum est pro fucking patria mori and all that.

Meanwhile, our veterans hospitals are crumbling (and desperately needed) and we talk about more wars with Iran or whoever crossed us most recently, and doesn’t have nuclear weapons with which to smack us back. But we’ll go to all the effort of saying “Thanks, gramps” to people who suffered in terror and terrified other sufferers right back. All so a few people can get richer, and so politicians can thump their chests and claim to be braver than other politicians.

I think the only way to honor veterans of war is to make sure there are no more veterans. They are not heroes, but victims. There is nothing brave or heroic about picking up a gun and threatening to kill someone for a matter of principle, or even worse, because someone else is ordering you to do so — and the repercussions of celebrating violence tear our society apart.

For example, four women in Dallas met for their state chapter of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America — a quiet lunch in a local restaurant. Texas gun advocates got word of the meeting, and gathered in the parking lot outside.

violentmen

Brave heroes, all. In what world could such a gathering, intending to intimidate unarmed mothers, occur without the men involved withering in shame and guilt? Our world, obviously, where righteous terror with weapons in hand is celebrated. Perhaps these men will meet again in years to come, to remember the honor of being among the heroes who drew their weapons in the parking lot of the Blue Mesa Grill in 2013.

Just like right now, we honor those who carried arms against the young men of other countries, where right now, citizens honor those who carried arms to resist our young men. When are we going to wake up and realize that this is all madness, that it’s not a point of pride to be trained to kill, that we gain nothing and lose all when we settle disagreements with threats of lethal force.

How can we stop? Perhaps it would help to celebrate the right heroes.

I was horrified by this story of the Nazi scientific enterprise. The Nazi regime killed millions, members of despised ethnic groups, gays, and political dissidents, and some of their bodies were appropriated by the science establishment for medical studies. As the article reveals, sometimes scientists would go out to the prisons and mark certain individuals as desirable for their research; one, for instance, wanted to study the effects of stress on the menstrual cycle, so young women in a state of terror for their lives were particularly desirable (these are the studies our Republicans now cite when they want to claim that raped women don’t get pregnant!). It’s a terrible tale of scientists closing their eyes to the consequences of their work, and worse, actively participating in murder.

It tells of a young couple, Harro and Libertas Schulze-Boysen, who worked for the resistance against the Nazis, were caught and executed, he by hanging, she by the guillotine, and their bodies ended up on the anatomy table. Charlotte Pommer, a medical school graduate working as an assistant in the Institute of Anatomy, walked in to the lab to work and recognized the bodies waiting for her.

“I was paralyzed,” Pommer later wrote of the sight of the bodies. “I could hardly perform my task as an assistant to Professor Stieve, who did his scientific study as always with the greatest diligence. I could barely follow.”

Pommer was 28. Libertas Schulze-Boysen was 29 when she died. In her last letter to her mother, she said she’d asked for her body to go to her family. “Don’t fret about things that possibly could have been done, this or the other,” she wrote. “If you can, bury me in a beautiful place amid sunny nature.”

Pommer stopped working for Stieve—and left the field of anatomy—because of what she saw that day in his laboratory. She went on to help resist the Nazis herself, by hiding the child of a man who participated in the “July Plot” to assassinate Hitler in 1944. In the spring of 1945, just before the war’s end, Pommer was herself sent to prison.

So on this Veterans Day, I choose to honor the conscientious objectors and the Charlotte Pommers of the world, rather than the participants in war. They are the real heroes, the ones who made the greatest sacrifices to better humanity.

Meanwhile, look at what the media find important today: the poppy on Google UK’s search page isn’t big enough. But Bing puts a big photo of a poppy on their search page. Jesus fuck, millions dead in wasteful war and the big issue today is whether a photo of a flower is big enough to honor them properly.

I’ll tell you the answer: no, it isn’t.

Good riddance, Michael Lotfi

Michael Lotfi was a doctor in training, but no more. He’s quitting. And he blames President Obama, because…Obamacare!

After telling us how deep his lifelong commitment to becoming a doctor was, and how deeply in debt he is, he announces that he’s giving up on that precious dream. Why?

After quite literally losing my hair from the internal conflict, considering the sunk costs and evaluating different avenues I have decided.

I have decided that I believe in the principles of a truly free-market, and I trust the free-market. Because of this deep, internal value system I cannot, with clear conscience, continue on this path. My life has value. Such value cannot be calculated by Washington bureaucrats. I won’t allow it. Only a true free-market can accurately assess the value I am capable of.

Mr President, I’m leaving the medical field. I’m hanging up the white coat. However, let me be clear. You have not won. Unless something “changes”, you’ve lost and will continue to lose. You will fail because you lack principle. Meanwhile, we will succeed because we are born of principle.

So he weighed his deep commitment to free market values against his personal commitment to saving lives, and decided that the free market was more important.

I applaud his decision to leave medicine, then, because I’d rather have doctors who love medicine than doctors who love capitalism and money. And yes, I agree that he’s a man of principle…it’s just that his principles are venal and fucked up.

Bye! Have fun being a plutocratic parasite!

As has been pointed out in the comments, Lotfi is a poseur. His essay carefully phrases everything to give the impression he’s in med school, and he poses in a lab coat and stethoscope, but he isn’t actually a med student. He’s a “political commentator”, or no-talent hack with no real skills.

Malcolm Gladwell is simply an awful person

I don’t get it. Jonah Lehrer was rightly pilloried for dishonest journalism, so why is Malcolm Gladwell, the king of shallow, pseudo-scientific hackery, still getting published, and still raking in absurdly high lecture fees? Why is anyone still giving him the time of day? For instance, read this piece published in the New Yorker in September: Do Genetic Advantages Make Sports Unfair?. It’s more of his glib, counter-intuitive nonsense, and it’s dangerously bad.

He argues that performance enhancing drugs aren’t so terrible after all — they’re just equalizing the playing field. But the only way he can do that is by pretending the consequences don’t exist.

What Gladwell fails to mention – at all – are the risks involved in using performance-enhancing drugs. There is nothing about the risks of blood doping or of pharmaceutical enhancement. He even skips the risks inherent in the very genetic condition he holds up as “lucky.” There is no mention of contact sports, where the decision to illegally enhance could be the difference between life and death for your competitor. There is no recognition that healthcare access for athletes is a continuum with the Lance Armstrongs at the upper end, with their elite teams of morally questionable medical practitioners,and with some kid at the bottom end, desperate for a place on the team, taking injectables that he gets from a friend of a friend.

So journalists can lose their jobs for plagiarizing or making up facts, but actively distorting the evidence and making dishonest arguments is apparently still within the ethical compass of some journalists.

The American Indian Movement Manifesto on Racism in Sports and Media

This Manifesto is being sent to scores of media organizations, involved governmental and regulatory bodies, key government and law enforcement officials, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, the National Football League, the Minnesota Vikings, the Washington DC Professional Football Team, all Professional Sports Teams using Indigenous Mascots, all advertisers providing income to the teams and leagues, the leaders of indigenous communities and all people who cherish the freedom to live our lives without prejudice.

October 16, 2013

NO INDIGENOUS CHILD, NO CHILD,
SHOULD GROW UP IN A WORLD
WHERE PROFESSIONAL SPORTS AND MEDIA
PERSIST IN USING DISCRIMINATORY NAMES & MASCOTS.
CHANGE THE NAME
CHANGE THE MASCOT

The battle for equality, and against prejudice, requires eternal vigilance for the long list of people subject to the bite of institutional discrimination – women, religious minorities, people of color, indigenous people, immigrants, seniors, LGBT people, poor people, people with physical and behavioral differences….

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.

While our actions are addressing offensive language and images, we want to be clear that our objective is to stop the damage to our children, and to all protected classes by asserting and seeking enforcement of the US Constitution and the many Federal, State, County, City and Municipal laws explicitly designed to protect us from harm.

We, the American Indian Movement, insist that all racist sports names and mascots that appropriate our names and images be changed by the media and by the perpetrators so that they can no longer harm our children, and deny indigenous people and all protected classes of people our civil rights.

We are a beautiful part of the fabric of the United States of America, as are all of our fellow brothers and sisters experiencing systemic injustice.

Appropriated Indigenous Mascots and Names are Institutionally Racist and contribute to severe hardships faced by many indigenous people. The extent of damage is unimaginable to all but us. Do your part to bring us all together.

The American Heritage Dictionary Definition of Redskin:

red·skin (rĕdskĭn′)
n.
Offensive Slang
Used as a disparaging term for a Native American.

To the National Football League, the Washington DC Football Team, and to all other Professional & School Sports Teams & Stadium Authorities choosing to Appropriate Indigenous Names and Mascots:

This is a formal notification that your organization’s choice to continue your appropriation of our religion and heritage and culture and images and leaders and language for your financial benefit and amusement, despite ample cures and alternatives, damages the self concept and income producing potential of indigenous children specifically, and all indigenous people as a protected class, and violates our civil rights.

On or before October 25, 2013, in advance of election day, we request that your organization publicly state your intention to Change Your Mascot & Name or your intent to continue to willfully harm a protected class of people.

We understand the inherited tradition of these names and mascots and the strong emotions they conjure. We believe that institutional racism is hard to change and we are asking you to begin that journey now. No indigenous sports mascot or name manufactured by and for non-­indigenous people honors us, is welcomed by us, is celebrated without denigration, or is an accurate representation of our race, our religion and our heritage.

If after October 25, 2013 you plan to continue the use of caricatures of our names and our people indefinitely, we plan to consider the following actions to protect our people and our rights under the laws of our country:

We will explore the potential for a class action lawsuit naming your organization as a defendant. You are a willful party with the clear intent to continue to harm a class of protected people. Plaintiffs may include indigenous children, all indigenous people, and all protected classes. Damages may include lost income, psychological damage, medical expenses and punitive assessments. Our legal team includes attorneys associated with the successful tobacco and clean indoor air damage claims.

For the Washington Football Team and the Cleveland Baseball Team, because your mascots and names are so vulgar and denigrating, we will seek all legal and political remedies to protect indigenous people from your brand of hate, and from your blatant and illegal disregard for existing discrimination and labor law protections in code and statute.

We will seek Public Licensing and Public Regulatory remedies linked to your conscious disregard for and damage to the public interest, your disregard for FCC requirements, and your use of profane and grossly offensive language and images known to cause harm to children and members of the public.

We will pursue remedies including injunctions, bans and damages at the Federal, State, County, City, and Municipal levels – asking that they immediately enforce all applicable legal protections and remedies that exist in writing that are intended to protect employees, contractors, children and the general public from hate crimes and acts of discrimination, harassment, profanity and abuse.

We will organize people in your community to oppose your use of denigrating mascots, and we will pursue boycotts, protests and specific large scale boycott actions aimed at your advertisers.

We are asking you to change. A private organization has the right to freedom of speech but not the freedom to publicly incite racial hatred. Public organizations, publicly funded organizations, and corporations and organizations regulated by the public have a higher standard. They do not have the right to harm any class of people because of the color of their skin, or because of any other aspect of their appearance, origin or beliefs.

To the politicians in Wisconsin and elsewhere who are attempting to assert your ignorance and racism and political power to make it more difficult for schools to change their indigenous names and mascots, we ask you to stop the denigration and discrimination. We urge all citizens to vote for people who believe in an inclusive nation that does no harm to our children.

Once you have received this public notification, you may not hide any further behind your ignorance or tolerance. Your conscious choice to continue to harm a class of people must have just consequences if we are to preserve a union where all men and women are created equal. A simple remedy exists for the profound damage mascots cause by your use.

Use alternative words and images that communicate without harm. We look forward to hearing your public decision about the continuation of your discriminatory mascots and names before October 25th, 2013.

To the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, the Minnesota Vikings, and the State of Minnesota:

We believe the Governor of the State of Minnesota, the Commissioners of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, and the Ownership of the Minnesota Vikings are publicly required to be aligned with our commitment to equality and human rights.

Your passage of the Construction Services Agreement Equity Plan is a powerful demonstration of the proactive protection and engagement of women, minorities and veterans in the economics of building a new sports facility for the people, and suggests you recognize your responsibility to pursue equality for all people.

We ask you, the publicly owned Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, to not allow the posting on any electronic or print sign on your premises the discriminatory name of the DC team, or broadcast across the public address system the discriminatory name of the DC team, so that you can avoid creating an illegal and damaging workplace, an illegal and damaging event and an illegal and damaging accommodation. Many alternative forms of speech are available that do not offend, do not convey hate and do not denigrate a protected class of people.

On November 7, 2013, the Washington DC professional football team comes to Minneapolis to play football at the government funded and operated Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome where civil rights laws and labor laws prohibit discrimination of any kind and where over 200,000 nearby indigenous people live their lives.

Minnesota has a legacy of leading the nation in civil rights first with Hubert H. Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone, and now with two strong Senators who support equality for all, Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken. Congresswoman McCollum has

co-­sponsored legislation to address the trademark protections for the Washington DC’s discriminatory name (“R” word) and is a national leader against the continuation of sports mascots. Congressman Ellison is also a passionate defender of human rights.

Any print or broadcast use of the name currently utilized by the DC football team within the property owned by the people of Minnesota violates Federal labor laws, hate speech protections and broadcast decency licenses, violates State, City and County labor laws and civil rights protections, violates the operational and employment bylaws of the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority, and violates the civil rights of every indigenous person by denying us equal protection under the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Your responsibility is to the people of Minnesota. We will be at the October 25th meeting of the MSFA and ask that we have time on the agenda to discuss the opportunity for you to choose to be on the correct side of history, to make history, by honoring Federal,

State and Local laws that clearly do not permit the “R” word, an explicit form of institutional racism, with explicit damage to indigenous people, from being seen or heard in the People’s Stadium. It is simply illegal.

If, on October 25th, 2013 you do not vote to follow the laws of the land, and proactively and publicly ban the use of the “R” word in the Metrodome, we plan, in addition to the actions identified for perpetrating teams, to consider pursuing appropriate actions which may include:

All remedies prohibiting the use of the “R” word and images at the Metrodome before or during the November 7th game using the many City, County, State, Federal and International laws designed to prohibit expressions of hatred based upon race or nationality. These include:

The Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority’s own harassment and offensive behavior policy that explicitly prohibits discrimination, harassment and offensive behavior.

The Minneapolis Ordinances designed to effectuate non discrimination and to protect minors.

The Minnesota Human Rights Act. We are prepared to deny or decertify MSFA’s certificate of compliance.

Further, we are prepared to bring this matter to International Attention. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which the US is a signatory, prohibits “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination”. Further, racist names violate the International Declaration of Indigenous Rights which the US signed last year.

To Media Organizations including newspapers, electronic publishers, radio broadcasters, television and cable broadcasters, public address announcers and individuals covering professional sports:

We are asking you to consciously avoid the print and verbal use of all commercially manufactured indigenous sports team names, and similarly, consciously avoid the images of the names and mascots when covering these teams. We are asking you to refer to the teams using their city names and to use images that avoid as much as possible their unwelcome indigenous name and mascot images.

Individuals and organizations have acted to replace mascot words and images with alternatives that do not have damaging consequences. A partial and growing list includes:

Washington City Paper, Kansas City Star, DCist, Gregg Easterbrook (ESPN.com), Slate, Mother Jones, The New Republic, Peter King (Sports Illustrated and MMQB.com), Bill Simmons (ESPN and Grantland), Christine Brennan (USA Today), Mike Wise (Washington Post), Warren Pierce (WJR Radio).

Sadly, the Star Tribune chose a few years ago to reverse its policy honoring the civil rights of Indigenous People and now permits the regular use of the “R” word and unrestricted use of damaging Indigenous names and images. The recent appointment of a new editor offers an opportunity to immediately reset to a policy that does no harm to the children of America.

Greater sadness and disappointment comes from the Pioneer Press. In a recent telephone conversation, the editor of the Pioneer Press emphatically stated that his policy was to continue to report without editorial license the Indigenous team names and images, including the “R” word, until such time as the non-­Indigenous teams changed their manufactured and damaging names and images.

The American Psychological Association, Indigenous Children, Indigenous Parents and tens of millions of citizens who believe in human equality ask you to voluntarily act now, immediately, to remove the stain of mascots from print and the airwaves, from public address systems and electronic signs to the internet, and from our consciousness.

We recognize that in order to preserve the integrity of reporting it may be necessary in certain limited circumstances for the offending images and words to be used instead of alternatives -­ when addressing this issue educationally or providing accurate direct quotes from non-­involved parties.

Major Native American organizations, including the American Indian Movement: National

Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media, the National Congress of American Indians, the National Indian Education Association, the Native American Journalists Association, the Oneida Indian Nation of New York, the Native American Rights Fund, the Morning Star Institute, the International Indian Treaty Council, and the National Indian Youth Council, have opposed the continued use of the “R” word and all Indigenous Mascots manufactured by Non-­Indigenous People.

The “R” word is no different from the “N” word except that the institutional inherited racism associated with the use of Indigenous Mascots and Names by non-­indigenous people has maintained its political, social and financial momentum. You ignore the evidence that such use is damaging and entirely unnecessary, and such use would never be tolerated for analogous situations with other protected classes. You ignore the evidence that the reason you persist in denigrating a class of people is because of embedded racism – by definition.

We believe in the freedom of the press, and the freedom of speech. Your organization already has editorial policies and if you are a broadcaster you have regulated editorial policies that filter out a list of certain vulgar and offensive terms, and classes of obscene images. The “R” word and the Cleveland Mascot Image and all other Indigenous Mascots harm our children and our nation. There is no logic, no ethics, no rationalization for the continued publication of versions of the N word that continue to harm the very people we have harmed the most in this country. If you examine analogies, no similar names or mascots would be acceptable if similarly applied to gay people, women, religious groups, people from Asia, people with physical differences etc.

The media of this nation seem to believe it is their right and duty to use the name REDSKINS and other denigrating mascots words and images. This horrific racist name, designed to be derogatory, and its accompanying manufactured images, are broadcast and imprinted into the minds of all indigenous people, all indigenous children, all children and before the world. The truth is the “R” word is not any different than the “N” word except that all of us have become accustomed to sports driven forms of institutional racism.

The most egregious damage occurs with the words and images associated with REDSKINS. Other offensive and discriminatory names and images include INDIANS, BRAVES, BLACKHAWKS AND CHIEFS.

Impartial academic research is abundantly clear that mascots and stereotypes harm the targeted class of people, Indigenous People, with children being the most affected by negative consequences.

Moreover, this same research suggests that any specific use of mascots and stereotypes crosses over and affects all protected classes because any demeaning of one class increases the context and perceptions of all targeted classes as to their social status and self image, and increases the likelihood that the general population will view all classes of protected people with a lesser perception of equality.

Editors throughout the country maintain standards that prevent certain words and images to be used when they are unnecessary or specifically harmful or not appropriate for children. We ask that you filter the detrimental words and images out, and replace them with alternative references that convey the necessary meaning without incurring the harm.

We, and the American Psychological Association, recommend the discontinuance of any and all references to the “Redskin” words and images, and other similar mascots, because it harms the self-­image of our children, it reflects an inequality that affects attitudes and behaviors, and it reflects a continued institutional racism that is no longer acceptable today for other minority groups. The many laws protecting all people from racism need to be enforced for indigenous people.

We ask you to recognize that what is at stake is your willingness to recognize and overcome overt racism. We ask you to stop enabling the words and symbols that harm not only our children but all of us. Edit out their racist names and images unless they are essential for context or education.

Let the shame and harm be on the perpetrators. Not us.

We believe the word “Redskin” is a form of hate speech, is discriminatory, is vulgar, violates certain federal and state labor laws, violates the editorial standards of most media organization except when it comes to indigenous people, and is entirely unnecessary regardless of whether a racist owner chooses to change the name or

not. “Redskin” is deeply offensive because it was originally utilized to designate contempt for the remains of murdered American Indians.

We believe all indigenous sports mascots manufactured for commercial benefit by and for non-­indigenous people are similarly denigrating and harmful to a race of people.

The time is now to take a position that is on the right side of justice and equality for the millions of indigenous people, and for all children who are damaged by the outright racism expressed by the word “Redskin” and other indigenous mascots.

On behalf of the Change The Mascot Movement, the American Indian Movement, and millions of citizens, we urge you to take a single easy step that will help tip the national scales against the never-­ending discrimination of indigenous people. There is a growing list of media organizations and reporters who are refusing to broadcast hate because a few men have decided it is ok to cause damage to an entire nation of people in order to preserve tradition. This is a formal request for a change in your editorial policy.

We are asking your organization, no later than October 25th, 2013, to establish and publicize your policy, one that we hope consciously minimizes or bans the use of Indigenous mascot words and images when alternatives carry the necessary story and meaning.

We plan to challenge any media organization that continues to utilize the harmful manufactured Indigenous mascots that are entirely unnecessary for the majority of

media coverage. If the mascot analogy were applied to other protected groups, we know you would not choose to continue the practice of robotically using offensive and discriminatory words and images for other protected classes.

We hope you will voluntarily agree that it is institutional racism that has influenced your editorial policy, and that filtering your coverage in the same way you do for other topics such as obscenity and denigration is on the right side of history, the law, education and human rights.

If your decision by October 25th, 2013 is to continue the robotic practice of using denigrating manufactured indigenous mascots, we will explore a class action lawsuit citing your willful denial of existing laws and existing research that associates your unnecessary use of these mascots with significant damage to the wellbeing of children and a class of people. We will also pursue other remedies that include the enforcement of discrimination laws and civil actions such as boycotts of your organization and your advertisers.

For those media organizations regulated by the FCC, we will seek to challenge your broadcast licenses on the basis that you’re entirely unnecessary use of harmful Indigenous mascots and names amount to willful acts of negligence that are not in the public interest, that amount to the broadcast of obscene and vulgar language and image, that are clearly discriminatory, that violate State, Federal and Local laws, and that are known to cause harm to an entire protected class of people.

You are invited to participate in or follow our symposium on the topic of Indigenous sports mascots that will be held at the University of Minnesota on November 5th, 2013.

To ALL Governmental Agencies, Elected Officials and Representatives, Government Paid Public Servants, Court and Regulatory Bodies and Law Enforcement Agencies at the Federal, State, County, City and Municipal levels:

There are many issues facing the people of the United States. Only one issue appears in our media with institutional regularity virtually every day of every year. It is the

institutional racism inherent in the words and images associated with Indigenous sports mascots. No other protected class of people in America are subject to daily caricatures of name and image in stadiums and across all media that harass and degrade our culture, our names, our language, our heritage, our leaders and our religion.

Indigenous People in America suffer greatly and disproportionately from centuries of discrimination and oppression.

We have found scores of laws at the International, Federal, State, County, City and Municipal level, including cherished constitutional protections, that prohibit the expressions of hate speech and harassment and discrimination that you have permitted to continue through your inaction. The fact that no other protected class experiences this degree of pervasive denigration is the very definition of institutional racism.

We ask you, as our leaders, as our representatives, as the protectors of justice and human rights, and as the administrators of our constitutional guarantees:

Please stop the harm of Indigenous mascots and racist names, particularly the heinous examples from DC and Cleveland by denying them the right to display and disseminate their hate speech in public, in the workplace, to children, and across regulated media by enforcing the laws of the land – now!

You are invited to participate in or follow our symposium on the topic of indigenous sports mascots that will be held at the University of Minnesota on November 5th, 2013.

To ALL people who believe in an inclusive Constitution of the United States and recognize that all forms of institutionalized discrimination by Governments and Corporations are illegal and damage the fabric of our nation:

Vote for people who will actively work to protect the rights of Indigenous people, and all people, to live their lives without discrimination.

Contact your government representatives and officials and ask them to act now to enforce the laws of the land that prohibit discrimination and harassment and hate speech.

Contact your sports team and your stadium authority and ask them to Change the Mascot and avoid any dissemination of all denigrating Indigenous sports mascots in word and image. Record and report their use of denigrating and illegal indigenous mascots.

Contact, publicize and boycott all of the perpetrating teams and their advertisers.

If you are an Indigenous person who is an employee, contractor or fan experiencing the denigration of Indigenous sports mascots and names manufactured by non-­Indigenous people for non-­Indigenous people, please express yourself to the perpetrators and contact us.

If you are able to volunteer, or donate money or resources to the American Indian Movement, please contact us at the National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media. Educate and Participate.

CHANGE THE MASCOT
STOP THE R WORD
STOP INDIGENOUS NAMES AND MASCOTS

Contact Us

Changing Winds
Richie Plass: 920-­615-­6558,
612-­567-­0123info@yworlds.comwww.yworlds.com/changethemascot

American Indian Movement
National Coalition on Racism in Sports and Media
Clyde Bellecourt: 612-­886-­2107,
612-­251-­5836 clyde.hote@yahoo.comwww.aimcollection.org

Should be an interesting debate

August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists will be battling Scott McMurray of Faith United Methodist Church in LaCrosse on Sunday.

berkshiredebate

Isn’t the premise of these debates insulting in itself? McMurray is basically arguing that the man on the other side of the stage is evil…or if he’s not, he has already conceded the debate. Or maybe he’s going to pull an Oprah move and claim August isn’t really an atheist — I’ve seen that one a lot.