Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MEDIA RELEASE
For Release:
Tuesday, July 1, 2014
For more information contact:
Jacqueline Keeler
Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry
5039155011
jackiekeeler@mac.com
Native Americans Protest SF Giants & SFPD’s Treatment of Native People
San Francisco, CA On June 23, 2014 at the San Francisco Giants game vs. San Diego Padres “Native
American Heritage Night,” two Native American fans in attendance at the game, Kimball Bighorse and April
Negrette, were forcefully detained and removed from the game for confronting another fan wearing a faux,
costume headdress the attendee had purchased online. Today on Tuesday, July 1st, 2014 a protest will be held at
AT&T Park before the SF Giants game at 6:30 pm by Native American members of the community to demand
that Native American culture be respected and Native American people not be subjected to police brutality when
fans misuse and misappropriate Native American culture.
Ms. Negrette did nothing wrong by engaging in heartfelt dialogue with this fan to express that misappropriation of
headdress, sacred regalia, and Native cultural items is wrong, harmful, and absolutely unacceptable. The person
wearing the fake war bonnet was asked to remove it from his head. Mr. Bighorse and Ms. Negrette were then
approached by security and asked to hand over their tickets. All orders were complied with. The person/people
wearing the mocked headdress were never asked to leave, despite their harmful and degrading behaviors.
Unfortunately, both Ms. Negrette and Mr. Bighorse were forcefully handcuffed by the San Francisco Police
Department and taken to the ground, even after they agreed, and were in the process of, leaving the game.
Mr. Bighorse was also accused of being drunk, which he was not. He was detained and held facedown on the
ground. Testimony from Kimball Bighorse public statement:
http://bighorse.net/post/89740986519/howthesanfranciscogiantscelebratenativeamerican. "They told me to
spread my legs widely and repeatedly went through my pockets and pants and shirt and pushed down on the
handcuffs, which were quite tight and put considerable pressure on my shoulders and back. They then detained
me in the paddywagon, handcuffed for the rest of the game."Bighorse said. "They did draw a bit of blood, and I
have some scrapes from the cement on my knuckles, and I have photos of the marks left by the handcuffs, that my
friend will be sending me."
"I would like the Giants to publicly apologize for allowing this to happen and to provide cultural
sensitivity training for any cultural event in the future including rejection for violation. And since there is
a dress code I would like offensive things such as this added to the list."
April Negrette
"A great outcome for me would be a public statement from the Giants that wearing offensive Native
paraphernalia will be a license revocable/ejectable offense on Native American Heritage Night in the
future."
Kimball Bighorse
Eradicating Offensive Native Mascotry (EONM), a group of Native American parents and allies, are extremely
saddened by this event. We are surprised that Native American people would be treated this way on ‘Native
American Heritage Night’, while trying to confront the very pervasive problem of cultural misappropriation.
While we can appreciate that the team held an event to bring Native American peoples and culture to the
forefront, and that crowd control is protocol, there is a grave deficit of knowledge about Native cultures and
people that became painfully evident at the game. Two Native American attendees were physically harmed during
this unnecessary event. It is our feeling that Native Americans should be able to not only attend sporting events
free of harmful cultural misappropriation, but also be able to speak out about the desecration of Native cultures,
people, and items. We feel that Mr. Bighorse and Ms. Negrette, were punished for trying to educate about the
harms of Native Mascotry. They should not have been asked to leave the game, detained, and forcefully
handcuffed by nondiscerning security and police that did not care to know nor ask for the full story.
It is our hope that the Giants organization and its security detail, as well as SFPD, will become educated about the
harms of offensive Native Mascotry and harmful cultural misappropriation. Ignoring Native peoples’ concerns is
indicative of the fact that Native people are treated as relics of the past, nonexistent, and we hope the
aforementioned parties will treat cultural misappropriation as hate speech, as that is the way it feels to have sacred
items mocked.
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