After Boston lost to Cleveland recently, the Sun Journal ran the headline “Red Sox lose their hair against Indians.” Today’s baseball fans already must inherit the racist team names of yesterday: the Cincinnati Reds, the Atlanta Braves and the Indians. Native American is the only ethnicity with which we play fast and loose in athletics. While the Celtics represent a town built up by Irish immigrants, the success of the other three cities rested on the extermination of native populations. And whereas the Celtics have historically included Irish-Americans on their roster, Cleveland has fielded about as many Native Americans as the Chicago Cubs have fielded baby grizzlies.

It is too much that our local headline writers add to the Indian’s cruel stereotype with more bigoted wording. Their sly reference to scalping cruelly calls attention to the aspect of Native American cultures most odious and sinister to modern eyes. Consider the parallels: “The French guillotined…” “The Germans gassed…” “The Arabs suicide bombed…”

The headline writers have their job to do. They reach for stirring imagery and sexy language. So often this means appropriating the vocabulary of violence and war. This is America, this is how it is done. But how are local representatives to stand up in the State House and discuss casinos, how are local teachers to teach about the Abnaki and Passamaquoddy, when in the corner of the room lies a newspaper that allows itself to forget the humanity of and dignity owed to its fellow New Englanders?

Brian Hamilton, Auburn

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