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Ahead of the kickoff for Super Bowl LV on Sunday, a local group staged a protest at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Raymond James Stadium to urge the team to ditch the Kansas City Chiefs mascot out of respect for Native Americans.
The St. Petersburg-based Florida Indigenous Rights and Environmental Equality, or FIREE, gathered at the stadium at 4 p.m. E.S.T. The details were released shortly before the game on a Facebook page the group created for the event, which is called “WHERE IS THE HONOR?”
“As we move through the 21st century it is time America began to respect the Indigenous Peoples. No other group of human beings suffers the weekly indignity of both racial and spiritual stereotypes trivializing and degrading their culture in a circus-like atmosphere. No other groups are racially trivialized into a mascot,” the group said.