About three dozen people stood outside TCF Bank Stadium before the Minnesota Vikings vs. Kansas City Chiefs football game on Sunday to protest the use of American Indian team names and mascots and the racism that rally speakers said goes along with them.

Speakers ranged from teenagers who recounted being called names at their schools to 79-year-old Clyde Bellecourt, who "declared war today against that type of ignorance, that type of racism."

The protesters, some in the red sweatshirts or jackets of the American Indian Movement, were largely ignored by Vikings (and Chiefs) fans as they streamed into the stadium.

Tara Houska, an attorney in Washington, D.C., who grew up in Minnesota as a member of the Couchiching First Nation, said she saw a few Indian headdresses in the crowd.

"This is a war for our dignity, for our children," she said. "What they are doing is a cheap mockery and it needs to stop."

Lupe Thornhill, 16, of St. Paul teared up as she spoke. "It makes me really sad that we have to fight for our honor," she said. "I'll keep saying it until I die."

Richie Plass told of being asked to be the mascot of his high school team, the Indians, in 1968. "I only did it three times because of some bad things that happened to me," he said. "There's no honor in being laughed at, having food thrown at you, being spit at. That's what happened to me. It's still happening today.

"War has been declared," Plass said, "even though we've been fighting it for years."

And if the speakers didn't get their message across, there were signs. "Change the mascot. My culture is not a costume." "Our culture is not your entertainment. "You do not have a right to abuse my culture."

PAT PHEIFER