DISTURBING

Denver Kids Ride With ‘Highly Insensitive’ Image Is Removed by City Officials

“My mouth dropped open when I realized it was a Native American head in a saddle bag,” one parkgoer said.

A carousel horse that has been sitting at a Denver park for over seven years has been taken down due to its racist design, Denver 7 reports. M.J. Jimenez told city officials about the carousel after she noticed it while she was with her niece in the Thornton park. “My mouth dropped open when I realized it was a Native American head in a saddle bag,” she said. According to the network, the carousel was created in the 1920s and then purchased by the city when its seller went out of business. The city then moved it to the park in 2013. “It’s a dehumanizing tactic, and it sort of shows we are not people,” said Indigenous People activist Leala Pourier. The city says it has removed the carousel. “We are in complete agreement with Mary Jane Jimenez about the inappropriate design for the horse...We regret that patrons have been exposed to this imagery for far too long,” they said in a statement.