Stop the Chop
Kansas City has always been a sports town. It’s that passion that makes GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium the world’s loudest outdoor sports environment.
Published September 15, 2022
After an offseason that was two weeks longer than this city has become accustomed to, FOOTBALL IS BACK! For the Kansas City Chiefs, the season began in the same stadium where fans hope it will end. The Chiefs traveled to Glendale, Arizona, the home of Super Bowl LVII, and dominated the Cardinals from start to finish in a 44 - 21 victory. Tonight, this city welcomes our team home as millions across the nation will tune in for a primetime match-up between the Chiefs and their longtime divisional rival, the Los Angeles Chargers.
Once again, Patrick Mahomes and Justin Herbert will step onto GEHA Field in front of a roaring sea of red. For at least a few hours, the myth of flyover country will be forgotten as Kansas City becomes the center of the NFL universe. And while we have no way of knowing the final result, there is one thing I can guarantee. At some point tonight, War Chant, the most well-known song in Kansas City, will blare over Arrowhead Stadium’s speakers, and tens of thousands of Chiefs’ fans in the stadium will collectively participate in the Tomahawk Chop.
The Tomahawk Chop first appeared in Kansas City in November, 1990 in a game against the, then San Diego, Chargers. While the Chiefs warmed up, a few members of the Northwest Missouri State University Marching Band began playing the famed War Chant to the enjoyment of a few of the Chiefs’ defensive players. The song had been brought into the Marching Bearcats’ repertoire by the band director who was an alumnus of Florida State University (where the song and associated chop originated). During a major defensive stand, the defense signaled the band for the song to be played again, and again. The Chiefs won that game keeping them in contention for the playoffs. The song generated so much excitement over the coming weeks as the team made the postseason, that the song became a mainstay on Chiefs’ game day. For the past 30 years, it has been a certainty that, come gameday, Chiefs Kingdom will chop.
Anyone who knows me, or has just read disKCovery, knows that I love this city! I am so grateful to have called Kansas City home for the past decade. I absolutely adore the passion that this city has for our sports teams and it has been so amazing to witness a long overdue golden age of Kansas City sports. I take so much pride in discovering the best parts of this city and sharing those gems with locals and visitors alike. I believe it is important to highlight what we do best as a city. I also believe it is just as essential to set aside time to have a conversation about where we can improve.
This is one of those times. No city is without its flaws. Here in KC, our city’s widespread participation in the Tomahawk Chop is one of ours.
I am well aware that I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to write about the importance of eliminating the Tomahawk Chop from Arrowhead Stadium, and sporting events in general. For decades, the dialogue has mostly been a national one, centered around teams like Major League Baseball’s Atlanta Braves. However, there have been attempts to begin this conversation on a local level in regard to Chiefs Kingdom.
It’s been less than two years since the Kansas City Indian Center purchased a pair of billboards on our highways imploring the Kansas City Chiefs to “Change the name. Stop the Chop.” It’s been less than 24 hours since a local organization, Not In Our Honor, posted this statement opposing the Chiefs’ continued use of the chop, and associated Native American imagery.
I understand how difficult of a topic this can be. The teams that we love can, at times, be central to our own identity. For many Chiefs fans, the Tomahawk Chop is a tradition that they take a lot of pride in. Taking a step back and doing a critical self-assessment can be quite hard.
It is very likely that this plea, like others that have come before it, will fall on deaf ears; that does not minimize the importance of the conversation. Many Chiefs’ fans will likely respond that, “it’s just a gesture”, the Tomahawk Chop is “all in good fun”, it is “how we support our team”. So what exactly is the big deal? How much harm can the Tomahawk Chop actually cause?
The short answer? A LOT. The much longer answer? Well, that’s the conversation.
Today, in the United States, there are nearly 600 federally-recognized Indigenous tribes and nations. I am not, even remotely, descended from any one of them. I am not Native American. Nor do I know what it is to live in this area as a member of a tribe such as the Kickapoo or Potawatomi. While I do realize that I can never fully understand what it is to be Native American, that does not prevent me from trying.
On the campus of my Alma Mater, the University of Central Missouri, there stands a tower that reads, “Who is wise? He who learns from every person.” Appropriately, the adage is written in multiple languages, reminding all who see it that there is always value in learning from those with a life experience that varies from their own. The fact that I will never entirely know what it is to be an Indigenous person in this country does not deter me, instead it compels me to try and understand.
For the first decade in Kansas City, this was the Chiefs’ logo. Even after moving on from this logo, Native American imagery was prevalent in team branding and apparel. IMAGE COURTESY OF - sportslogos.net
For most, our education system has not done us any favors on this topic. Despite Missouri, Kansas, and many cities in the Metro all being named for Native American tribes, the majority of us have been presented with a sanitized version of our predecessors’ treatment of Indigenous populations. Few of us learned about the mass genocide, physical mutilations, sexual abuse, and enslavement that American Indians suffered at the hands of both European settlers and the American government. Even when our textbooks dared to address accounts of Christopher Columbus’s physical and sexual abuse of Native Americans, the United States’ forced relocation of eastern and midwestern tribes to Oklahoma (commonly known as the Trail of Tears), or the use of early biological warfare and disease to exterminate Indigenous tribes; the stories are told quickly, with few details. They are framed as being dramatically less severe than they really were. These stories are told as if they were the exception, when they were actually the norm.
Abuse of Native Americans is often seen as something that happened far away, long ago, and on rare occasions. That is not the case. Large swatches of what we know as Missouri were once ruled by the Chickasaw, Delaware, Illini, Ioway, Kanza, Osage, Otoe-Missouria, Quapaw, Sac & Fox, and Shawnee tribes. Due to the forced removal of these tribes by the United States Government in the early 1800s, there are zero federally recognized Indigenous tribes in Missouri today.
A major Metro thoroughfare, Shawnee Mission Parkway, is named for the Shawnee Indian Mission. From 1839 - 1862, the Mission, in nearby Fairway, Kansas, was one of several boarding schools that forcibly removed Native American children from their homes in the hope of eradicating Indigenous cultures and dispossessing tribal lands. There are accounts of multiple children dying at this specific boarding school in the 1850s. While the Mission closed at the height of the American Civil War, state-sponsored forced assimilation institutions and programs, were commonplace across the country into the early 1980s.
In the 1970s, the United States Government sponsored the forced sterilization of thousands of Native American women. It is only in the past 15 years, that our government has ceased testing nuclear weapons on tribal lands. Our nuclear program has had disastrous health consequences for those tribes.
Even now, I am guilty of glossing over the true depth of these atrocities by giving only a shred of a fraction of a percent of the abuses. And yet, you begin to get the idea. Our history is laden with accounts of abuse towards Native Americans, but the true scope of the cruelty endured is deliberately left unspoken, and unknown.
As a result, many of us are never exposed to an accurate account of how Native Americans have been, and are being, treated in this nation. Instead, we are shown portraits of pilgrims and American Indians sharing a turkey dinner. We watch movies and read novels which embrace the trope of the “Noble Savage”, who is charmingly simple. Others treat natives as a faceless, brutal enemy. For some of us, our only exposure was childhood games of “Cowboys and Indians” where we filled the playground with the sounds of our own war cries. By no fault of our own, our generation’s impression of Native Americans has been shaped by manufactured caricatures, logos, and stereotypes which have no basis in reality.
Nowhere in this nation, are such images more prevalent than in our sports. Logos, mascots, and even gestures provide a distorted view of Native American cultures and traditions. This is something that Dr. Richard Lapchick came to realize more than fifty years ago. In a recent exchange he told me, “Using Native American names and mascots or chops at sporting events should be stopped.”
Considered to be, “the racial conscience of sport”, Dr. Lapchick is the Director of The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport (TIDES) in Orlando, Florida, and a regular contributor for ESPN.com and The Sports Business Journal. Dr. Lapchick, perhaps more than anyone, understands the ways in which professional sports have been used to marginalize people, and how they can also be a powerful agent in bringing about necessary change. His father, Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Joseph Lapchick, was instrumental in integrating the NBA. In 1950, as head coach of the New York Knicks, Joe Lapchick signed the league’s first black player - Nat “Sweetwater” Clifton.
Before, and after, he ran the Knicks, Joe Lapchick was the head coach of the St. John’s University Redmen where he was affectionately referred to as “Big Indian”. I have been fortunate to hear Dr. Lapchick recount the story of how both him and his father later came to understand the implications of those nicknames. When St. John’s changed their mascot to the Red Storm in 1994, Dr. Lapchick, an alumnus of the school, was a big proponent of the change.
A Kansas City Chiefs fan at a playoff game in Houston in 2016. Dr. Stephanie Fryberg’s research found that depictions, such as this one, can have severe impacts on the mental health of Native American adolescents. PHOTO COURTESY OF - Getty Images
What both Dr. Lapchick, and Coach Lapchick, learned firsthand was the damage that such depictions can cause Native American communities. A series of studies by Dr. Stephanie Fryberg, a renowned psychologist and a member of the Tulapip tribes, over the past 15 years confirms that the misuse of Native American imagery in sports has been incredibly harmful.
In short, Dr. Fryberg and her associates found that the exposure of Native American students to mainstream cultural depictions of American Indians, specifically sports mascots and logos, lowered their self-esteem, decreased their sense of community worth, and severely limited their belief in their potential to achieve personal goals. The studies found that the imagery had a more negative impact on Native American teenagers than hearing statistics about high suicide and dropout rates in Indigenous communities.
What Fryberg ultimately discovered was that, “American Indian mascots are harmful because they remind American Indians of the limited ways other see them and, in this way, constrain how they can see themselves.” Similar studies have found that exposure to such caricatures actually increase depression and suicidal ideation among Native American teens.
Additionally, these stereotypes bastardize the noble traditions of nearly 600 distinct, unique Indigenous tribes and nations by treating them as a monolith. The mascots, emblems, and gestures by which we are all exposed to “Native American culture” dumps all these peoples into one singular, giant bucket labeled “American Indians”. Here in Kansas City, the Tomahawk Chop, and associated imagery and music employed by the Chiefs, are such a culprit.
Natalie Welch agrees; recently telling me that, “[The Tomahawk Chop] perpetuates longstanding stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. These actions imply that our people are savages, moving us closer to animals than actual human beings.” As an Assistant Professor in the Sport and Entertainment Management Masters Program at Seattle University who has experience working in the sports industry AND as a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, Dr. Welch is uniquely positioned to speak on the use of Native American imagery, names, and gestures by sports teams and their fans.
In our conversation, she dove into how traditions like these, and the issues that stem from Kansas City having a Native American mascot continue, “a long tradition of erasure and dehumanization of Native peoples” that “opens the door to demeaning and mocking Native peoples.”
In other words, having a Native American mascot, as the Kansas City Chiefs do, empowers fans to mock traditions and cultures without really understanding how harmful their actions can be. For fans of such teams, wearing Native American “war paint” on their faces and torsos is commonplace. Dr. Lapchick has very publicly compared this practice to the one of wearing blackface, often questioning why the former is acceptable when the majority of us agree that the latter is not. Native American headdresses can be a common part of gameday attire for fans of such teams. Many Native Americans consider wearing one to be an act of “stolen valor”, as headdresses were earned in battle by tribal chiefs.
Here in Kansas City, having a Native American mascot also means tens of thousand of fans participating in the Tomahawk Chop, which mischaracterizes all Native Americans as a single, brutal tribe.
“American Indian mascots are harmful because they remind American Indians of the limited ways other see them and, in this way, constrain how they can see themselves.”
There are many who will read this and remark that the Kansas City Chiefs are not a Native American mascot. I know this argument well because years ago, I was guilty of the same belief. It is amazing how actual exposure to Native Americans and their histories can cause a person’s opinions to evolve. Many will say, as I once did, that the team borrowed its nickname from Mayor H. Roe “The Chief” Bartle who was pivotal in convincing Lamar Hunt to move the team here. Mayor Bartle was not Native American so therefore the nickname is just a nickname, not a Native American one. For too long, I believed that the Chiefs being named for Bartle somehow set them apart from teams like Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, and Washington. There are several who still believe as much.
That supposed distinction between Bartle and actual American Indians did not prevent the team from heavily employing Native American imagery. One of the team’s earliest logos was an American Indian chief on the warpath over the six-state area. For almost forty years, the team had a pinto horse named Warpaint that was ridden by a man donning a headdress. While Warpaint was retired in 1989, the team brought back the tradition, this time with a cheerleader on the saddle, in 2009. Many of the fans who chop do not know the origins of the name, they just know what the current name represents - the right to stereotype natives in the name of team spirit. Who could have ever foreseen that naming the team for a man who regularly cosplayed as a caricature of an American Indian would lead to such appropriation?
“Many of the fans who chop do not know the origins of the name, they just know what the current name represents - the right to stereotype natives in the name of team spirit.”
Welch went on to explain to me that the implicit nature of much of this racial mockery, by teams and their fans, is what makes it so scary. It prevents many fans from understanding exactly how damaging these actions can be. She also explained that it is possible for a person to explicitly be a fan of a team while still wanting their team to discontinue implicitly discriminatory acts like the use of Native American names, mascots, chants, and gestures. Having grown up on Cherokee tribal lands in North Carolina, cheering for the Atlanta Braves (MLB) and the former Washington Redskins (NFL), Welch understands this disconnect quite well. That is a large part of what makes this conversation so difficult for so many. That feeling of being torn between the explicit and implicit is natural.
It almost feels sardonic as I look at my notes and realize the number of times that I have abbreviated Native American as “NA” because that is exactly how society has treated Indigenous people in this nation - NOT APPLICABLE. In all seriousness, that is exactly what these actions ultimately do. They dehumanize Native Americans. When we don headdresses, put on war paint, and participate in the chop, we treat our Indigenous populations more like mythical beings than actual people. As the previously mentioned studies show, when Native American adolescents see such images and actions, and begin to understand that our society as a whole views them as less than human, they tragically begin to view themselves as less than human too. This is why change on this front is necessary.
The Washington Commanders arriving in Kansas City on August 19 for a preseason match-up with the Chiefs. From 1932 - 2019, the Washington Commanders had a nickname that is widely considered to be a racial slur.
Thankfully, we have seen progress on this front. Over the years, several colleges and universities have distanced themselves from Native American mascots so completely that today, fans of schools like Stanford and St. John’s may not even realize that was once a part of their tradition. More recently, we have seen Washington’s NFL team go through a multi-year process to move on from their long-held racial slur of a nickname. Dr. Lapchick explained to me that, “As part of the racial reckoning the sponsors of the Washington football team put pressure on the team to change their name. The entire discussion helped America remember that we were founded on the genocide of a vast number of our Indigenous people.” Last weekend, Washington played their first-ever regular season game as the Commanders.
While Mayor H. Roe Bartle, known as “The Chief” or “Chief Lone Bear”, was not Native American, he was a purveyor of mockery and harmful stereotypes against natives. Today, the NFL team that was named for him continues to do the same.
IMAGE COURTESY OF - Indian Country Today
Washington making a change seemed to trigger the very domino effect that Dr. Lapchick implied. In the Canadian Football League (CFL), the Edmonton Eskimos followed a similar path as Washington to become the Edmonton Elks, allowing them to repurpose the EE logo that has been such an iconic part of their brand. The Cleveland Indians phased out their Chief Wahoo mascot and logo over the past few years. This year they left the Indians name entirely and re-branded as the Guardians. These are all names that were in place for at least twice as long as fans at Arrowhead have engaged in the Tomahawk Chop. Cleveland was the Indians for over a century!
We have even begun to see change on the local level as Shawnee Mission North High School moved away from the Indians to become the Bison.
While I applaud the steps, and major rebranding efforts, these teams have taken to change their names, this is not, necessarily, a call for the Chiefs to change theirs. It is more of a call for the Kansas City Chiefs to acknowledge the problem their nickname creates and to move away from Native American imagery.
Do the Kansas City Chiefs have to change their name in order to do so? Honestly, I don’t know.
It is abundantly clear that doing so would solve a number of problems. The way that sports teams and their fans inappropriately mischaracterize Native Americans through cartoonish symbols, gawdy costumes, and actions like the Tomahawk Chop, are a major culprit in the erasure of Indigenous populations. Actions like the Tomahawk Chop are inappropriate in any marketing campaigns or public gatherings. And, at least on some level, the Kansas City Chiefs seem to agree on this.
Prior to the 2020 season, Arrowhead Stadium banned the wearing of headdresses or any face/body painting fashioned in the style of Native American war paint. Prior to the 2021 season, the team re-retired, seemingly for good, the tradition of Warpaint the horse. Both of these traditions have been a part of Chiefs’ fandom for far longer than the chop.
In recent years, the Chiefs have unsuccessfully attempted to re-brand the Tomahawk Chop as “The Arrowhead Chop” and even encouraged the team’s cheerleaders to participate with a closed fist or pom-pom, as opposed to an open hand. Still, to date, it feels that on this issue, the Kansas City Chiefs have been reactive. They seem intent on treating the symptoms as opposed to curing the actual disease, even though it would be fairly simple to do.
After the Chiefs banned headdresses and warpaint, Dr. Natalie wrote, “When Kansas City tells its fans that engaging in normal fan behavior is unacceptable, it is implicitly admitting that there’s a problem with its mascot. And it is correct.” She’s right. Dressing as your team’s mascot is normal fan behavior. While the team has scaled back the usage of Native American imagery over the years, their continued association and use of it continues to create these issues. Instead of fixing a leaking pipe, the Chiefs have so far been content throw a few towels on the puddle, and then act surprised when the room is flooded the following day. The team refuses to deal with the actual problem.
Can the Chiefs free themselves of Native American imagery and harmful stereotypes, without changing the team’s name? That remains to be seen.
When I asked Dr. Welch this same question, she replied, “I think there is a very, very slim chance the KC team could maintain the Chiefs moniker with the removal of Native American imagery. Chief isn’t exclusively Native, although it would be tough, especially after decades of imagery. There will always be throwbacks and fans that want to keep the old imagery around.” She then remarked on, while watching a baseball game between the Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Guardians a few weeks ago, how much “Cleveland Indians” gear she noticed in the stands. For some, that is likely a statement about their feelings towards the name change. For others, it may feel like harmless nostalgia. And yet for others, it could just be a sign that they have not had an opportunity or the means to purchase updated gear. It is obvious that some remnant of the Indians’ moniker will always be a part of this team for certain fans. Truth be told, no matter what the Kansas City Chiefs do, there will be fans that continue to cling to Native American imagery, but that does not excuse the Chiefs from making an effort.
There have been examples of teams that have been able to re-purpose their beloved monikers and keep their nickname. When the San Francisco Warriors became the Golden State Warriors in 1971, the completely separated the team’s name from Native American imagery. The Atlanta Hawks were once the Tri-City Blackhawks. Today, there are few who would make that association for either team. Like Warriors, Chiefs is a broad term that reflects a number of peoples, and even has modern usages that have nothing to do with any tribe.
“So, how exactly does the Tomahawk Chop celebrate Native Americans? It doesn’t. ”
In 2020, fans of the Exeter Chiefs, of England’s Premiership Rugby league, began calling for the team to cease their endorsement of the Tomahawk Chop. They also implored the Chiefs to change the name of the stadium’s “Wigwam Bar” and “Pow Wow Bar”. Other teams in the Premiership sought to ban headdresses and Native American costumes from their stadiums. In response, the Exeter Chiefs did retire their “Big Chief” mascot. Pressure continued to mount from fans and other teams alike. Just two months ago, the Exeter Chiefs announced that they were eliminating all affiliation with Native American imagery, while keeping the name. The team repurposed their name to reference the Iron Age British tribe, the Dumnonii and introduced a new logo. The stadium’s bars were renamed for English castles.
While it would be difficult for Kansas City to keep the name and free themselves of the imagery entirely, it is not impossible. It is just that it would take a Herculean effort from the Chiefs to do so. It is not as much about the name of the team as it is about what that name has represented and continues to represent. While 70,000 fans engage in the Tomahawk Chop in Kansas City, the team’s name, associated imagery, and marketing efforts encourage fans to mock Indigenous peoples who have suffered more than enough.
Even still, there are those fans who will dubiously claim that the Tomahawk Chop is not an act of mockery. In fact, they will say that actions like the Tomahawk Chop are intended to celebrate Native Americans and foster awareness of their culture. To them, I would reiterate that Native Americans are not a monolith. There is no singular culture that comprises all American Indigenous. Ironically, the same Tomahawk Chop that many would claim brings visibility to Native American cultures, is in fact helping to erase them.
During the 2019 Major League Baseball postseason, St. Louis Cardinals relief pitcher, Ryan Helsley, famously made comments about the mocking nature of the chop after Atlanta Braves fans performed it, complete with foam tomahawks, while he was on the mound. An Oklahoma native and member of the Cherokee Nation, Helsley told the St. Louis Post Dispatch that, “I think it’s a misrepresentation of the Cherokee people or Native Americans in general. Just depicts them in this kind of caveman-type people way who aren’t intellectual.” Helsley is far from alone in this feeling. So how exactly does the Tomahawk Chop celebrate Native Americans? It doesn’t.
When I think about this nation’s Indigenous peoples, words that come to mind are “bravery”, “strength”, “power”, “unity”, “community”, “stewardship”, “wisdom”, and “family”. The Tomahawk Chop celebrates none of these things! Instead, the chop casts a very wide net and boils down all these tribes and nations to the lowest common denominator. The Tomahawk Chop declares the brutal act of scalping to be the defining characteristic of all Native American peoples for all time. It does not celebrate Native American cultures - it insults and slanders them. It does not make their contributions and traditions visible. The Tomahawk Chop erases American Indians and replaces them with vaudevillian savages.
Surely, there are those who will read this and respond that Native Americans have much larger issues to deal with than sports mascots or the Tomahawk Chop. Issues such as a significantly higher than average high school drop-out rate, the staggering number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW), and widespread healthcare inequity plague a number of Indigenous communities. Other issues, such as the opioid epidemic and mental health crisis, while not unique to native populations, are also daunting in these communities. However, it can be argued that these issues are fueled by a lack of awareness by society as a whole about how our nation has treated, and continues to treat, Native Americans. There is a direct correlation between these real issues and sports mascots and traditions, like the chop, being the primary source of Native American exposure for most.
The majority of tribes and nations have true self-determination for their people and the struggle between cultural preservation and modern advancement/integration among the challenges they face. These present-day struggles are undeniably a result of years of oppression and erasure. This erasure is fueled by substituting actual education about the genocide of Native Americans with sports mascots and caricatures.
The irony of the National Football League stenciling “End Racism” in the endzones of a stadium where tens of thousands of fans engage in the Tomahawk Chop, should be lost on no one. PHOTO CREDIT - National Football League
Is something as simple as abolishing the Tomahawk Chop going to cure these societal ills? Of course not. But as ESPN’s Jeff Passan pointed out during last year’s World Series in Atlanta, the most frustrating aspect of the chop is how simple it would be to just stop doing it. He wrote, “[Stopping the Tomahawk Chop] would be a small gesture. It wouldn't fix any of those generational problems that affect American Indians. But it would, to plenty, return at least a modicum of dignity to a people that have already had so much taken from them.”
And really, that is what this is all about. Opposition to the chop is not about “being woke” or political correctness, it’s about something as simple as having good manners. It’s the platinum rule, “treat others the way they want to be treated.” Opposing these stereotypes is ultimately about human decency. And the first rule of being a decent human is to treat all humans as if they are, you know, human. Many of the aforementioned issues are a direct result of society treating Native Americans as less than.
I am not going to pretend that eliminating the Tomahawk Chop and disassociating from Native American symbols at Arrowhead Stadium will be some magic eraser that solves the complex issues that Native Americans across our region, and country, face. It’s not, and it won’t.
For that reason, there are many critics who suggest that we should then focus on these very real issues and leave sports teams out of it. What’s my answer to that? No.
I do agree that we should have left sports out of it, but the time for that is long past. As a society, we brought sports into it. Opponents of supposed cancel culture should join me in my opposition to Native American imagery in sports and the Tomahawk Chop, because that’s what these symbols and actions do. They cancel Native American cultures. As previously cited studies show, teams like the Kansas City Chiefs continuing to embrace these symbols and actions do have a profoundly negative psychological effect on Native American youth. This dehumanization has a direct correlation to many of the most prevalent issues that Indigenous communities face. There is an overwhelming amount of data that suggests that many of these issues have roots in the erasure of Native Americans. That erasure is caused, at least in part, by how American Indians are depicted by sports teams. We cannot hope to address any of these issues without bringing sports into it.
Even if we could address these issues without addressing sports, we don’t have to. Eliminating Native American stereotypes from sports and addressing the very real issues that Indigenous communities face are not mutually exclusive. Government entities, non-profit organizations, every day people, and yes, even professional sports teams can find ways to better support Native American communities and tribes. We can stop dehumanizing our nation’s Indigenous population by providing them with actual relief and resources AND by limiting the ways in which society and professional sporting events make a mockery of their cultures. We can do both! As is the case with anything, any argument of one over the other is simply a distraction by those who have no interest in addressing either. This argument is the boilerplate response for those who most benefit from the status quo.
The Kansas City Chiefs disassociating from Native American imagery, and the Tomahawk Chop, would be a major step in the right direction. And it has to be the Chiefs that proactively make that difference. Granted, there are major sports leagues that have made diversity, equality, and accessibility for all fans a priority. Could the NFL step in in regard to the Tomahawk Chop? Absolutely. Will they? Not likely.
A league that considers sports betting and marijuana use to be more egregious than domestic violence, and a league that permits alleged sexual assailants to set the amounts of their fines and suspensions, cannot be trusted to do the right thing. I believe the Kansas City Chiefs can be. A look at how well the Chiefs handled the Kareem Hunt situation in 2018, in contrast to how poorly the NFL did, shows they can be the organization to make that difference.
“Opponents of supposed cancel culture should join me in my opposition to Native American imagery in sports and the Tomahawk Chop, because that’s what these symbols and actions do. They cancel Native American cultures.”
The Chiefs could stop playing War Chant in the stadium. They could prohibit all cheerleaders, players, and personnel from engaging in the Tomahawk Chop, regardless of how open or closed the hand is.
Sports leagues have been successful in getting broadcasters to not show streakers or fans who illegally run on to the field of play. Regardless of what the Chiefs do, there are still those fans who will chop. The team could petition to the league to put pressure on broadcasters to not show the Tomahawk Chop when it does inevitably occur. The Chiefs could remove War Chant, the Tomahawk Chop, and all other Native American imagery from their commercials, marketing efforts, stadium, logos, apparel, and gameday presentation. They can send a loud, clear message that that this team belongs to all of Kansas City and the surrounding region, including those who are Native American.
The Kansas City Chiefs could even take it a step further and actually engage Native peoples in this region, instead of just appearing to. Dr. Welch explained that teams like the Chiefs often, “hide behind the guise of awareness and education when they host Native American Heritage Nights and trot certain groups out on the field, but they are not committed to our communities in the long term.” She shared the observation that, regardless of a team having a Native American mascot or not, they should target Native American communities and engage with them in the same way they do any other demographic or community. This should include, but not be limited to, actually hiring Native Americans for front office positions so that members of these tribes are a part of the decision-making regarding how these groups are targeted and depicted by the team. The Seattle Seahawks are a prime example of how a professional sports team can engage Indigenous communities and celebrate Native American cultures, without mocking them.
The Kansas City Chiefs are more than capable of being an organization that similarly does so. But, when War Chant begins to play in the stadium tonight, it will be a stark reminder that they are not yet that team.
It has often been said that, “nothing brings together a community like tragedy or sport”. What happens when sports become tragedy? When the great unifier becomes an overwhelming source of division? When the source of collective civic pride that should bring together all people of all backgrounds, only serves to marginalize the oppressed even more?
Some will continue to dismiss the harm that actions like wearing headdresses and engaging in the Tomahawk Chop do, despite the overwhelming evidence. They will continue to foolishly claim that the Tomahawk Chop celebrates the courage of Native peoples while simultaneously dismissing those organizations and people, for whom being Native American is central to their identity, who have the courage to stand up and say otherwise.
And even then, I would flip the conversation and ask, “what are the positive impacts?” There is not one person who can point to an actual societal good that the Tomahawk Chop, and similar actions, accomplish. I have quite thoroughly pointed out all the ways they can cause harm. When every single side effect of an action is negative, wouldn’t moving on from said action be a matter of common sense?
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. famously said, “the time is always right to do the right thing.” Leave no doubt about it, the Kansas City Chiefs abolishing the Tomahawk Chop from their stadium, and disassociating from all other Native American symbols and stereotypes, is the right thing. The team must take drastic steps forward to separate their mascot, their brand, their marketing, and their gameday presentation from practices that both explicitly, and implicitly, mock Native Americans.
It is well past time for the Tomahawk Chop to go the way of the dinosaur. It is well past time for the team to rid themselves of caricatures that demean Native Americans. Whether the team can retain the Chiefs name and accomplish these things remains to be seen.
Even if the team cannot keep the Chiefs moniker as they move forward, what’s in a name? Super Bowls won by any team with a KC on their helmet would be just as sweet.
While the Tomahawk Chop is not a tradition for Chiefs Kingdom to be proud of, several other traditions, such as the best tailgating scene in all of professional sports, is.
“Every tradition has to start somewhere. And as for the uglier ones? We have to hope that they end somewhere too.”
At the end of the day, that’s why 76,416 fans are flocking to the Truman Sports Complex this evening. Not to chop, but to support Kansas City. They are headed out to grill some burgers and brats; to have a few beers with their friends in the parking lot and throw some bags. They bought tickets to the game because they want to see an unforgettable duel between two of the best quarterbacks in the game. Fans are going there hoping to see, arguably, the greatest tight end in the history of the league catch another amazing touchdown pass. Fans want to see Skyy Moore and “Furious George” Karlaftis make their Arrowhead regular season debuts. They want to roar as Chris Jones devours the Chargers’ line and puts pressure on Justin Herbert. The fans are headed to Arrowhead because they love this team.
And if there actually exists a person for whom chopping is more important than cheering on this team - is it even fair to consider them a KC fan at all?
Many will continue to say that the Tomahawk Chop, and other Native American stereotypes employed by fans, are time-honored traditions. Yet, the passage of time hardly qualifies something as honorable. The notion that something is good simply because it has existed for a long time is faulty at best, and dangerous at worst. Every tradition has to start somewhere. And as for the uglier ones? We have to hope that they end somewhere too.
For 22 seasons, the Kansas City Chiefs went without winning a playoff game.
For 25 years, the Chiefs did not win at home in the playoffs.
For over 50 years, the Kansas City Chiefs did not bring the Lamar Hunt Trophy home. The Chiefs went just as long without winning a Super Bowl!
For far too long, postseason futility was a Kansas City Chiefs’ tradition. Every single Kansas Citian remembers exactly where we were when each of those traditions came to an end.
Chiefs Kingdom was jubilant when each of these traditions met their demise. Quickly, the team replaced these undesirable traditions with ones this city could be proud of. Winning the AFC West year-in-and-year-out and Arrowhead Stadium playing host to the last four AFC Championships are such traditions.
For 32 years, Chiefs fans have performed the Tomahawk Chop at home games, encouraged by the team they love to do so. And hopefully, sooner rather than later, that unsavory tradition will similarly come to an end. When it does, the Chiefs will once again find a new tradition to replace it. A tradition that this city can actually be proud of.
Tonight, Arrowhead Stadium awakens from a long offseason slumber as Patrick Mahomes leads his team against the division rival Chargers. Fans across The Kingdom will gather in their homes, flock to bars, flood KC Live!, and fill the stadium to cheer this team on to victory. And inevitably, at some point, many of them will chop.
And you know what? It’s not on the fans. The sports complex that the Chiefs call home is named for a local who famously quipped, “The Buck Stops Here.” And in the case of the Tomahawk Chop, and other such actions, the buck stops with the Kansas City Chiefs. This lies entirely with the team’s ownership and front office. The Chiefs have taken some promising steps in distancing themselves from Native American imagery. These baby steps are essentially an admission by the team itself that the use of Native American images and the Tomahawk Chop itself are, at bare minimum, problematic. They do nothing to address the much larger elephant in the room. In order for the problems created by a Native American nickname to go away entirely, the team must make that separation from such caricatures and gestures, entire, absolute, and permanent.
And that change can only come when the Chiefs stop blaring that hokey War Chant in-stadium. It can only come when they stop associating with such cartoonish imagery. The path to progress will only begin when the Kansas City Chiefs definitively, and completely, stop the chop.
What thoughts do you have regarding the use of the Tomahawk Chop? Or the use of Native American names, likenesses, and images in sports? Let’s have a conversation in the comments. As always, thank you for reading.
A very special thank you to Dr. Natalie Welch for taking the time to speak extensively about this issue. Without your contributions, this essay would not have been possible!
