There she goes again…
It took Kansas City Star columnist Mary Sanchez more than 20 years to revisit the ongoing controversy of using bogus American Indian symbolism to promote the Kansas City Chiefs football club.
In November 1992 Sanchez scolded sports teams for their insensitivity to Native American culture – the wearing of full feathered headdresses and war paint, tacky team names and mascots and, of course, the much maligned tomahawk chop.
Then Sanchez gave the Chiefs a pass.
“In Kansas City, Chiefs officials signed an agreement last week to work with activists to help ensure an incident-free protest,” she wrote.
One day later Sanchez did the home team one better.
After quoting a Chiefs official that the tomahawk chop should be considered by Native Americans as a compliment, the official added, “We have developed a dialogue with them and are going to be involved in some charities. We have invited them and their youth to put on a halftime show next year. That will allow them to demonstrate their rituals in the way they would like.”
Seriously, an American Indian halftime show and just like that, all is forgiven?
Flash forward to last summer when the Washington Redskins controversy was swirling.
“Years ago, our NFL franchise made the decision to stop offending the dignity of those native people, past, present and future,” Sanchez wrote. “The Kansas City Chiefs chose to quit using cartoonish depictions of native people. The team’s management dropped the pretense that it was ‘honoring’ cultures it knew little about with hokey mascots, skits and Indian themed paraphernalia.”
Sanchez must have missed the Chiefs billboard featuring a fan/mascot named Arrowman festooned with indian arrows and feathers.
Hey. don’t blame the Chiefs for boorish behavior by “a few drunken fool” fans, she said.
Hold it right there.
“They’re still doing all that stuff, people really love that tomahawk chop,” said a Chiefs season ticket holder who asked not to be named. “They still chop and the Chiefs still play that phony Hollywood indian music.”
The Chiefs did away with the chop, Sanchez reported in 1992.
However weeks later, not only did the Chiefs bring back the chop, it bought a full page ad in the Star to explain away Native American concerns.
Cut to Christmas Day last week when Sanchez bestowed the ultimate holiday schmooze on the flip-flopping Chiefs; yet another underserved pat on the back for the team’s sensitivity towards Native Americans.
Seems the Chiefs have engaged in open talks with “a group of Native Americans” this season, Sanchez wrote – eight of ’em to be exact. However no mention – let alone reporting – on who that group consists of, nor any indication that Sanchez made any effort to contact its members.
On top of that, the Chiefs said they’d spoken to unnamed “television producers” about not showcasing fans with headdresses and war paint, Sanchez wrote – again with no attempt at verification by Sanchez.
Hollywood Casinos Chiefs sanctioned 28 ounce, “Tomahawk Chop” steak
The Chiefs said they discussed ads for a steak called “The Tomahawk Chop” with the unnamed group Sanchez added. But since some of the Native Americans didn’t find it particularly offensive, the Chiefs told her, they gave it a pass.
Sanchez passed on naming the restaurant serving the controversial cut. Which turns out to be Hollywood Casino’s Final Cut Steakhouse. BTW, the casino is a large advertiser in the Star and continues to offer the steak on its menu that the Chiefs say that they’re fine with.
Just as the Chiefs continue to be fine with encouraging fans to use the tomahawk chop at Arrowhead. Like at the Chiefs final home game last year when it promoted the chop by playing the so-called War Chant and featuring a mascot named Warpaint.
The $64 million question: do the Chiefs deserve the praise heaped on it again by Sanchez for distancing itself from Native American symbols believed to be in poor taste?
No way, says one prominent season ticket holder who asked not to be named.
“The Chiefs played the chant music at todays’s game while the fans chopped and KC Wolf beat on the tom-tom,” he says. “If they really wanted to show their respect for Native American culture, they’d stop encouraging the chop.”
And instead of the team blaming unnamed television producers (who the NFL and the team licenses) for showing “drunken fools” in headdresses and war paint, they’d stop admitting them to games and promoting them on billboards promoting the team.
Kinda like a year ago when they told tens of thousands of female Chiefs fans they could no longer bring handbags into the stadium.
Now that took some courage.
(First off, Hearne, you can delete everything from me inside the parentheses, but your last name is misspelled at the very top of your website – doesn’t look good)
Hearne, I am inclined to believe that your “prominent season ticket holder who asked not to be named” is more interested in holding on to his seat than anything else. Otherwise, he should have no problem openly entering into this discussion about what the Chiefs organization should, or should not, be doing with respect to native Americans and their culture. Is he that afraid of the folks who run the show (pun intended) at One Arrowhead Drive? At any rate, I do wish Mary had identified the people she mentions in her column. More disclosure is certainly in order.
Not only is it in order, it’s basic jpurnalism to question and confirm, not just take the word of a source with a vested interest.
Btw my season ticket holder has a very non chiefs reason for cloaking his identity
Anyone else tired of this topic? Why are sports teams, private businesses being blackmailed because they named their team after a subgroup that’s hardly two percent of the country.
Most minorities need to grow up in this country.
810 scoops 610 once again…
Do my public dollars fund that stadium? If they do, and I want to wear all-out native regalia, then I will.
In no way do your tax dollar contributions enable you to choose what you wear or take into the stadium.
Trying carrying a women’s purse the past two years.
Try dressing as like Ali G or Adolph Hitler and tell the ticket takers about your tax dollars.
That’s not the way life works.
Try dining at an upscale restaurant with a dress code that requires a necktie.
The incessant “Racial Peer Review” by our “peers”, whose qualifications for said reviews are a subjective tedious tribute to a pop culture narcissistic solipsism that greases the wheels of the PC anarcho tyranny continues. No shortage of expert opinions and even Roger Goodell, humbled by the forces now frontally assaulting sports team’s monikers all over the US has said, “If even one person is offended, then we must be listening.”
The “Tomahawk Chop”? Really? Quelle horreur!!!!!!
It’s a slippery slope folks. Next, maybe, like Stalin, our “Group Think Commissar Leaders” will have that “Village People” Indian image removed from their album covers and re mastered with Wes Studi behind the microphone. He can sing, right? Does it matter? “If even one person is offended, we must be listening.”
All this wailing and gnashing of teeth, is usually what a guy expects before violent bi polar mood swings and unlimited anal. The gaping maw of history’s dust bin awaits all those groups so sensitive as to need such a carapace in fear of affront. “If even one person is offended, we must be listening.” Goddamnit, I am!!
Here is the solution. Bad Butt Hurt because of “Racist” names on sports teams? Change them and change them now. Especially in the pros, where one owner can pretty much call the team what he wants within reason. It is far past time we paid homage to those far more deserving in our Occidental culture. Apologize to the offended and re name these teams poste haste!
Here is a good start. the Chiefs will now be called, “The Charles Martelians”. The logo is the Crusader’s Cross on the shield of an equestrian knight, astride a white horse. It will honor the great hero Charles Martel, who in 732, saved Western Civilization from the yoke of the Moor.
Your suggestions are no doubt welcome after the period of “Moderation” is over.
🙂
“If even one person is offended, then we must be listening.”
So you’re offended due to the fact that other people are offended?
Progressive PC effendis are offended.
Acquiescing in this case = contempt and opportunity.
Change the names.
How could you not know bipolar is one word? Your doctor has given you enough diagnoses of same.
Thanks for the catch and remember, the “offended” are coming for you too Doc.
http://www.guy-sports.com/fun_pictures/germs_rights.jpg
Mary might be upset that HER tribe was left out of the name game.
Missouri Mayans anyone?
Atlanta Aztecs?
I’ll stop now.
That will never work Lib. The Mayans and the Aztecs want the Mexicans to go back to Spain. It will just stir up the same problems south of the border that we have here.
I wonder whatever happend to Belly Boy? Haven’t seen him there in almost a decade. Is he dead? Or just gave it up?
810 scoops 610 once again…