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. Continue reading →
