![]() ![]() The New York Times, in advance of this year’s Super Bowl, noted that the Kansas City franchise “has worked with Native Americans over the past six years to reconsider and reform some of its traditions.” The Chiefs discourage fans from dressing in Native costumes, make announcements about Native history at games and take other steps to be less offensive.īut, “The Arrowhead Chop is part of the game-day experience that is really important to our fans,” Mark Donovan, the team president, recently told the Kansas City Star, which has called on the team to knock it off.ĭATE TAKEN: 4/20/36- This is a team portrait of the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro Leagues. With Washington's NFL team dumping the clearly derogatory Redskins nickname and the Cleveland Indians becoming the Guardians in recent years, the Braves and the Chiefs have made some changes, but haven’t backed away from their names - or the chop. So Braves fans taunted Helsley with the chop when he came into a game. “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,” Ryan Helsley said. Louis Cardinals pitcher who is a member of the Cherokee Nation called the chop disrespectful. That means more national exposure to the Arrowhead atmosphere, more hero worship of Chiefs stars and more kids picking up the chop.Īs long ago as the ‘90s, when the Braves were consistently a dominant team whose games were on a national cable channel, Lakota high school athletes in South Dakota faced the chop as a taunt when they played at predominantly white schools. This is no harmless little ritual - especially now that the Chiefs are the transcendent franchise in the nation’s most popular sports league. In that moment, I am embarrassed about a team I’ve loved since I collected AFL football cards in the ‘60s. The atmosphere is a loud, exciting bonding of fans from Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, my native Nebraska and even Oklahoma - all states whose names are based on Native American words.Īrrowhead is a ton of fun - until 70,000 Chiefs fans do the chop. But it had started by the time I took my son there for the first time. The first NFL game I attended was at Arrowhead Stadium, before the chop was a thing. ![]()
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