While the Chiefs will bar the misappropriation of headdresses and Native-inspired face paint by fans at Arrowhead Stadium, the NFL team did not acknowledge whether or not it will change its team or stadium name.
The Kansas City Chiefs announced yesterday that the team is prohibiting fans from donning Native American headdresses and sporting any face paint that imitates Indigenous culture or traditions at Arrowhead Stadium.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City, Missouri-based National Football League (NFL) team is reviewing the Arrowhead Chop, a “war chant” that mimics a tomahawk arm motion, a perpetuation of a racist stereotype.
The move comes a month after Washington’s football team rescinded the Redskins name and logo under pressure from corporate sponsors, including title sponsor FedEx, which has naming rights to the stadium.
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After years of discouraging fans from wearing ceremonial headdresses and Native-mimic face paint, the Chiefs said they consulted Native American leaders and chose to ban headdresses and Native-inspired face paint effective immediately.
The Chiefs are also evaluating changes to the “Drum Deck,” where Chiefs players and others pound a massive drum at the start of each game — a display that emulates sacred Native drum circles. The team is considering shifting the focus of the drum “to something that symbolizes the heartbeat of the stadium,” according to a team statement.
“As allowed by NFL guidelines and the City of Kansas City Health Department for the coronavirus-impacted 2020 season, we will continue with many of the traditions that we have introduced over the past six years, including the Blessing of the Four Directions, the Blessing of the Drum, as well as inviting members of tribes with a historic connection to our region to participate in our American Indian Heritage Month Game,” according to a statement from the Chiefs.
Other major league sports teams have resisted changing their culturally offensive names, logos and traditions, though the Cleveland Indians are supposedly undergoing a review of their name. Last year, the Major League Baseball (MLB) team dropped their Chief Wahoo mascot. Meanwhile the MLB’s Atlanta Braves and National Hockey League’s Chicago Blackhawks do not appear to have any such plans in the immediate future.
National sports teams finally relinquishing racist names, logos, imagery and imitations is a long time coming. The Chiefs decision to ban headdresses at its stadium, in particular, is a huge victory in the ongoing battle for accurate and respectful Native representation.
As Gary Davis, an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and the Founder, Publisher and CEO of Native Business, expressed to employees and visitors at Amazon’s corporate campus in Seattle, Washington, on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, October 14, 2019:
“A headdress was given to somebody that earned it,” Davis explained. “You didn’t just get a headdress — you actually had to accumulate a headdress by earning every single one of those feathers, usually by doing something in battle, and if not in battle, then it was something for your community. Once you accumulated enough feathers, you could make a headdress. It’s a testament to you personally, because you know where every single one of those feathers came from and what you had to do to get it. It shows who you are and what you’ve done.”
READ MORE: Gary Davis Delivers Keynote Address at Amazon’s Corporate Campus on Indigenous Peoples’ Day
As Native Business Founder, Publisher and Executive Editor Carmen Davis (Makah/Chippewa-Cree/Yakama) has stated:
Resisting racist stereotypes matters. When we demand the takedown of derogatory names, when we refuse to be marginalized by a racial slur or image, we reclaim our narrative. When we reclaim how we’re portrayed, we empower a better future for Indian Country and this entire nation.
