Column by Kevin B. Blackistone
With the kickoff of the NFL season five years ago, in the wake of that summer’s police murder of George Floyd, the league began stenciling “End Racism” in its end zones, among other social justice messages such as “Stop Hate.” That continued in future seasons, including at last year’s Super Bowl that featured the defending champion from Kansas City, something that was back in the news this week after it was revealed that neither end zone of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans will feature “End Racism.”
Some unhappily wondered whether the NFL’s decision to replace “End Racism” with “Choose Love” was a capitulation to President Donald Trump, who has been leading a charge to stamp out anything reminding this country of its racism, past and present.
But no one seemed nearly as outraged by the very racist insensitivity that will be emblazoned in an end zone for a third consecutive Super Bowl: “Chiefs,” a team name that for decades has drawn the ire of Native Americans over its cultural theft wrapped in misappropriated imagery and accompanying cartoonish imitations of their customs.
The slogan “End Racism” in the same frame as Kansas City’s team name was as oxymoronic a sight as you could imagine. The team’s imagery is filled with racist tropes.
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Just like what was heralded and practiced in and around Washington for decades with the NFL franchise for which I grew up cheering. That name faced protests in the streets and through the justice system, led by Indigenous human rights leaders such as Suzan Shown Harjo, to whom former president Barack Obama awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her lifelong advocacy for Native dignity through the arts and history. Eventually, in 2020 — the same summer Floyd was murdered and the NFL initiated its end zone messaging — the Washington franchise was forced to scrub its disparaging moniker replete with offensive symbolism.
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But Kansas City, with the NFL’s blessing, holds on. Still playing Indian.
Native activists in Kansas City reminded me of the absurdity of the Kansas City franchise in the documentary I co-wrote and co-produced that premiered in 2022, “Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting.”
“The team was originally named after the nickname of one of [Kansas City’s] mayors, H. Roe Bartle, and he was nicknamed ‘The Chief’ because he had created a fake tribe of Indians for the Boy Scouts, the Mic-O-Say,” said Gaylene Crouser, a Standing Rock Sioux member who heads the Kansas City Indian Center.
“They … get inducted into their tribe at these late-night sessions in the woods,” said Rhonda LeValdo, an Acoma Pueblo native and Haskell Indian Nations University professor in Lawrence, Kansas.
“All their leaders were given Indian names and did all these stereotypical things,” Crouser said. “Playing Indian, basically.”
The NFL and Kansas City know this is just as offensive as Washington’s former team name and logo, which new owner Josh Harris reiterated this week was a relic not to be revived. To be sure, the Kansas City franchise has sanitized some of its theatrics, just as Washington edited made-up American Indian speak out of its fight song and gradually stopped outfitting its cheerleaders as it thought American Indian women dressed.
Since the 2020 season, Kansas City has barred fans from wearing headdresses to games, which would be the same as refusing to let the fans of a team named the “Jews” wear yarmulkes. Kansas City also said its fans no longer could attend games while wearing face paint, which is no different than Blackface, the practice of non-Black people painting their faces in mockery.
The team no longer has a horse named “Warpaint” — ridden in the 1960s by a man wearing a Plains Indian feathered headdress that is sacred and later by a cheerleader — gallop onto the field after every Kansas City touchdown.
But the team’s name and arrowhead logo remain, and its fans still do that incessant gesticulation called the tomahawk chop.
“You know that Native Americans never even did that,” the comedian Bill Burr once told Conan O’Brien. “You know White people came up with that in like the 1920s when … they first got sound in movies. ‘What do they sound like? I dunno.’ They got some moron on their set all of sudden just goes, ‘Aehhh aehhhh aehhhh!’ That sounds good. Put some rouge on his face and have him do it with an ax!”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2025/nfl-coaching-decisions-quiz/
“The purpose of a mascot is not to honor,” said Philip Deloria, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux and a Harvard history professor. “The purpose of a mascot is to represent a community and bind it together. Take something like the Green Bay Packers. Is there some sense that we’re honoring people who pack things in a meat house? No.”
The WNBA announced recently that it is adding new teams. None has a name or imagery that could be considered offensive or cultural appropriation. Because it isn’t that hard to avoid doing so. So the new Golden State franchise is the Valkyries. The Toronto team will be the Tempo.
In fact, just look at the names of the other WNBA teams — or at new teams in MLS, the NWSL, the NFL and the NBA. It is easy to avoid offense with a team name.
Sunday’s Super Bowl end zone messaging might appear to be a cowardly avoidance. But it is far worse that the NFL learned nothing from the righteous and successful fight to rid Washington — and the Cleveland baseball team and so many college and high school teams — of the epithets and odious evocations. It’s long past time to demand Kansas City cleanse its presentation as well.
With the kickoff of the NFL season five years ago, in the wake of that summer’s police murder of George Floyd, the league began stenciling “End Racism” in its end zones, among other social justice messages such as “Stop Hate.” That continued in future seasons, including at last year’s Super Bowl that featured the defending champion from Kansas City, something that was back in the news this week after it was revealed that neither end zone of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans will feature “End Racism.”
Some unhappily wondered whether the NFL’s decision to replace “End Racism” with “Choose Love” was a capitulation to President Donald Trump, who has been leading a charge to stamp out anything reminding this country of its racism, past and present.
But no one seemed nearly as outraged by the very racist insensitivity that will be emblazoned in an end zone for a third consecutive Super Bowl: “Chiefs,” a team name that for decades has drawn the ire of Native Americans over its cultural theft wrapped in misappropriated imagery and accompanying cartoonish imitations of their customs.
The slogan “End Racism” in the same frame as Kansas City’s team name was as oxymoronic a sight as you could imagine. The team’s imagery is filled with racist tropes.
Skip to end of carousel
End of carousel
Just like what was heralded and practiced in and around Washington for decades with the NFL franchise for which I grew up cheering. That name faced protests in the streets and through the justice system, led by Indigenous human rights leaders such as Suzan Shown Harjo, to whom former president Barack Obama awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her lifelong advocacy for Native dignity through the arts and history. Eventually, in 2020 — the same summer Floyd was murdered and the NFL initiated its end zone messaging — the Washington franchise was forced to scrub its disparaging moniker replete with offensive symbolism.
🏈
Follow Sports
But Kansas City, with the NFL’s blessing, holds on. Still playing Indian.
Native activists in Kansas City reminded me of the absurdity of the Kansas City franchise in the documentary I co-wrote and co-produced that premiered in 2022, “Imagining the Indian: The Fight Against Native American Mascoting.”
“The team was originally named after the nickname of one of [Kansas City’s] mayors, H. Roe Bartle, and he was nicknamed ‘The Chief’ because he had created a fake tribe of Indians for the Boy Scouts, the Mic-O-Say,” said Gaylene Crouser, a Standing Rock Sioux member who heads the Kansas City Indian Center.
“They … get inducted into their tribe at these late-night sessions in the woods,” said Rhonda LeValdo, an Acoma Pueblo native and Haskell Indian Nations University professor in Lawrence, Kansas.
“All their leaders were given Indian names and did all these stereotypical things,” Crouser said. “Playing Indian, basically.”
The NFL and Kansas City know this is just as offensive as Washington’s former team name and logo, which new owner Josh Harris reiterated this week was a relic not to be revived. To be sure, the Kansas City franchise has sanitized some of its theatrics, just as Washington edited made-up American Indian speak out of its fight song and gradually stopped outfitting its cheerleaders as it thought American Indian women dressed.
Since the 2020 season, Kansas City has barred fans from wearing headdresses to games, which would be the same as refusing to let the fans of a team named the “Jews” wear yarmulkes. Kansas City also said its fans no longer could attend games while wearing face paint, which is no different than Blackface, the practice of non-Black people painting their faces in mockery.
This Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles will face off in the Super Bowl. Kansas City is looking for history and Philadelphia is looking for redemption – just don’t tell the Eagles that.The team no longer has a horse named “Warpaint” — ridden in the 1960s by a man wearing a Plains Indian feathered headdress that is sacred and later by a cheerleader — gallop onto the field after every Kansas City touchdown.
But the team’s name and arrowhead logo remain, and its fans still do that incessant gesticulation called the tomahawk chop.
“You know that Native Americans never even did that,” the comedian Bill Burr once told Conan O’Brien. “You know White people came up with that in like the 1920s when … they first got sound in movies. ‘What do they sound like? I dunno.’ They got some moron on their set all of sudden just goes, ‘Aehhh aehhhh aehhhh!’ That sounds good. Put some rouge on his face and have him do it with an ax!”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2025/nfl-coaching-decisions-quiz/
“The purpose of a mascot is not to honor,” said Philip Deloria, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux and a Harvard history professor. “The purpose of a mascot is to represent a community and bind it together. Take something like the Green Bay Packers. Is there some sense that we’re honoring people who pack things in a meat house? No.”
The WNBA announced recently that it is adding new teams. None has a name or imagery that could be considered offensive or cultural appropriation. Because it isn’t that hard to avoid doing so. So the new Golden State franchise is the Valkyries. The Toronto team will be the Tempo.
In fact, just look at the names of the other WNBA teams — or at new teams in MLS, the NWSL, the NFL and the NBA. It is easy to avoid offense with a team name.
Sunday’s Super Bowl end zone messaging might appear to be a cowardly avoidance. But it is far worse that the NFL learned nothing from the righteous and successful fight to rid Washington — and the Cleveland baseball team and so many college and high school teams — of the epithets and odious evocations. It’s long past time to demand Kansas City cleanse its presentation as well.
