Pandemic a great time to rethink mascots

Of course, I’d seen the “Tomahawk Chop” for decades on TV. I was a boy when the Braves became good in 1991, and the chop and chant seemed so cool then. But years later in the press box at the Braves’ stadium, surrounded by the sound of Atlanta fans doing their version of a Native American chant, it just felt insensitive. It just felt wrong.

By

Opinion

December 17, 2020 - 8:51 AM

Ed Weinfurtner of Cleveland

ST. LOUIS — I remember feeling so uncomfortable by others being so gleefully comfortable.

Atlanta. Cardinals at Braves. Postseason, 2019.

Of course, I’d seen the “Tomahawk Chop” for decades on TV. I was a boy when the Braves became good in 1991, and the chop and chant seemed so cool then. But years later in the press box at the Braves’ stadium, surrounded by the sound of Atlanta fans doing their version of a Native American chant, it just felt insensitive. It just felt wrong.

Sure, each one of those fans would give you some ready-made excuse why it’s OK to do the chant (“We’re not mocking Native Americans, we’re honoring them. … Many Native Americans have said they don’t have a problem with it. …  Stop being a snowflake.”). But all of it — the music, the chant, the chop — just seemed like an antiquated part of sports’ past that somehow survived into the present.

If anything, it felt like something that surely wouldn’t be happening in the future. But how soon into the future?

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