Over the past 3 months of the Major League Baseball season, the Atlanta Braves put together a meteoric rise to the World Series and last night won the title, beating the Houston Astros 7-0 in Game 6 in Houston.
As the Braves were surging through the playoffs, the tomahawk chop – a gesture by the fans of imitating chopping with a tomahawk – became the focus of Native American groups that condemned the gesture as an insult to all Native Americans.
The tomahawk chop is the action of the forearm going up and down with the hand extended out, like chopping something with a tomahawk. The gesture is accompanied by a sound that crudely imitates Native American chants.
Fans of the Atlanta Braves, Florida State Seminoles, and the Kansas City Chiefs of the NFL have used the tomahawk chop to celebrate moments when their team is “chopping” away at the competition. Is that an insult to Native Americans?
The question of whether the tomahawk chop is intended to be insulting to Native Americans depends on who is making the judgment, but this has been an on-going controversy with some Native American groups demanding that the teams prevent their fans from using the gesture. In some cases there have been protests at stadiums.
The Native Americans who are offended by the tomahawk chop point to the gesture mocking Native Americans savagely scalping white settlers. Personally, I never consciously made that connection, but perhaps in my subconscious it did reinforce the savage action of scalping.
There is no doubt that many are offended by the tomahawk chop while others see it as only a gesture during a sporting event. Like so many things in life, determining whether the chop is truly insulting to Native Americans lies in the eyes of the individuals doing the chop and those witnessing the chop.
The scalping of white settlers who were taking over the land of the Native Americans – that’s the group that was here before the New World was discovered and conquered by European whites – is part of history, but it can be seen as a resurrection of a savage past.
Maybe there are gestures that could be used by the Dallas Cowboys or the Minnesota Vikings that would promote the violent and savage past of the cowboys and the Vikings.
Since I am not a fan of any team with fans that use the tomahawk chop, this controversy doesn’t impact me personally; but even when I am not personally touched by a controversy, I still like to stand up for what is right.
If the intent of the chop is not to mock or insult Native Americans, then it can be seen as an innocent sports gesture. But if the intent is to create a savage image urging the team to “kill” the competition, then the condemnation is justified.