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Indigenous Groups Are Protesting the Kansas City Chiefs — Here's Why

The Kansas City Chiefs football team has long been the subject of scrutiny. Here's the controversy about their mascot, explained.

Feb. 10 2023, Published 2:47 p.m. ET

As the Kansas City Chiefs football team gears up for Super Bowl LVII, many sports fans have taken a renewed interest in the game and its players. However, there is another reason the Kansas City Chiefs, in particular, are attracting attention this year.

Native American groups across the nation have asked sports teams, such as the Washington Commanders (formerly the Washington Redskins) and baseball team the Cleveland Guardians (formerly the Cleveland Indians), to change their team names and mascots to reduce harm and cultural appropriation.

Let's unpack the controversy behind the Kansas City Chiefs mascot, team name, and fan behavior.

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Here's the controversy behind the Kansas City Chiefs mascot, explained.

The Kansas City football team initially started as the Dallas Texans, but changed when the team moved to Kansas City in 1963, according to the Associated Press. The football team name was chosen for the city's white mayor at the time, Mayor Harold Roe Bartle, who allegedly received permission from the Northern Arapaho people. The name was based on a nickname of Bartle's, which was reportedly "the Chief."

Chiefs president Mark Donovan recently claimed to the AP that the team "documented tribal officials confirming" permission to use what Indigenous activists have called a culturally appropriative team name. The Native American–led social justice organization IllumiNative, for example, released an Instagram post on Feb. 9, 2023, calling out the use of Native imagery appropriated by the football team.

In 2013, the Kansas City Chiefs created the American Indian Community Working Group, a group of Native American advisers serving to promote tribal culture and discourage cultural appropriation. A 2016 report from the AP suggested that the group was working more closely with Chiefs management to observe American Indian Heritage Month.

The Kansas City Chiefs previously had a pinto horse mascot named Warpaint, who was switched out for a character named K.C. Wolf. The horse mascot was brought back in 2009, but in 2021, The New York Times reported that the team retired the mascot because "it was the right thing to do." Unfortunately, the Chiefs mascot isn't the only act of cultural appropriation surrounding the team.

In 2020 the Chiefs formally banned fans from wearing headdresses and Native American face paint inside Arrowhead Stadium, a practice that had been happening for years. In a statement, the organization said moving forward, "While we have discouraged fans from wearing headdresses for several years, effective immediately, fans will be prohibited from wearing headdresses into the stadium."

Additionally, the statement read, "Face painting is still allowed for all fans, but any face paint that is styled in a way that references or appropriates American Indian cultures and traditions will be prohibited."

Finally, the Chiefs did address the "Tomahawk Chop," a fan-created gesture deemed racist by Native American groups. Activists coined the hashtag #StopTheChop to discourage the gesture, but so far, the Chiefs' only solution has been to encourage fans to change the open-palmed gesture to a closed fist.

Kansas City Chiefs fans performing the "Tomahawk Chop" in the audience.

Now that the Chiefs are going to the Super Bowl once more, there has been renewed protest over the team name itself, which is considered racist and appropriative. Activist Rhonda LeValdo, leader of Kansas City–based group Not In Our Honor, explained to the AP, "People are trying to be really positive about Kansas City and what it does and how like ‘Yes, sports binds us all together.'"

She explains that for Indigenous peoples, "It’s not bringing our people into this celebration together. Really, it’s hurting us more because now it’s the bigger spotlight where you’re seeing this all over the world." Rhonda will be part of a group protesting outside of the State Farm Stadium in Arizona, where the Super Bowl will be held in 2023.

In response, Mark Donovan told the AP he respects the group's right to protest.

Native American advocates protest Kansas City Chiefs name ahead of Super Bowl LVII

Native American advocates calling for the “immediate retirement” of team’s name.

A detailed view of the Kansas City Chiefs logo on a fan prior to the AFC Championship Game against the Cincinnati Bengals at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Jan. 29, 2023 in Kansas City, Mo.

The Kansas City Chiefs are facing scrutiny again ahead of Super Bowl LVII, with Native American advocates calling for the “immediate retirement” of the NFL team’s name, logo, the team’s “war chant” and the “tomahawk chop.”

“There’s no respectful way to mascot us or belittle us and use us for profit,” said Amanda Blackhorse, founder of Arizona to Rally Against Native Mascots (Az Rally), during a press conference on Thursday outside the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona.

“I’m confident the Kansas City team and the NFL hear the resistance,” Blackhorse added. “After all, groups like Not in Our Honor and the Kansas City Indian Center protest every single home game.”

Blackhorse is set to rally with a group of advocates outside the State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona as the Kansas City Chiefs face off against the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl LVII.

“The anti-Native mascot movement has always been about the betterment of our Native people, not hatred towards others who are football fans,” said Blackhorse on Thursday. “We want to live in a world where our children can attend school and feel included and not met with reenactments of fake war dances on the football field.”

'Not a moment too soon': Native American community welcomes Cleveland baseball team name change

According to the website of the Kansas City Chiefs, the team was named for H. Roe Bartle, the mayor of Kansas City in the early 1960s, who was nicknamed “Chief” and played a major role in bringing the Dallas Texans to Kansas City in 1963.

David Garcia speaks during a news conference by Native American advocacy groups, Feb. 9, 2023, in Phoenix. The groups are calling for the NFL football team Kansas City Chiefs to drop their name, logo and their trademark 'war chantâ' where fans make a chopping-hand gesture mimicking the Native American tomahawk.

After the team moved from Texas, they were renamed the Kansas City Chiefs.

“While the origin of the team's name has no affiliation with American Indian culture, much of the club's early promotional activities relied heavily on imagery and messaging depicting American Indians in a racially insensitive fashion,” the team's website says. “Over the course of the club's 60-plus-year history, the Chiefs organization has worked to eliminate this offensive imagery and other forms of cultural appropriation in their promotional materials and game-day presentation.”

After establishing an American Indian Community Working Group in 2014, the team banned headdresses and face paint at games and retired the use of Warpaint as an ambassador of the Chiefs, among other things.

"Really going back seven years ago when we started the dialogue with our American Indian working group here in Kansas City, it was a real learning experience for the organization…I think the important thing on the entire subject has been how important education has been," the Kansas City Chief's Chairman and CEO Clark Hunt said in an undated statement on the team's website. "It's something that's important to the American Indians, both from a cultural heritage standpoint and just preserving their traditions, but it's also a way of educating our fans that these things are offensive to them. We've now expanded our relationship beyond just the group in the Midwest that we've been working with."

ABC News reached out to the Kansas City Chiefs for additional comment.

Protesters renew calls to change Kansas City Chiefs name, mascot ahead of Super Bowl LVII

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Reviews for "The Orlando Magic's Legacy Lives On in Nike Vapormax Sneakers"

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Nike Strikes Again: Orlando Magic-Inspired Vapormax Sneakers Steal the Show