Chiefs nix headdresses, war paint to start NFL season

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — The roughly 17,000 fans of the Kansas City Chiefs who filed into Arrowhead Stadium for a masked and socially distanced start to the NFL season Thursday were prohibited from wearing headdresses or war paint amid a nationwide push for racial justice following the police-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

The move by the reigning Super Bowl champions has been received by Native Americans as a good first step, but it also frustrated some of the franchise's longtime fans, including some who were in the stands as the team became the first to take the field in front of a crowd — albeit a smaller than normal one — during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think it's a little overboard, but I mean, we've got to listen to the rules,” said Kory Noe, who owns a car lot in Stafford, Missouri. “I’m a big fan of the tomahawk chop. It's just been the Chiefs’ signature song since they started and it's going to be hard not to do it if they take it away.”

In fact, the Chiefs are pushing a subtle change to the tomahawk chop celebration amid complaints that it’s racist. The plan is for cheerleaders to use a closed first instead of an open palm to signal the beating of a drum. The team typically has a celebrity or other guest of honor beat a large drum before the start of the game.

“We’ve started to work and started some discussions about trying again to educate and make people aware of the sacred position of the drum in the American Indian culture, but also that it’s seen as sort of the heartbeat of that culture,” Chiefs president Mark Donovan said “It’s easy to latch onto that, say, ‘OK, it’s kind of the heartbeat of the stadium too.’”

The changes in Kansas City came after several professional franchises, including the Cleveland Indians in Major League Baseball, have...

source https://www.chron.com/news/article/Chiefs-nix-headdresses-face-paint-to-start-NFL-15555685.php