The aftermath of a Super Bowl title has been overshadowed by one of the most unusual and unpredictable summers in NFL history.
Kansas City is not immune.
Rather than an offseason defined by a championship celebration, the Chiefs have been occupied instead with real-world issues, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, deciding whether to allow fans at home games, furthering discussions with Native Americans on traditions like headdresses, face paint and the chop, as well as Black Lives Matter and voter registration.
Chiefs team president Mark Donovan spoke with the media on a Zoom call Wednesday, addressing all of those topics.
Below are his comments on banning Native American imagery, edited for length and clarity. You can find his comments on the plan for fans in the stands here and the plan to turn Arrowhead Stadium into a polling location here.
— The Chiefs are prohibiting fans inside Arrowhead Stadium from wearing headdresses or painting their faces to depict Native American cultures. Those bans derived from ongoing conversations with American Indian groups in Kansas City that started in 2014.
“I’ve been a bit redundant on this, so I apologize, but we’ve been doing this for six and a half years. This isn’t a new issue for us. I shared some personal stories — John Learned (who founded the American Indian Heritage Center of the Great Plains in Kansas City) reached out to me and said, ‘Can we have coffee?’ He explained how this is viewed and some of the issues we should be discussing,” Donovan said. “We set up a larger meeting with people and got into the depth of that. I walked away from that first learning a little embarrassed about my lack of knowledge and a little inspired (that) if you have the knowledge, it becomes pretty clear. Now, everybody is going to have opinions on all these issues, and I respect that. But for me personally, I didn’t understand what a headdress or a war bonnet was. I didn’t understand what it represented. And to have an American Indian explain the sacredness of that and how every single feather is earned and what it means in their community, it’s a pretty easy answer. Let’s educate people. Let’s share that story. Let’s create awareness around that.
— The Chiefs also said they are taking part in “a thorough review process” of the Arrowhead Chop, also referred to by some fans as the Tomahawk Chop. They plan to have additional discussions on the long-standing tradition inside the stadium, they said. Asked about the chop, Donovan briefly answered before talking about the drum, which also underwent a vetting process during the conversations with American Indians. The drum now receives a ceremonial blessing.
“Along the same lines around the discussions we had around headdress and war bonnet and face paint. Just education,” Donovan said, before later adding, “I think one of the best things that has come out of this for us as an organization and the groups that we are working with is an understanding that it’s gonna take some time. This isn’t overnight. These aren’t things that we are going to be able to successfully change one way or the other overnight. And we’re going to continue to work on that.”