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Joyce Bennett is an associate professor of anthropology at Bates College. This column reflects her views and expertise and does not speak on behalf of the university. She is a member of the Maine chapter of the national Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications.
Given the Kansas City Chiefs’ star role in the Super Bowl this weekend, cultural appropriation is once again in the headlines. Is the mascot and name so bad? Aren’t we really celebrating how fierce and loyal Native Americans are? Or one of my favorites: Isn’t banning the tomahawk chop and use of headdresses in the stands enough?
As a cultural anthropologist who studies cultural appropriation, yes, the Native American mascot is a problem — just as it was when Maine became the first state to ban them in schools in 2019. No, by using the Chiefs as a mascot, we are not celebrating Native American culture (If we can even say that there is one Native American culture to celebrate. Surprise! There isn’t. Native Americans are composed of many different sovereign nations and are incredibly diverse). And finally, no, banning certain practices that are the most offensive is not enough, unless we are OK knowing that we are still hurting people.
And that’s what this is. It’s about hurting people. In most any situation where cultural appropriation is at play, I like to trace out and ensure that the practice or use in question minimizes potential harms to the community it references.
For example, in Guatemala, where I have been working, researching, and learning for almost 20 years, copyright of Indigenous designs is a major issue. Each town has its own designs that have been passed down over generations.The problem is when a designer tries to copyright a design to the exclusion of Maya women, prohibiting them from using it again. That causes real harm to Indigenous women, who connect with their mothers, grandmothers, and ancestors through the use and remaking of those designs.
Similarly, the financial implications of buying a piece of Indigenous clothing are important. Some designers tried to copyright Indigenous women’s designs without compensating Indigenous women for the design itself. That’s clearly not OK, so I always try to learn about where a particular piece came from so that I know my purchase goes back to the Indigenous people responsible for the item’s design and production.
Returning to the Chiefs, the name and the practices that have developed in association with it are clearly harmful to many Native peoples. Indigenous rights advocate Alicia Norris identified how some of the practices around the Chiefs’ culture are harmful because they feed stereotypes of Native Americans as violent and “savage” in ways that place them below their mostly white Chiefs fans on the cultural evolutionary scale. These stereotypes serve to support the status quo where Native Americans are disenfranchised, othered, and made to struggle to meet their basic needs more so than the rest of us.
To be sure, cultural appropriation is a complicated topic. That is why the context of each situation of appropriation is so important. The reality is that the Chiefs’ name, imagery, and cultural practices conjure up images of Native peoples that are unfounded, fictitious, and feed harmful stereotypes. Surely the smart people of the Chiefs’ management and fan base can come up with a name that better represents their values and traditions.