Time for a Change

By Greg Buchanan for The Weekly Bean

We have seen so many changes to team names in sports over the last number of years, in the NFL, MLB, College and High School Sports which makes the Atlanta Braves Tomahawk Chop so hard to take and understand.

Fans in Atlanta doing the mock indigenous chant needs to be retired just like the nicknames of the Indians and Redskins.

Recently in Mexico, when Canada played Mexico in a World Cup qualifier, there were chants that had previous drawn the ire of CONCAF and FIFA and the game was actually stopped until the chants stopped.

The Braves have had some internal discussions on the future of the Chant, the answers is already obvious.

Leaders from the Native community said this week it’s time for the Braves to join other professional sports teams such as the Cleveland Guardians and Washington Football Team in removing offensive imagery and mascots which they say reduce Native people down to caricatures.

Cleveland, formerly the Indians, and Washington, formerly the Redskins, announced last year they were changing their mascots when the nation faced a reckoning on racism. That reckoning was a catalyst not only for sports teams, but also for companies like Quaker Oats, for example, which changed branding and logos that it believed promoted racist stereotypes.

The Braves took one step in the right direction banning all headdress and war paint. The Brave fans may consider this a tradition but it’s now time to move away from this tradition.