Time To Give Ted Turner A Chop

Just last week, it seemed as if four out of every five white commentators were saying black folks could not separate the message from the messenger. No, no, no. You black men can embrace all you want; you can talk family values all you want. But if you let Louis Farrakhan give the keynote address at the Million Man March, then you are knee-deep in what the conservative Weekly Standard termed the “swamp of hatred.”

These commentators, so serious about defanging black gators, have no intention of draining their own swamp - not if you go by their silence for the Million Man Chop.

This week, America is in the midst of its most ridiculous display of sports insensitivity ever, and it is barely a footnote.

Cleveland, with a grinning Indians logo that makes Sambo look dignified, plays the World Series against the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta invokes all kinds of ugly stereotypes with its tomahawk chop and imitation Native American war music.

The only thing that could rival this would be if both the Washington Redskins and Kansas City Chiefs make it to the football Super Bowl.

The cascade of criticism of the Million Man March was so strong that several notable African-Americans and church organizations denounced the march or distanced themselves from it. But the Million Man Chop distances almost no one except for a few socially conscious sports columnists. Fifty thousand fans do the chop in Atlanta to cheer their team. Even former President Jimmy Carter has performed this sickening act.

The professional teams that hold onto Indian nicknames have rather novel reasons. “Why would anyone adopt a name that they didn’t have the highest respect for?” a spokesman for the Kansas City football team said last year. Oh, sure. You call what the Europeans have done to the Chiefs for most of this nation’s history respect?

Over the years, protests by American Indians and student groups have moved several colleges and high schools to change their nicknames and get rid of offensive mascots. But the pro teams in Cleveland, Atlanta, Washington and Kansas City, as well as the hockey team in Chicago, stick it to American Indians night after night. Fans paint their faces; they wear feathery headgear; they wield ersatz weapons.

If 50,000 people mocked Jews at a sports event by wearing exaggerated noses, if that many fans ridiculed Asians by painting on slanted eyes, if that many people imitated African-Americans by painting on big lips, everyone would be up in arms. But American Indians have neither the voting nor the economic clout to matter to men such as Atlanta owner Ted Turner or Washington owner Jack Kent Cooke. I do not think you have seen too many Indians doing the chop with Ted.

The owners cling so doggedly to these nicknames that you have to wonder why they are too insecure to consider change.

Cleveland has the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame; Kansas City is home to a major long-distance phone carrier; Atlanta is the city of a certain soda pop; Chicago has the nation’s most thriving downtown; Washington is the nation’s capital. We may never see nicknames like the Atlanta Cokeheads or the Washington Gridlocks any time soon, but they sure beat the equivalents of the Cincinnati Slurs.

The owners refuse to give up the Indian nicknames because they, as the messengers, have no intention of parting from the message. The nicknames are not meant to honor Indians but to pump up the teams’ athletes with any old-fashioned symbols or stereotypes of violence they can find. We would never allow Blackskins, Yellowskins, Whiteskins or Brownskins, but Redskins is allowed because the name conjures up the most rabid kind of American Indian.

The Million Man Chop, telecast into an estimated 15 million homes, is a swamp of hatred that white pride refuses to drain. It keeps alive the message that the only good Indian is a dead Indian. For white media that were so concerned a week ago about black racists, their quietude in this national reminder of white domination is telling.

White commentators tell black men to give Farrakhan the ax. But they do not tell white sports fans to give Ted Turner the chop.

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