Super Bowl LVIII and America's Moral Dissonance

As the San Franciso 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs prepare to take the field in Las Vegas tomorrow, I am reminded that nothing in this country is absent of the fingerprints of settler colonialism. I know no one wants to think about this amid all the fanfare and hype, but this is not a reality of my making. The 49ers & Chiefs are facing off tomorrow. How can I not think about the Native peoples of Turtle Island with those team names? Native genocide is, after all, the foundation of the land we now call the United States of America.

San Francisco 49er's

Named after the droves of people who descended upon Northern California in 1849 during the infamous California Gold Rush in pursuit of the precious metal. The name is an homage to the significance of this historical event in California history. The one that put San Francisco on the map, and for most Niner fans that is all there is to it. It conjures images of exploration and great riches. Loyalty and pride in the San Francisco Bay area run deep for the 49ers, but the land was not vacant before their namesake's arrival. It was home to thriving indigenous tribes rich in culture, language, history, and tradition who stewarded the land for thousands of years. Making the true legacy of the San Francisco 49ers, not only their 5 previous Super Bowl victories but one of Manifest Destiny, Native genocide, enslavement, sexual violence, land theft, environmental desecration, insatiable greed, and moral depravity.

"Whites are becoming impressed with the belief that it will be absolutely necessary to exterminate the savages before they can labor much longer in the mines with security," - Daily Alta California 1849

The average 49er fan probably does not know that the Government of the state of California sanctioned and funded violence against Native people, their "Indian Problem," to clear the way for miners. White settlers were given the legal authority to arrest, enslave, and murder Native peoples irrespective of age or gender. The Government invested $1 Million in "scalping expeditions" where settlers were paid a bounty on every Native they lynched. Peter Hardeman Burnett, the first elected Governor to the State of California, in his 1851 address to the state legislature said,

"That a war of extermination will continue to be waged between the races until the Indian race becomes extinct must be expected."

The 49ers brought with them deadly diseases, killing nearly 60% of the Indigenous population. In the glorification of this period, American revisionist history fails to highlight how Native Tribes were forcibly extricated from their ancestral land and relocated to missions, residential schools, and reservations for settlers to lay claim to, destroy, and exploit their land with impunity. According to the International Indian Treaty Council (IITC), over 150,000 Native people lived in Northern California before the Gold Rush, and only 31,000 remained by the end.

"Environmentally, the discovery of gold was a disaster" - Malcolm J. Rohrbough, author 'Days of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the American Nation'

12 billion tons of earth were quarried, riverbeds excavated, and hillsides blasted away via hydraulic mining and mining shafts in search of gold. Mercury, a highly toxic heavy metal was used to extract gold from the ore it was naturally bound to. It is estimated that 7,600 tons of mercury was released into the rivers and lakes of Northern California, the remnants of which are still present today. The poisoned land and water contaminated the food sources and the living environment of the Native population, contributing to their death rate.

It is impossible to detail every horror visited upon the Native tribes of Northern California in one blog post. Still, I will say that the imagination by the US Government for their destruction was ghastly. This is a glimpse into the original 49ers and the brutality of that era.

Kansas City Chiefs

Formerly known as the "Dallas Texans," the Kansas City Chiefs were renamed after the nickname of the mayor of Kansas City (non-Native), Mayor H. Roe Bartle, "Chief," who played a crucial role in bringing them to Kansas City. Despite this origin story, their mascot until 2021 was a horse named "Warpaint," ridden by a man in a feathered headdress.

"There's no respectful way to mascot us or belittle us and use us for profit," Amanda Blackhorse, founder of Arizona to Rally Against Native Mascots (Az Rally)

Although the mascot is now a wolf named KC, Chiefs fans still perform the "Tomahawk Chop," where fans mimic a Native war chant while swinging their forearm up and down in a chopping motion. Native imagery and symbolism continue to be appropriated by the team and its fans despite the incorporation of a Native advisory council serving as educators to the team since 2014. Some even attend games to perform ceremonial blessings. Still, none of the members are connected to local organizations serving the interests of the Native community in Kansas City, and that matters. Think Diversity hire who exists as a symbol of progress with no actual or systemic change in an organization. The Kansas City Council in 2019 unanimously approved a resolution declaring racism a public health crisis in the city, so one must ask how you can acknowledge systemic racism yet ignore the voice of your own Indigenous community in the name of football? Native cultural appropriation is not exclusive to the Chiefs; it is done by other teams using Native imagery and culture as mascots and team names.

This was never about being too sensitive over "just a name," the names have meaning. We've simply built an entire cultural identity upon appropriation and woeful ignorance of our own history that allows us to carry on in damaging ways. I'm not telling you not to watch the game tomorrow, but the dissonance required for you to loyally defend these team names, mascots, and practices erodes your humanity, whether you see it or not. It is good for the soul to care about such things and allow it to change you.

Written from the unceded lands of the Peoria, Potawatomi, Myaamia, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Hoocąk, Kaskaskia and Kiikaapoi

California Gold Rush Information Sources [https://www.iitc.org/gold-greed-genocide/ https://www.history.com/news/californias-little-known-genocide https://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/s_01-Burnett2.html https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/after-gold-rush/ Gold, Greed, Genocide - https://youtu.be/FeksO_rGepw?si=cUU03bXima-pP_Fy][1]

[1]: https://www.iitc.org/gold-greed-genocide/ https://www.history.com/news/californias-little-known-genocide https://governors.library.ca.gov/addresses/s_01-Burnett2.html https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/after-gold-rush/ Gold, Greed, Genocide - https://youtu.be/FeksO_rGepw?si=cUU03bXima-pP_Fy

Kansas City Chiefs Information Sources https://abcnews.go.com/ABCNews/native-american-advocates-protest-kansas-city-chiefs-ahead/story?id=97068258 https://www.chiefs.com https://notinourhonor.com/2024/02/06/press-release/ https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kansas-chiefs-native-americans-chop-b2494075.html