Native Activists Protest the Chiefs

Plus, the problem with “curing” disabilities

Hi everybody,

In this week’s newsletter, our highlights to help us leave colonized faith include:

-        The indigenous activists protesting the Kansas City Chiefs

-        Debunking the increasing disinformation about George Floyd’s murder

-        A deaf perspective on “cures” for deafness

-        The connections between Black theology and solidarity with Palestine

-        And a song encouraging kindness in an unkind world

One quick announcement: we’ve turned on the comments for paid subscribers! We’re so excited to add another channel for you all to interact with each other and give us feedback. You’ll be able to contribute your thoughts on all these newsletters and the other articles we publish. So comment away!

Sy’s Recommendations

Indigenous Activists Protest the Chiefs

For the second year in a row, the Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl winners. And for the seventh decade in a row, native activists are fighting for the Chiefs to change their name. The team says its name is no problem because it actually refers to the KC mayor who orchestrated the team moving from Dallas in 1963 and whose nickname was “The Chief.” Ever so slightly undermining that claim is the man in a headdress who rode on to the field after every KC touchdown in the 60’s on a horse named Warpaint. Also the team’s arrowhead logo is a bit of a giveaway. An AP article profiles an Acoma Pueblo woman, Rhonda LeValdo, who has for 20 years organized indigenous activists to change the Chiefs’ name. Her frustration is palpable—frustration at both the lack of change and the team’s hypocritical anti-racism efforts following the summer of 2020. Turning indigenous people into mascots for the sports we play on the land we stole from them after killing most of their people is one of the more absurdly cruel ways we trivialize America’s founding genocide. We should be supporting these activists’ fight any way we can.

-        Read about the fight to change the Chiefs’ name